Table of Contents

Short Meditations on the Psalms,

Introduction.

MEDITATIONS ON THE PSALMS.

Psalm 1

Psalm 2

Psalm 3

Psalm 4

Psalm 5

Psalm 6

Psalm 7

Psalm 8

Psalm 9

Psalm 10

Psalm 11

Psalm 12

Psalm 13

Psalm 14

Psalm 15

Psalm 16

Psalm 17

Psalm 18

Psalm 19

Psalm 20

Psalm 21

Psalm 22

Psalm 23

Psalm 24

Psalm 25

Psalm 26

Psalm 27

Psalm 28

Psalm 29

Psalm 30

Psalm 31

Psalm 32

Psalm 33

Psalm 34

Psalm 35

Psalm 36

Psalm 37

Psalm 38

Psalm 39

Psalm 40

Psalm 41

Psalm 42

Psalm 43

Psalm 44

Psalm 45

Psalm 46

Psalm 47

Psalm 48

Psalm 49

Psalm 50

Psalm 51

Psalm 52

Psalm 53

Psalm 54

Psalm 55

Psalm 56

Psalm 57

Psalm 58

Psalm 59

Psalm 60

Psalm 61

Psalm 62

Psalm 63

Psalm 64

Psalm 65

Psalm 66

Psalm 67

Psalm 68

Psalm 69

Psalm 70

Psalm 71

Psalm 72

Psalm 73

Psalm 74

Psalm 75

Psalm 76

Psalm 77

Psalm 78

Psalm 79

Psalm 80

Psalm 81

Psalm 82

Psalm 83

Psalm 84

Psalm 85

Psalm 86

Psalm 87

Psalm 88

Psalm 89

Psalm 90

Psalm 91

____________

Psalm 92

Psalm 93

Psalm 94

Psalm 95

Psalm 96

Psalm 97

Psalm 98

Psalm 99

Psalm 100

Psalm 101

Psalm 102

Psalms 103-107

Psalm 108

Psalm 109

Psalm 110

Psalm 111

Psalm 112

Psalm 113

Psalm 114

Psalm 115

Psalm 116

Psalm 117

Psalm 118.

Psalm 119

Psalm 120

Psalm 121

Psalm 122

Psalm 123

Psalm 124

Psalm 125

Psalm 126

Psalm 127

Psalm 128

Psalm 129

Psalm 130

Psalm 131

Psalm 132

Psalm 133

Psalm 134

Psalm 135

Psalm 136

Psalm 137

Psalm 138

Psalm 139

Psalm 140

Psalm 141

Psalm 142

Psalm 143

Psalm 144

Psalm 145

Psalm 146

Psalm 147

Psalm 148

Psalm 149

Psalm 150

______________

The Son of God

"NOT UNTO US, O LORD, NOT UNTO US, BUT UNTO THY NAME GIVE GLORY, FOR THY MERCY, AND FOR THY TRUTH'S SAKE."

THE END

Notes from meditations on Luke

Luke 8

Luke 9

Luke 10

Luke 11

Luke 12

Luke 13

Luke 16

Luke 17

Luke 18

Luke 22

Luke 22: 39-71

Luke 23

Luke 24

Luke 24: 33

Showers on the Grass

Preface.

Papers.

LETTER 1.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

LETTER 2.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 3.

ROMANS 8: 19-22.

LETTER 4.

1 SAMUEL 1 - 7.

GENESIS 49, AND DEUT. 33.

LETTER 5.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

JOHN 3.

J. G. B.

LETTER 6.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

JACOB AT PENIEL.

J. G. B.

LETTER 7.

THE CASE OF JOB.

LETTER 8.

J. G. B.

LETTER 9.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

J. G. B.

LETTER 11.

J. G. B.

LETTER 12.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 13.

MY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 14.

J. G. B.

LETTER 15.

J. G. B.

LETTER 16.

J. G. B.

LETTER 17.

DEUTERONOMY 8: 7-9; DEUTERONOMY 11: 10-12.

LETTER 18.

1 CORINTHIANS 11: 3-16.

LETTER 19.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

THE WOMAN IN THE CROWD, MARK 5.

LETTER 20.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

PATRONAGE.

LETTER 21.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 22.

J. G. B.

DIVINE INTIMACY.

LETTER 23.

MY LOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 24.

J. G. B.

LETTER 25.

1847.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

ELECTION.

LETTER 26.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 27.

MY MUCH LOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 28.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

REDEMPTION.

Leviticus 25.

LETTER 29,

MY BELOVED SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 30.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 31.

MY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

LETTER 32.

MY DEAR SISTER,

J. G. B.

J. G. B.

LETTER 33.

GENESIS 1 - 47

LETTER 34.

J. G. B.

Paul's Apostleship and Epistles

Pledges of Israel's Restoration.

A Testimony to Israel.

The Conversion of Paul.

New Ministries Called Forth.

Successive Stages in Revelation.

The Apostleship of Paul.

The Son Revealed in Saints.

Paul's Stewardship.

Life, Love and Glory.

Paul's Gospel.

Paul's Ministry.

Christ, the Head of the Church.

Gifts to the Church.

The Holy Spirit's Presence.

Responsibility in Ministry.

Paul, a Representative Man.

The Rapture into Heaven.

___________________

Paul's General Epistles.

Romans.

1 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians.

Galatians.

Ephesians.

Philippians.

Colossians.

1 and 2 Thessalonians.

The Pastoral Epistles.

1 Timothy.

2 Timothy.

Titus.

Hebrews.

The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ

Introduction.

A Short Meditation on the Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion.

"The Lamb of God."

Witnesses for God

Judah's Captivity in Babylon.

TheCaptives Returned to Jerusalem.

Ezra 1 - 4

Ezra 5 - 6.

Ezra 7 - 10.

The Builders of the Wall.

Nehemiah 1 - 6

Nehemiah 7 - 10.

Nehemiah 8 - 10.

Nehemiah 11 —  13.

The Dispersed among the Gentiles.

Esther 1 - 2.

Esther 3.

Esther 4 - 5.

Esther 6 - 7.

Esther 8 - 10.

Conclusion.

Short Meditations on Elisha

Introduction.

The Translation of Elijah.

2 Kings 1 - 13.

TheWaters of Jericho Healed.

The Judgment of the Scoffing Children.

The Armies of the Kings Supplied with Water.

The Widow's Oil Multiplied.

The Shunammite.

The Deadly Pottage Healed.

The Multitude Fed.

Naaman the Syrian.

The Iron Made to Swim.

The Syrian Host Struck Blind.

The Famine in Samaria.

The Shunammite Again.

2 Kings 8: 1-6

The Prophecy of Hazael.

2 Kings 8: 7-15.

The Anointing of Jehu.

2 Kings 9 - 10.

Joash, King of Judah.

2 Kings 11 - 12.

Joash, King of Israel, and the Arrows.

2 Kings 13: 1-19.

The Dead Man Quickened.

2 Kings 13: 20-25.

_______________

Conclusion.

Musings on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Hebrews 1, 2.

Hebrews 3, 4.

Hebrews 5, 6.

Hebrews 7.

Hebrews 8.

Hebrews 10: 19-39.

Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 12

Hebrews 13

CONCLUSION.

Woollen and Linen

FAMILY CHARACTER AND FAMILY RELIGION.

FAMILY CHARACTER.

FAMILY RELIGION.

(GEN. 10)

J. G. B.

Answers to Objections

Notes on Joshua

Contents.

Introduction.

Joshua set in Office.

Joshua 1.

The Passages of the Jordan.

Joshua 2-4.

Gilgal

Joshua 5.

Jericho and Ai.

Joshua 6-8.

The Gibeonites.

Joshua 9.

The Conquest of the Land.

Joshua 10-12.

The Division of the Land.

Joshua 13-21.

Caleb.

The Two Tribes and a Half.

Joshua 22.

Joshua's Last Words.

Joshua 23, 24.

Conclusion.

JGB - Other Books

J. G. Bellett

This document may be found online at www.stempublishing.com

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com) (2011)

Short Meditations on the Psalms,

Chiefly in their Prophetic Character.

J. G. Bellett.

(Rouse 1892)

"All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me." — Luke 24: 44.

"David speaketh concerning Him." — Acts 2: 25.

Introduction.

The Book of Psalms is a collection of Meditations, Prayers, and Praises, uttered by various persons under various circumstances; all, surely, under the moving of the Holy Ghost. It bears this title, "The Book of Psalms," by inspired authority. (Acts 1: 20)

The Psalms themselves are either commemorative or prophetic, or expressive of the present passage of the soul. They have all the variety of confession, supplication, and praise; of doctrine, history, and prophecy.

The Lord Jesus is seen and heard in them, either personally or mystically. Among them there are some to which we can attach a time and place in the history of the Lord, reading them, therefore, as the utterances of His heart under some given occasion. Such, for instance, is Psalm 22. But there are others to which you cannot so distinctly attach such specific character; they are meditations or experiences more free and undefined.

And this is just what is known in the communion of the saints with God. At times it will be suggested by circumstances, at other times it will be more free and desultory, resulting, not from present conditions, but from general knowledge of God and of His ways abroad, or of His dealings with themselves.

The life of the Lord Jesus was one of constant unbroken communion. His spirit or heart was the altar on which the fire was ever burning. (See Lev. 6) And thus, if no peculiar circumstance directed or formed His fellowship with God, yet His soul was in the sanctuary; still the fire was alive from its own necessary virtue.

The solitariness of our Lord in worship is much to be observed. As it is said of Him, He got up before day, or went out into a solitary place, to pray, that He might be marked as alone in prayer. So it is said, He withdrew Himself and prayed; He continued all night in prayer; He was alone praying. Nor is He once seen in prayer even with His disciples, though He owned their praying, both teaching them and encouraging them to pray.

Why, then, was this? If He taught and encouraged them to pray, and also prayed Himself, why did He not join them in prayer?

This may be the answer. His prayers had a character in them which none others could have had. He was heard "for His piety." (Heb. 5) He needed no mediator, but stood accepted in Himself. He pleaded no one's merit; He used no mercy-seat with blood upon it. This was the character of His communion in prayer; but into this there was no entrance for any worshipper but Himself. He prayed in a temple erected, as it were, for such a worshipper as the Son of God, who offered prayer at an altar the like of which was not to be seen anywhere; it had no pattern on the top of the mount. He was a worshipper of a peculiar order, as He was a priest of a peculiar order, or a servant of a peculiar order. He did not owe service, but He learnt it; He did not owe worship, but He rendered it. He was the voluntary servant (Ex. 21: 5; Heb. 5: 8) and the personal accepted worshipper. Thus He prayed "alone."

But there is no intention of asserting that all the Psalms are utterances of the Lord Jesus. There is no necessity for such a thought as that. For instance, Psalm 1 is not His language, but the divine description, God's description, of the blessed or prosperous man. Jesus is, I doubt not, in the complete and perfect sense, the happy one there described; but the Psalm is not His utterance. And I am free to own that I do not see Him personally so much in the Psalms as I once did.

The Psalms are commonly spoken of as David's: and properly so; because, though Moses, Ezra, and others may have been the penmen of some of them, David was principally used in them. And beside, David was more rich and varied in his experiences (through the Holy Ghost, the real "master of the Hebrew lyre,") than any of the saints of old. He knew all the sorrows of righteousness and of sin, or the trial of a martyr and a penitent. He knew, too, the varieties of humiliation and of honour. His changeful life gave the Spirit the largest occasion to exercise his soul. And from all this such a book as that of the Psalms would have come forth. And further, the Lord seems to recognize David as the writer of them in Matt. 22: 43.

And in connection with this, I would notice 2 Sam. 22 and 1 Chr. 16 as instancing something of the manner in which many Psalms were originated. Those chapters contain several of the Psalms. And from this we learn that the conditions, circumstances, or acts 01 David, or others of God's people, became the occasion of the Holy Ghost breathing through them utterances and revelations which were suited to the time or the circumstance, but which reached in their full import beyond it. David is delivered from Saul, the ark of God is brought into the tent prepared for it, and the Spirit uses those events as His occasion; in the range and compass of the inspiration (knowing as He does the end from the beginning), He takes in larger and still distant scenes. So again Hannah's song may be called a Psalm of this character. The event of her becoming a mother is an occasion for the Holy Ghost to use her as His vessel or organ, and He inspires her with an utterance which, while it indulges or celebrates her present personal joy, anticipates the interests and joys of the kingdom of God in other ages. (1 Sam. 2)

This, if I may so express it, is the parentage of many of the Psalms. This is the history of their birth, the place and time of it. And David is specially used by the Spirit in this way. And as he was closing his very memorable life, distinguished by the hand of God as well as by the Spirit of God so wondrously, he says of himself and of his songs, "David the Son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet Psalmist of Israel said, the Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His word was in my tongue." (2 Sam. 23: 1, 2) Thus he was used, — he was the singer, but the Holy Ghost was the composer of the music. David's songs were "the songs of the Lord," and by them he prophesied according to the mind of the Spirit. His tongue was "the pen of a ready writer." The Lord, as the apostle speaks, was "saying in David." (Heb. 4: 7)

And I would further say upon these "songs of the Lord," what has dwelt on my mind with interest before now, that there is great moral value in learning prophetic truths in or through the Psalms; because they are not there treated as mere doctrines, but are handled and felt there by the varied passions of the soul. Thus, St. Paul teaches us that "blindness in part is happened to Israel," or that "the branches were broken off." This is a proposition or doctrine to be understood and believed. But the same truth is conveyed in the Psalms (see 65) in the words, "iniquities prevail against me;" not, however, as a mere doctrine, as it is given to us in the more didactic style of the epistles, but as that which was, as it were, breaking the heart of a poor Jew when he thought of it. So, "all Israel shall be saved," is another teaching or doctrine of St. Paul. But it is conveyed in the same Psalm in this style — "our transgressions! thou shalt purge them away" — not, therefore, simply as a proposition, but as the exulting anticipation of the same poor broken-hearted Israelite.

And thus it is, that there is moral value in learning truths through the Psalms. For there is a tendency in us to apprehend truth as an object or a proposition by the mind, and then just to talk about it. But in the Psalms, truth is delivered in company with the passions of the soul. The Psalms are, if I may so speak, the heart of the divine volume. They lie in the midst of the body; and there the pulses are felt; there the blood emanates and returns; there the affections of the renewed man find their seat and exercise. And it is safe to be there at times, yea, and to use other scriptures according to the manner learnt and practised there.

I need not say that some of the Psalms are dialogues some of them introduce even more than two speakers and some of them are, so to speak, soliloquies.

Again: some of them will be found to follow in order, as the chapters of a book; whilst others are to be read singly and unconnectedly.

But into a right discernment of these and of such things, the spiritual senses had need to be exercised. (Heb. 5) The mind of God can profitably and holily be known only by the Spirit of God. But still, in this world, to the end it will be with any of us but a knowing in part." (1 Cor. 13: 9)

There is nothing more proposed in the following sketches, than to give a little help to the apprehending of the mind of the Spirit in these blessed utterances, in either their prophetic or moral sense, or in both. For well the soul knows that it is but a draught or two of these fresh and living waters which it has ever reached. But one thing we may all with desire seek after, that they may at least pass our lips unmuddied and undisturbed, for the refreshing of others of the flock of God. Be it so, blessed Saviour!

NOTE. — The word "Remnant" will often occur in these meditations. I would just observe, though it may not generally be needed, that this word is used both by Prophets and Apostles, and the people it expresses often intended where the word is not used. Generally this word refers to the true Israel of the last days, that faithful band of Israelites who, in those days of the nation's complete apostasy, will adhere to the Lord, and to the truth and promises of His covenant, and who, therefore, in the time of the divine judgments upon their nation, because of the full transgression, will be preserved, like Noah, for the earthly places, and finally become the seed or centre of the accepted, blest, and worshipping nation in the days of the kingdom.

See this word "Remnant" used (among other Scriptures) in Isa. 1: 9; Isa. 10: 21, 22; Isa. 11: 11; Ezek. 14: 22; Joel 2: 32; Amos 5: 15; Micah 2: 12; Micah 4: 7; Zeph. 3: 12, 13; Zech. 8: 12; Rom. 9: 27; Rom. 11: 5.

This Remnant has had its type, or its sample, in every age of the nation's history. They are largely spoken of by the Prophets, and described in their trials, their repentance, their faith and obedience, their discipline by the Spirit, and under the hand of God, their cries, their experiences, and their deliverance; and with all this the Psalms have, I believe, very largely to do. See, among other Scriptures, Isa. 6: 13; Isa. 25-27; Isa. 33: 15; Isa. 50: 10; Isa. 59: 9-15; Isa. 65: 8, 9: Isa. 66: 2, 5 Jer. 31 Ezek. 6: 8; Ezek. 7: 16; Hosea 2: 14; Joel 2: 28; Zech. 12, 13; Mal. 3: 16.

MEDITATIONS ON THE PSALMS.

Psalm 1

JESUS, the Son of man, is here presented in His personal holiness and integrity, and then in His rewards, as "the tree planted by the rivers of water." (See Jeremiah 17) These rewards awaited Jesus in His resurrection, and will still await Him in His kingdom or the "judgment," and there the righteous will share His rewards and the wicked be no more.

This psalm is very soothing to the soul. It is the godly man in the care and leading of God,. whom we see before us. No other intrudes to disturb the rest and security of the righteous one; but on he goes, in his proper undistracted path, to his reward.

And it is gracious to see this book, which is the great depository of the exercises of the soul, open with so tender and soothing a picture as this — the godly man's portion in the favour of the Lord, finding his happiness there. And our souls should ever move on in the like happiness. The Israel of the last days, the godly remnant, will have their place here also.

Psalm 2

Here, however, the soothing influence of the previous psalm is not felt; it is altogether broken up; for the world enters the scene. It is no longer the privacy of God and the godly man. That path is in this psalm trespassed upon by the rude and wild foot of an evil persecuting world.

It is "suffering and glory" that we get here — the rage of man against the Lord's anointed; but the Lord's triumphant exaltation of Him.

Jesus, the Christ of God, is presented in His grace and power, and consequently the vanity of resisting Him, and the blessedness of trusting in Him.

The confederacy, which is here anticipated, was formed when Jesus was crucified. (See Acts 4) He will punish it when He returns in His kingdom. (See Luke 19) It is still in principle existent, being the course of this world already judged, but spared through divine long-suffering. It will be fully developed in all its forms of evil in the last days — those days which the Psalms so generally belong to. It acts on the old desire, and the lie of the serpent. (Gen. 3: 5) It would dethrone God. For the present, however, He that sits in the heavens laughs at it all; as was expressed by the angel rolling away the stone, and sitting on it, while he put the sentence of death into the hearts of its keepers. (Matt. 28) What was all that but the Lord telling the confederacy which had crucified Jesus that He had them all in derision? In like spirit the Lord Jesus from the heavens challenged Saul, the persecuting zealot, in Acts 9.

But there is much more than this present laughter; for the decree of God touching the Christ is the great counter-scheme, and will of course prevail. And that decree, as here announced by the Lord Himself, gives Him Sonship and inheritance: Sonship is already His by resurrection (Acts 13); inheritance will be His in glory by and by.

NOTE. — Looking at these Psalms together, it is Jesus under the law, approved of God and earning blessing by His righteousness, whom we may see in the first: Jesus in testimony or as anointed, resisted by man but exalted by God, and securing blessing or executing judgment on others, whom we see in the second.

Psalm 3

This Psalm is the devout meditation of an afflicted servant of God. It was probably the experience of David, but the Spirit of Jesus breathes in it. It is a morning meditation or prayer, and the afflicted one appears to take courage from his now awaking in safety; anticipating from this, as a pledge or sample, the morning of His kingdom, when all His enemies shall be taken away. This morning rising of the godly man, as the pledge of the opening of the kingdom, is sweet and striking; for the kingdom will be near at hand when those "last days" have come, and the remnant are manifested.

Psalm 4

This meditation is the companion of the preceding one. It is an evening prayer of the same godly man. He appears to have passed through a trying day (as was every day to Jesus more or less), but to have been sustained and refreshed in it.

The godly man, as here, may go to bed and sleep (v. 8); but he warns others to go to bed, and there commune with their hearts, and search their spirits (v. 4). He knows His own full title to rest in God undisturbed; for "God giveth His beloved sleep." The Lord Jesus realized this, though winds and waves tossed the ship on the sea of Galilee. (See Mark 4)

Psalm 5

This Psalm is still in connection. It is a meditation by night. (See verse 3) Thus it follows the preceding. In it the same godly man looks on the evil powers that war against Him, but anticipates His victory and deliverance. But whether it be morning, evening, or night, these Psalms show the pattern of a full faith in God. Different fruit because a different season. As Jesus could "weep" and could "rejoice in spirit." Every season found in Him its due fruit, and all was beautiful; for all was in its season. He knew in what spirit to take His journey to the holy hill in Matthew 17, and in what spirit to set Himself on the road to Jerusalem for the last time. (See Mark 10: 32) He knew how to be abased and how to abound, and each perfectly.

Psalm 6

This is another meditation by night. (See v. 6) But it is of deeper sorrow than the fifth. It was mystically midnight, and in it the same one pleads to be delivered from the grave. And He pleads against the power of death on the ground that, if death close the scene, God will be forgotten; for He is not the God of the dead. (See Isa. 38)

But there is an anticipation of the same deliverance and victory as in the fifth. All these Psalms strongly intimate that the godly man who is heard in them is living in the last days of Israel's sorrow, and on the eve of deliverance and the kingdom. And in spirit Jesus was in those days.

Psalm 7

In the progress of this mystic season, we now in this Psalm reach the dawn. Accordingly Jehovah is called to arise and awake (v. 6), as though it were time for Him to set to His hand for the deliverance of His righteous persecuted ones. It is still the breathing of the Spirit of Jesus, but (as in each of these) in company with His remnant in the latter day.

But here, as the day approaches, He still more largely and more gloriously anticipates the destruction of the great enemy — his falling into the ditch that he made for others; which event, like the dawn, is the harbinger of the day, for it shall be followed by the gathering of the congregation around the Lord, as is here looked for.

Psalm 8

This Psalm closes this mystic season; for now we reach the second morning — the eighth or resurrection day — the opening of the kingdom or "the day of the Lord." It needs no commentary to show or prove this. (See Heb. 2) This is the morning anticipated by Jesus or by the godly one at His rising up from sleep in Ps. 3. It is the praise which had been just previously vowed (see Ps. 7: 17); the wicked having now come to an end, and the congregation having been gathered.

The Lord quotes it in reference to the hosannas* which welcomed Him on His royal visitation to Jerusalem. (Matt. 21: 16) For those hosannas were, in spirit or in principle, the praises of the kingdom, as this Psalm is. And creation joins the chorus.

In Ps. 2 we saw the royalty of Messiah, Son of David, Son of God; here we see the lordship of the Son of man, His dominion over the works of God. All these His glories will be realized and displayed in millennial days.

NOTE. — According to this we might pause here, and read Psalms 3-8 in connection, leading the worshipper, in spirit, into the kingdom. And others have observed that our history every twenty-four hours (the period passed thus in these Psalms) is in like manner a kind of mystery. For after spending the day, at night we lay aside our clothes and enter into sleep, the emblem of death, and there abide (with visions in the spirit) till the morning wakes us, and then we are clothed again, as we shall be in the second morning, or the morning of the resurrection and glory.

NOTE. — I must add another short notice. 1 Cor. 15: 27, 28, illustrates the way in which ulterior scriptures enlarge upon, without disturbing, preceding scriptures. The Apostle establishes every syllable of the Psalmist, giving Christ dominion according to Psalm 8. But Lit then he goes onward. For the Psalmist had left, as well as put, the universal lordship or kingdom in Christ's hand; but the Apostle, reasoning upon the force of the Psalmist's words, is instructed by the same Spirit to reveal a scene of glory which lay beyond the kingdom thus left by the Psalmist in the hand of Christ.

Psalm 9

This Psalm manifests itself very clearly. It is Messiah leading the praise of His righteous people in the latter day for the Lord's destruction of their great enemy, and the consequent anticipated enthronement of Messiah in Zion. There is also a fine insultation over the enemy now thus fallen, kindred with that which the Spirit of Christ breathes in the prophet Isaiah over the king of Babylon (Isa. 14), and a recital of the cry of the afflicted ones in the day of their calamity.

The world is also declared as learning righteousness from God's judgments in the latter day (verse 16), as in Isa. 26: 9. And the nature of those judgments also — the taking of the wicked in their own snare, as in Ps. 7: 10, Ps. 35, Ps. 57, Ps. 94, Ps. 109, Ps. 112. Haman's destruction is the type of this (Esther 7, 10); and the cross is gloriously the illustration of the same, for there by death he that had the power of death was destroyed.

The falling and perishing of the enemy at the presence of God (v. 5) is strikingly illustrated in scripture, in days of divine visitation or judgment. (See Psalm 94; Ex. 14: 24, 25; John 18: 6) Here it is anticipated in the doom and downfall of the great infidel or antichristian enemy of the last day. (See Rev. 19) How awfully will the nations then learn themselves to be "but men" (ver. 20), though they had been drinking in and practising the old lie of the serpent, "ye shall be as gods."

Psalm 10

This Psalm must be read in connection with the ninth. The cry of the Remnant is given more largely, and the iniquity of the enemy more fully detailed.

The answer to the cry, and then the establishment of the kingdom, is beautifully anticipated at the close.

Atheistic pride — man becoming his own god — man learning no lessons of God, either in grace or judgment, and the persecution of the righteous, strongly give character to this last form of evil. And then some marks are set upon the great enemy of the last days, in all parts of scripture, wherever he is glanced at or anticipated, prophetically or typically.

NOTE. — In the Septuagint Psalms 9, 10 are but one. Consequently from Psalm 10 to Psalm 147 the number of the Psalm in the Septuagint is one less than in the authorized English version. In Psalm 147 the number became the same again, because that Psalm becomes two in the Septuagint.

Psalm 11

This is the meditation of a soul in great outward perplexity. The natural securities of the righteous, "the foundations" of the social order, kings and judges (see Psalm 82; Rom. 13), are giving way. But God is still in His due place — that is the soul's relief. "Let God be true, but every man a liar."

It is the utterance of the afflicted Remnant in the last days. But Jesus was their pattern and forerunner in His sorrows from the hand of man.

How different, we may observe, is the world which faith apprehends, from that which sense or sight converses with. The world seen is here declared to be all out of course — the wicked prospering, the righteous oppressed. But faith apprehends a scene where God is in all the sanctity and calmness and power of a throne and a temple, His soul loving the righteous, hating the wicked, and preparing judgments for them when the trial of the righteous is over. Such were the two scenes or worlds opened at the beginning of job. In the seen or felt world, the adversary was doing his pleasure; in the unseen place the God of all grace was sovereignly preparing blessing for His saint. Moses walked as "seeing Him who is invisible."

Psalm 12

This is another meditation, together with a prayer of a righteous one set in the midst of abounding evil; and that evil is evidently the evil that is to be ripe and full in the last days, as we have just seen anticipated in the preceding Psalm. Infidel scoffing (such as that foretold as marking the last days, 2 Peter 3) is the principal feature of it. The mourner, however, hears in spirit the Lord's answer to his prayer (verse 5); then celebrates the faithfulness of His words, that they were all tried and proved words; and finally professes his assurance that God's faithfulness will prevail even in the worst of times.

"This generation" in verse 7 is described in verse 8. This word is, therefore, used in a moral sense; indeed it must be so used from the force of the words "for ever." The people or generation with which both the Lord Jesus and the Remnant contend in their several days, are morally one and the same "generation." And from this we can interpret Matt. 24: 34 in a moral way. Perhaps there is tacit reference there to this passage.

Psalm 13

The cry of a soul put to sore trial of patience, but patience is having "its perfect work;" for this soul trusts in mercy, and by the anticipation of faith sings of salvation. Such was Jesus in the fullest sense; He who was daily "acquainted with grief." But the patient waiting Remnant of the same last days are heard here. It is prepared for them.

These words in the Psalms, "how long" and "for ever," frequently express this trial of patience. "His mercy endureth for ever" will be the changed style of the worshipper when the patience is over and the kingdom is Come.

Psalm 14

This Psalm gives us the solitary musing of a godly soul over the atheism of the world. He recites God's verdict (verses 3, 4) upon man after making a solemn inquisition (such as he made of old at Babel and at Sodom, Gen. 11: 5, Gen. 18: 21) — then anticipates the confusion of the children of men, when God shows Himself in the midst of His generation (thus morally opposed to the generation of Ps. 12: 7, 8), and closes with uttering a desire for that occasion.

The "wilful king" of the last days is surely contemplated in "the fool" or atheist of this Psalm; for the confederacy which he heads is to be broken up when the salvation here anticipated comes out of Zion. But man is man. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." And thus the apostle can quote this Psalm, when describing men in Rom. 3. For all of us by nature have the mind of "the wilful one," or the atheist — alienated from the life of God. (Eph. 4)

Thus, while this is the meditation of either Jesus or His Remnant looking on the infidel of the last days, every instructed soul may use it. (See Ps. 53) Indeed, the language of verse 3 in the Septuagint is used by the apostle in Rom. 3: 11-18.

Psalm 15

This little Psalm seems to present the righteous in the days of "the fool," the Remnant in the time of the last apostate faction.

Verses 2-5 maybe read as the divine oracle replying to the prophet's enquiry in verse 1

It is not the sinner's title to the kingdom which is here discussed. That would be treated very differently. It is the Remnant, as manifesting themselves in righteousness, in contrast with the evil doers of Ps. 14. See the same thing in Isaiah 33: 15, 16.

It is character and not title that is the subject. Of course it need not be said, that the title of all is one and the same — the worthy and accepted blood of Jesus.

NOTE. — This Psalm may be considered as closing a series of meditations and experiences which opened with Ps. 11. For they are all the utterances of a soul burdened with a sense of the wickedness of the day, and calling with desire on God — and as clearly and surely the last days are contemplated, and those utterances are of the Remnant then.

The challenge in ver. 1 may bring to mind similar language in Ps. 24: 3. But there the answer given to it, at the close of the Psalm, introduces Messiah Himself much more distinctly and personally than it does here.

By this I am also reminded of Rev. 5: 2. For we have a challenge there likewise. "Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?" And the glorious answer there given again introduces Messiah. only in still fuller and richer and sublimer characters, as the Lamb that had been slain, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

Psalm 16

We know from the Holy Ghost, in Acts 2: 31, that this Psalm is the utterance of Jesus through David. It is the language of the Lord consciously dwelling in God's house as a priest or worshipper. Accordingly He will have no other God, and take His inheritance (like a priest, Num. 18: 20) only from God, esteeming it the best; and in constant communion find confidence and joy and praise and hope. And the very first act of this worshipper is to trust in the Lord, owning that he cannot profit the Lord, for the Lord must profit him. See the contradiction of this in Israel's worship, Psalm 2 and in the Gentiles' worship, Acts 17. It is easy and natural to call to mind here the answer of the Lord to the young ruler in Luke 18. In the moral perfectness of the place He took, the Son in flesh could talk of God as the only good one.

Though it is true, that the Lord was not our priest till He rose (Heb. 5, 8), nor took official services of such a character on Him, yet He was a priest to God, or a worshipper, all through His life on earth; showing all the personal virtues of such an one, walking always in a sanctuary, and always taking God as His portion. And what incense, what constant perfect incense, was the life of Jesus thus looked at! what sweet savour of a meat offering was all that He ever did or said!

"Thine Holy One" is the flesh of Jesus. (Acts 2: 27, 31) This title for it arises from Luke 1: 35, which separated the human nature of Jesus from all taint, and kept it in the fullest favour and acceptance with God.

Psalm 17

This, on the other hand, is the utterance of Jesus, not consciously dwelling in the house of the Lord, but as having come forth and met the oppositions of men. But as He had within carried Himself in the sanctity of a worshipper, so here outside He is keeping Himself from all evil in the midst of all; and in the confidence of this integrity, looking for vindication from God's "presence," and the rewards of righteousness in resurrection by and by, when His persecutors, who are "of the world, and have their portion in this life," shall be cast down.

The persecuted righteous Remnant may also utter this in company with Jesus: indeed they seem to be introduced very distinctly, ver. 11.

NOTE. — These two Psalms thus present the experiences of the Lord very differently. In Ps. 16 He enters into all the present joy of being a dweller in God's house, a priest or worshipper who felt that his lines had fallen in pleasant places, because he was inside the house with God. In Ps. 17 He is outside in the trial of the world, meeting the oppositions of men, and seeking help and deliverance, and looking only to future things as His joy. In 16 the resurrection comes as the end of a blessed path; in 17 as relief from a trying and dangerous one.

The experiences of His saints are according to this also. At times it is the simple joy of resurrection, and at times the hope of being relieved by that from many a present burden which fills their souls. To be "within the veil'' and at the same time "outside the camp" is the due attitude of the believer — and full of moral beauty and dignity that is.

Psalm 18

This is Messiah's praise for deliverance or resurrection, which had been expected at the close of the preceding Psalm. He celebrates Jehovah as His rock and His horn, — symbols of strength and royalty. He recites His desires in the day of His distress, and the marvellous redemption which the hand of Jehovah had wrought for Him and His Israel, when in the place of death, or amid the confederations of His enemies in the latter day. His deliverance is God's answer to His cry. The earth then shakes. As the place of assembly shook at the voice of the Church in Jerusalem. (Acts 4) For the judge of all the earth will avenge His own elect that cry to Him. The Spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coming will do this. (verses 8, 12; 2 Thess. 2: 8)

This Psalm strikingly shows Christ in two places and two very distinct characters. For He is here both the delivered one and the deliverer. He is the one who makes this supplication, and the one who answers it. All this, of course, simply and necessarily arising from His person, divine and human as it is, — from His being one with His afflicted people, and yet the Lord who rescues and blesses them: as we see Him in Isa. 8, waiting on Jehovah who has turned His face from Israel, and in Matt. 23 Jehovah Himself with his face turned away.

David's deliverance from the hand of Saul was the type of this; and the deliverance of Israel (with whom Messiah here identifies Himself) in the latter day will be the real deliverance here celebrated by the prophetic spirit. The rescue of Israel from the Red Sea, where the strength of Pharaoh perished, is referred to (vv. 15, 16); for that was another typical resurrection or deliverance. So the discomfiture of Adonizedek, who was the type of the last enemy or the wilful king in the days of Joshua, is also glanced at in verse 12. (See also Ps. 144, Isa. 30: 27-33, and Isa. 64: 1-3)

And the delivered one becomes the conquering and the reigning one at the close. The Lord strengthening Him, He seems equal to everything. The same hand of God that rescues Him, gives Him victory, and at last invests Him with dominion. It lights His candle, and makes Him run through a troop.

And thus this Psalm tells us, as Paul teaches in Rom. 8, "whom He justified, them He also glorified." For the Lord does not, cannot, stop with mere deliverance, but goes on to perfect His goodness in the kingdom. The song of Israel in Exodus 15 and that of the elders in Rev. 5 utter the same truth. If He translate us into the kingdom of His dear Son, it is as putting us on the sure and ready way to the inheritance of the saints in light. (Col. 1) He perfects that which concerneth us.

But all this is in favour of the righteous (20-27); paying just judgment to others. That is the character of the action here. For the deliverance from "the violent man" will not be so much in grace as in righteousness. The sinner is delivered only in grace, through atonement, from the curse of the accuser, the penalty of sin, and the just judgment of the law. And so the Israel of God in the day of their repentance by and by. But in conflict with the enemy, they will be righteous as David with Saul. They will suffer as martyrs or as righteous ones, and as such they will be delivered. And this just judgment, this reward of righteousness and of evil, is the character of the action in the book of Revelation (see Rev. 22: 11, 15), as it is of this Psalm.

2 Sam. 22 shows us that this Psalm was the utterance of David in a fitting time; and though I have just noticed it above, I may urge it again here, what a proof does this offer of the typical nature of certain pieces of history. For the deliverance of David from the hand of Saul is here published in such a style as tells us plainly that another and far more magnificent deliverance was looked at through it.

Hannah's Song, in like manner, looks beyond the occasion of it. (1 Sam. 2) Nothing is more common than this. And this is judged by some to be the meaning of those words, "No prophecy of the scriptures is of any private interpretation." (2 Peter 1) All individual events are parts of one great system of divine government.

Psalm 19

This is the meditation of a true worshipper of God, honouring Him both in His works and His word. The Gentiles should (but did not, Rom. 1) have known God from His works, and Israel should (but did not, Rom 2) have kept His word or His law. The true worshipper here, therefore, condemns both, and glorifies God in His two great ordinances or testimonies.

The works and the word of God have these two qualities — they glorify God and bless the creature, as this Psalm shows. Thus: the firmament declares the divine handiwork, but it also carries the sun which gives its heat to all creation. So the law is perfect, thus glorifying its Maker like the firmament, but it also converts the soul. God's glory and His creatures' blessing are equally cared for in the great scenes of divine power and wisdom. But there is no effort, no indisposedness in the earth to receive blessing from the heavens; but man is to stir himself up, as the Psalmist here does, to get the blessing to his soul which the law or the word carries for him.

This Psalm is referred to (Rom. 10: 18) by the apostle for the purpose of gloriously identifying the ministries of the heavens and of the gospel. The service which one renders the earth is like that which the other renders the world, both so diffusing themselves everywhere that nothing may be hid from either the fertilizing or saving heat thereof. The ministry of the heavens to the earth, in its universality, is the pattern of that of the gospel to the world. And the Lord in His own divine ministry was just this also. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and that light lighteth every man in the world. (John 1: 4, 9)

Such was the competency or quality of the light or the ministry of the Son of God. In principle it reached all. Nothing in creation is hid from the heat of the sun, and no man in the world from the testimony of the gospel. (Col. 1: 23)

NOTE. — We get notices of presumptuous sins in Num. 15 and Deut. 17, and I believe that when we come to the scriptures of the New Testament we see them in Heb. 6 and 10.

Psalm 20

I read this Psalm as the utterance of the Jewish Remnant exercising very lively faith in their Messiah in the day when He will take their trouble upon Himself, and come forth to assert His kingdom against His and their enemy. They accordingly commend Him to the care of Jehovah, and anticipate His victory, and that they themselves shall therefore, like their fathers (Ex. 17: 15), have a banner in Jehovah, though in conflict with the true Amalek.

The people in this spirit commended Joshua to God's care as he was going out to his battles. (Joshua 1: 17, 18) And according to the divine ordinance, when Israel went out to battle, they were to encourage themselves in God, and not be afraid of the multitudes — of the enemy, or of their chariots and their horses. (See Deut. 20: 1) Jesus, as one fully obedient to this ordinance, here goes forth to the warfare in this spirit.

In the full power of verse 3 we see our Lord leaving His priestly services in heaven, now that He is about to take this other service, this duty of "the God of battles," the Redeemer of the inheritance, upon Him. And this present action, His going forth in due season against His enemies, had been pledged to Him as soon as He took His seat in heaven. (See Ps. 110: 1) And He had been expecting it. (Heb. 10: 13)

Psalm 21

This is a continuation of the language of the Remnant which we had in the preceding Psalm. They first address Jehovah, owning that they have a full and glorious anticipation of the victory of their King, and of His establishment in His kingdom, because He had trusted in Him, his God. (See Ps. 18: 2, 3; Heb. 2: 13; Heb. 5: 7) Then, in what may be called the second part, beginning with verse 8, they address Messiah as still in the heavens, but telling Him as it were of His coming victories; and they close by desiring His exaltation, owning Him Lord.

His crown is one of "pure gold" (v. 3); that is, of unsullied righteousness; and therefore His kingdom such as will last (Heb. 1: 8, 9); "length of days for ever and ever" (v. 4).

David was the type of the true King thus in victory. And David's desire was fulfilled. (2 Samuel 7: 19); as here Messiah's is in verse 4.

Psalm 110, I may observe, is another instance of a worshipper addressing Jehovah and Christ by turns, as he sees them gloriously seated in the heavens. What characters of communion are our souls entitled to! what discoveries of heaven as it now is does scripture make to us! What sights of glories yet to come do we get there!

Psalm 22

This Psalm was the language of the soul of the Lord while He hung on the cross. (Matthew 27: 46) He uttered, perhaps, only the first words of it, but His spirit went through the whole. He begins as though His cries for deliverance from death (Heb. 5: 7) had not been heard, since He was now under the darkness of the withdrawn countenance of God. This was the death of a victim, not of a martyr. It was death under the judgment of sin. Nothing ever could be of like kind. See how the death of the martyr Stephen is different from that of the Lamb of God. (Acts 7) But still the perfect sufferer entirely vindicates God — the faithful God of the fathers, and His God from the womb hitherto.

He therefore still cries, presenting all the features of His present distress from the hand of men before the eye of God. (See vv. 7, 8, 12, 16, 17, 18) And it is strange, how the enemy, in that hour, were fulfilling the word of God against themselves to the very letter of it. (See v. 8 and Matthew 27: 43) But at last the blessed sufferer seems conscious of having been heard (v. 21) — heard from the horns of the unicorns — heard, doubtless, by Him who was able to save Him from death. (Heb. 5: 7) For we may observe that the cry of Jesus on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was after an interval followed by another, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." That second cry would naturally arise from a consciousness of the first having been heard. And it may therefore be thought that the Lord here in v. 21 expresses His sense of having been heard by His deliverer from death.

Under this He makes His vows: — 1st, to declare God's name to His brethren; 2nd, to praise Him in the congregation (of Israel), and in the great congregation (of all the nations). The first He began to pay immediately on His being delivered from death (John 20: 17), and is still fulfilling in all the saints (Rom. 8: 15); the second He will pay in the kingdom when Israel and the nations are gathered, the seed of Jacob glorifying God, and the kindreds of the nations worshipping before Him. For then, as Jesus here pledges, the kingdom and all its offerings shall be the Lord's.

But upon this Psalm I must further observe, that while the Lord Jesus, in the days of His life and ministry on earth was saving and not judging, stooping down and writing on the ground as though He heard not, rather than casting a stone at a guilty one, yet He did refer the world in its wickedness to the judicial eye and observance of God. In John 17. He does this, when He says, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." This same thing He seems to me to do in this very peculiar and affecting Psalm.

Psalm 23

This may be read as a meditation of the Lord Jesus as He walked by faith in this world. He perfected the life of faith, the author and finisher of it, standing as chief among those who have obtained a good report by it. (See Heb. 11: 12) So that we may read Him in this Psalm.

He addresses Himself to His journey in fullest confidence, though it may prove a long and trying one. Every character of trial is successively anticipated — want of provision — need of restoration — the shadowy vale of death — the presence of enemies. But the resources of the hand that leads Him are felt to be equal to all, till the journey blessedly end in the house of the Lord.

The Lord knew restoration from soul-trouble in John 12: 27; and then was He ready for the valley through which He went; till, in resurrection, His cup ran over, His table was spread in the presence of His enemies, and His head was anointed, or His consecration to office was perfected. And the kingdom by and by will display this cup, this table, and this anointing, here anticipated in faith by Jesus.

It may, however, be rather used as the language or experience of any believer. We, who are weak in faith, may long to realize such precious joy and liberty more and more richly.

Psalm 24

As the preceding Psalm had given us the path of the Lord Jesus (and of any saint in company, in spirit, with Him) home to the house of the Lord, so this now gives us His path up to the throne of glory. For there were in His prospect, as there are in ours, the two objects — the Father's house, and the throne of the kingdom; and these Psalms severally trace the two paths up to those happy, brilliant scenes.

In the opening of this Psalm, the Lord's title to the earth is acknowledged: it is His by creation. So in the jubilee, the type of this same coming kingdom, the Lord asserted His title to the land. (Lev. 25: 23) And after His title to the earth is announced the enquiry arises, who shall retake Adam's forfeited dominion over it? in other terms, "who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?" for "hill" is the symbol of dominion (Isa. 2): and the Lord's future or millennial dominion will be from Zion, that holy hill where God's King is to hold His sceptre of universal rule. (See Ps. 2)

This enquiry is then answered in such terms as at once point to Jesus; and His saints or generation are joined with Him; and His title to take His throne of glory and dominion in Zion being thus established, He comes as at the second advent to take possession.

He offered to take this throne when He was here. (Matt. 21) And it is to be observed, that ere our Lord entered the gates of Zion on that occasion, He exercised His rights as Lord of the earth and its fulness (according to the course of this Psalm), by claiming the ass from its owner upon this plea, "The Lord hath need of him." (Mark 11: 3)

But, as we know, the citizens would not then have Him to reign over them; and now at His second advent, He will mike good His title in the judgment of those who thus once refused Him. (See Luke 19: 27)

Psalm 25

This is such an utterance as the, soul of David might have had on the other side of Jordan; for there he was suffering under God's hand for sin, but as touching his persecutors he was blameless. Varied exercise of heart would arise from such a condition. He would at times remember his sins, and desire to know more and more of God's own way of grace; he would at times, on the other hand, plead with the confidence of integrity. And this is His varied way in this affecting Psalm — where, though the suppliant be conscious of integrity, as before men in his sufferings, yet his condition and guilt, as a sinner before God, are forcibly brought to mind; and as a soul thus quickened to the sense of sin, he desires to know God's own way in grace or mercy. And it is only the sinner who fully learns God's way. It is a mystery to every other student. And as Israel now, because of transgression, knows Him as a "consuming fire," so in the latter day, in their broken-heartedness and repentance, they shall know Him as a "merciful God." (See Deut. 4: 24-31)

We may presume that it will be the breathing of the Jewish saints by and by. Verse 22 indeed shows that Israel is the suppliant here.

Verses 8-10, and verses 12-14, may be read as two interruptions to the cry of the suppliant by the voice or oracle of God comforting him. And I cannot pass without noticing that "the secret" and "the covenant" of the Lord (v. 14) are the same, and mean the gospel or grace of God in Christ Jesus. For such is God's covenant and God's secret. One of Christ's names is "secret," as we know. (Judges 13: 18; Isa. 9: 6. See also Deut. 29: 29)

Psalm 26

This seems to be of the same character as the preceding — an utterance of David on the other side of Jordan. There is, however, more expression of conscious uprightness towards men in it, and something of his longing after the house and congregation of the Lord, which we know from the history was David's fervent desire (see 2 Sam. 15: 25, 26), and which he here anticipates will be realized.

His casting of himself on the mercy and redemption of God, in the midst of these his assertions of integrity, bespeaks a very right state of soul.

In reading this as in continuance of the preceding Psalm, I deem it blessed to notice the advance in the poor believing sinner's experience; for here, though we get integrity pleaded, and at the same time mercy sought, the confession of sins is dropped, and anticipations of God's house taken up.

Psalm 27

Still another utterance of the same suppliant in the same condition. But there is more desire after the house of God, longing for the ark and habitation of the Lord; and thus an advance still in the experience and liberty of the soul may be observed in this Psalm, as in the preceding.

This Psalm may have been the breathing of our blessed Lord while He was standing silent before Caiaphas. (Matt. 26: 63) False witnesses were then rising up against Him; but those who came to eat up His flesh had already fallen. (See Matt. 26: 59; John 18: 6) At that moment also He anticipated His glory. (See v. 6; Matt. 26: 64) And we know that in those trying sufferings He was sustained by hope. (See v. 13; Heb. 12: 2)

The strong and abrupt change in the current of the soul at verse 7 is easily understood by the Lord's history. it is just what might be looked for, as He passed from witnessing the divine favour expressed in the garden, to become the captive of the wicked. (John 18: 6, 12)

But I am quite prepared to refuse the suggestion which has long been made by some who have exercised their thoughts (and that too in a spirit of reverence) over the Psalms, that if the Lord be seen or heard in one verse of a Psalm, the whole of it must be received as belonging to Him. The word of the Lord to David by Nathan in 1 Chr. 17 would be witness against this; for there the words "I will be His Father, and He shall be my Son" are applied to the Lord Jesus (Heb. 1: 5), while at the same time we may most fully assure ourselves that the whole of that divine oracle could not be so applied to Him.

In the last verse Jesus as it were delivers a word of exhortation to His saints, as the fruit of His own experience, as I may say He does at the close of Isaiah 50, and still more surely at the close of Matthew 11; and I may add that we see one of His saints very much with Him in the spirit that animates Him here; for here we find confidence, though in the midst of the din of war and trouble, just because the heart was set upon one thing — desire to dwell in the house of the Lord. And "the same spirit of faith" is found in St. Paul when he says, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord . . . . . We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." (2 Cor. 5)

And the apostle himself, under the Holy Ghost, traces another kindred mind between him and his Lord in the chapter that precedes this. (See 2 Cor. 4: 13, and Ps. 116: 10)

Psalm 28

The cry of a soul that was beginning to taste the bitterness of desertion — of God's being "silent" to him. There was something of the touch of the fear of death felt here, and the cry came forth (1-5).

The answer of God to all this is then anticipated with praise, and suited intercession, embracing all God's people, as well as the suppliant himself (6-9).

I observe that the wicked are looked at here very much as the Lord looks at the unbelieving cities, i.e., as not moved by the works of the Lord. (Matt. 11: 20. See v. 5)

It is interesting to notice here that the Remnant, the godly election in Israel, are so differently treated by the Lord from the unbelieving nation. Jesus was "silent" to them. (Mark 14: 60, 61) That was judgment. Here the Lord answers the godly.

Psalm 29

This is a celebration of the power of "the voice of the Lord," who is also "the God of glory." (See v. 3) And the last verses give us to see the repose and to hear the joys of the faithful, while this power is passing by for the destruction of the ungodly. Like Noah in the Ark while the waters were spreading, or Lot in Zoar while the fire was poured down on Sodom, or Israel within their paschal doors, while the angel went through Egypt with the sword, so in their closets by and by the Remnant will rest (Isa. 26: 20), and have a song also, while the decreed vengeance takes its course (Isa. 30: 32), not a hair perishing.

The true Israel appear here, though in the midst of tumult, in all the calmness of a people who have made the Lord their sanctuary, unalarmed by confederated foes, because they can say, "God is with us" (Isa. 8), and strength and peace are promised to them.

At the opening of this glowing Psalm the mighty ones themselves are challenged to acknowledge Jehovah — as the kings of the earth are called to "kiss the Son" — ere it be too late. After this, in Psalm 82, these mighty ones, now convicted in full apostasy, are summoned to hear their doom, and listen to the sentence of righteousness against them.

Psalm 30

This may be read as the praise of the risen Jesus celebrating Him who has now redeemed Him from death. He calls on the saints, as it were, to help Him in this praise, and He rehearses something of His experience, and of His cry, when under the fear of death (Heb. 5: 7), and then resumes His praise, showing that the resurrection had unsealed His lips or awakened His glory. (See also Psalm 116)

But the resurrection of the Lord is in one character of it a pledge of the coming deliverance of His Israel, and thus of the resurrection of the nation. This is to be remembered when reading this Psalm.

NOTE. — Connection may be discovered between Psalms 28, 29, and 30. Psalm 28 — The godly cry to be delivered from death, or the power of the pit. Psalm 29 — The Lord answers, as with an earthquake, delivering the prisoner. (Matt. 28: 2; Rev. 6, 11, 16; see also Ps. 18: 7) Psalm 30 — The delivered one owns this with praise — that as God had now broken His silence with such a voice of power, so would His ransomed break theirs with a voice of praise. (Compare Ps. 28: 1, with Ps. 30: 12)

Psalm 31

This Psalm is still the utterance of the Lord in resurrection. He recites His cry in the day when He was appointed for the slaughter, as He stood before Pilate and was borne thence to the accursed tree — when He committed His Spirit to the Father (v. 5; Luke 23: 46). In v. 10, we must read "distress" instead of "iniquity."

He was then deserted by all: slander, fear, and reproach were on every side; His eye, His soul, and His body were consumed, and He was treated as one already dead, cast aside as a broken vessel. As another expresses it, "I doubt whether Christ speaks personally" in v. 17, 18. For He was not dealing with His enemies in judgment, but in grace, when He was here. He did, however, commit Himself to Him who judged righteously. (1 Peter 2: 23)

But in the deadest hour of that horrible night He calls to mind how He had trusted in God and remembered His former mercies. And from v. 19 to the end, it is no longer the recital of His cry in the hours of Pilate and Calvary, but the utterance of joy and praise for present resurrection. He had now exchanged the grave and dust of death for the power of God in resurrection. And now also He remembers the loving-kindness of the Lord shown Him in "the strong city," the place of the confederates, out of which He had been delivered, but into which He will by and by go again, not however as a captive, but as an avenger. (See Ps. 60, Ps. 108)

How suddenly and vigorously does a fresh current of affections set in at v. 19, and continue to the end! Is not this still ofttimes the experience of tried saints?

And on the ground of His resurrection, He calls on all the saints to love the Lord and be of good courage, drawing a word of exhortation for them (as is common with Him) from His own experience. (See Ps. 27, Ps. 34) But I still would speak of the resurrection of the Lord as the pledge of that of Israel, as I have just done in the preceding Psalm, and this is to be remembered here.

Psalm 32

This Psalm is one of great value to the soul. A pardoned sinner rehearses his experience; and in this form the most precious truth is conveyed. It maybe called the utterance of a sinner in present spiritual resurrection, as the preceding had been of Jesus in actual resurrection. The sinner celebrates the blessedness of his deliverance from the pit, from the guilt of sin, and from the power of an unhumbled, guileful heart. Even the temptation to be guileful is gone — the motive of secrecy is removed. "Pride," as one has said, "heretofore the guardian of the evil arcana of the soul, is expelled from his trust, and made to leave all things open to scrutiny. The time is the time of inquiry and judgment; and the result is that peace and confidence, that stillness of the spirit, which is never enjoyed until the heart of man has dealt righteously with itself." This is what we get here — the fruit of the spirit of confession, and the application to the conscience by faith of the value and the blood of Jesus. The joy and confidence of such a risen soul are set forth. The voice of the Lord is then heard for a moment, breaking in with a rich promise; and at the close, this risen sinner addresses words of admonition to others, as in the preceding Psalm the risen Jesus closed by doing the same.

This is the suited experience or utterance of every pardoned soul, and was, no doubt, eminently that of David. Great value is given to it in Romans 4. Every one that is "godly" (v. 6), whose religion is according to God, finds his confidence springing from the truth or doctrine conveyed by this experience of David.

And Nathanael's "guilelessness" was the guilelessness of this Psalm, I believe, and not of mere natural disposition. (John 1: 47) He had been under the fig-tree in the spirit of this Psalm, as a convicted one, pouring out his heart, and that had freed his spirit from guile; for here we learn that a confessing spirit is a guileless spirit. The Lord, on seeing him, owns him in this character, and Nathanael does not refuse the salutation. Jesus had been in the secret of his soul while under the tree (as he was in the secret of Zacchaeus's soul in the sycamore), and they meet together, as the Lord and the suppliant meet in this very blessed Psalm.

He will thus be met still. He knew this guileless Israelite without Philip's introduction; and Jesus still, in spirit, converses with the burdened soul that would pour out its convictions in the solitary place, or under the distant shade (as of yonder fig-tree) to which conscience has separated it.

Psalm 33

The closing words of the previous Psalm are here at the very beginning taken up. This in measure connects them, and invites us to read this in continuation of that.

The righteous being commanded to rejoice in the Lord, the great moral purpose of this Psalm is, to give such views of the Lord as may constrain to rejoice — to show Him as such an One, that it may be said, "Blessed is the nation whose God" He is. For it will not do merely to be commanded to love or rejoice, but the object suited to these affections must be presented — as here. O that our hearts could entertain it willingly!

We may read the free, discursive musings of the soul in this Psalm, as a sweet sample of that moral ability which a consciously accepted sinner has, to range in thought over the words and works and counsels, the grace and glory of God, and all like things.

Prophetically, this seems to be the joy of the Jewish nation having Jehovah for their God again, after they have witnessed the discomfiture of the heathen, and the second settlement of the world. This would, therefore, lead us to see that the Remnant are "the righteous."

But all this joy is only anticipated; for from verse 12 to the end, it appears that the nation was still only hoping for all this, and that the course of the present evil world was still going on. But they close with an expression of great confidence, that this resurrection-state of the nation would indeed be accomplished in God's good time.

Psalm 34

This is another utterance in spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection.

He praises God for this deliverance (1, 2). He calls on His saints to join Him in this (3-7). He exhorts them to trust in God because of this; and to assure themselves, on the ground of His resurrection, that the Lord indeed is gracious. (8- 10; see v. 8; and 1 Peter 3)

We know that verse 20 was fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus. (See John 19: 36)

He then gathers the family around Him to read them as it were the lessons which, as in resurrection, He was by experience abundantly competent to teach them. He tells them how to walk through life so as to escape many of its sorrows; but that if troubles do come (as they will) even because of their uprightness, they may, as by His example, being now raised from the dead, assure themselves of final deliverance, and that no real damage will ever be sustained by them; but that rather their redeemer shall be their avenger also, destroying those who hate them.

Thus Jesus by His resurrection comforts and instructs His saints or disciples. He shares with them (as everything else) the profit of His own experience. (See vv. 12-15, and 1 Peter 3)

And this is His mind in Matt. 11: 29, 30 — "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." By this telling them what He Himself had already proved, that the path of a meek and lowly heart led the soul unto much rest, making the yoke easy and the burden light. And who of us, beloved, do not prove this?

I might add, suggested by verse 6, how eminently was the Lord Jesus, though "rich in glory" (see Phil. 4: 19), "the poor man," as again called in Psalm 35: 10, and Psalm 41: 1. We know Him thus in the Evangelists, blessed be His name!

Psalm 35

This Psalm may be read as a silent musing of the afflicted soul of Jesus as he stood before Pilate. He pleads with God both for His own rescue and for the judgment and confusion of His persecutors. The "false witnesses" of verse 11 are heard in Matt. 26: 59 the "abjects" of verse 15 are seen in Luke 23: 1; the Lord's saying, "I knew not," in verse 15, is verified by His attitude in Luke 22: 64; His "quietness in the land," of verse 20, is seen in Matt. 12: 19, Matt. 22: 21; and this shows that the charge against Him in Luke 23: 2 was the "deceitful matter" here referred to by this blessed sufferer and witness in verse 20.

One thing especially might be observed here — that the Lord Jesus pleads for judgment upon the persecutor and the enemy. But we should be prepared for this; for in the Gospels we get the same, just heard from His lips for a moment — "O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee." In these words He does not utter the full request which we meet occasionally in the Psalms, but as distinctly does He leave the world in its unbelief and rejection of grace before the righteous judgment. So that these words in John 17 are of the spirit of those Psalms where Messiah calls for judgment. And if in the Psalms He is heard even pronouncing judgment, that would not be beyond His language in the Gospels" Behold your house is left unto you desolate;" or, as He again says, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida;" or still more fully, and in the solemnities of a judgment seat in Matt. 23. His words to Caiaphas in Matt. 26: 64 savour of the same. And beside, we are told that the Lord committed Himself to the righteous Judge (1 Peter 2: 23), without reviling or threatening. This Psalm appears to be a sample of such communion. in Psalm 69, with the commentary we get on it in Rom. 11, we find the same. (See also Psalm 40: 14, 15)

But the Spirit of Christ in the Remnant will be heard more distinctly crying for judgment, as the iniquity of the world is filling up its measure in their day. We find this not only in the Psalms, as here, but in Luke 18: 1-8; Rev. 6: 10, etc.

We may notice, all the "bones" were kept in the preceding Psalm (see Ps. 34: 20); here they are presented as praising and giving thanks (v. 10).

Psalm 36

The materials of this Psalm are very simple. It does not depend on any peculiar circumstances, but it is the language of any soul forced by the violence of the wicked into the greatness and excellencies of God as its refuge. But especially it is the experience of the Remnant who will have to meet the violence of the evil one in the latter day.

This experience of the saints is very blessed. It proves that out of the cater comes meat, out of the strong one sweetness; that when they are weak, as the apostle finds, then they are strong: for the violence of the wicked only makes us know still more the blessedness of the living God, and thus do we get spoil out of the strong one.

And let the strength of the enemy be as great as it may, yet the saints in spirit looking at God say, "They that be with us are more than they that be with them."

It is a beautiful, comforting meditation. The Psalmist first looks at the greatness of the wickedness of the wicked, and then at the magnificence of the goodness and glory of God. Everything is great in the eye of this worshipper, and he feels that he can leave his cause with God, anticipating the full overthrow of all the mighty in their wickedness.

The worshipper here owns the cause of all this human wickedness, which he had been contemplating to lie in having cast off God's fear; and perhaps he allows that the source, even the heart, was in himself as in any other man. (Rom. 7: 17, 18; Matt. 15: 18-20) Indeed this Psalm helps the apostle with his divine inspired verdict against man, as an utterly corrupted creature. (See v. 1, Rom. 3: 18)

Psalm 37

This is the meditation of a believer, or a worshipper, as he looks on the moral scene around him, called by the apostle "the course of this world," in the light which faith and hope afford him; and in the calmness and certainty of that light he delivers a word of rich consolation. He tells of the future and final settlement of things between the righteous and the wicked, though all may appear very different for a season.

The burden of this Psalm is the excision of the wicked from the earth, and the investing of the meek with the inheritance of it. It might take for its motto the words of Isaiah — "Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him."

And he gives us his experience as a kind of seal of the truth of this; for in his observation of persons and circumstances he could say that he had never seen either the righteous finally forsaken, or the wicked, though for a while spreading himself like an evergreen, finally prosperous (vv. 25, 35). Wherefore he would have the righteous encourage their hearts, though present griefs may be many and various. Their end shall be peace, when the wicked are cut off; their inheritance shall come and last for ever, when the day (i.e., the judgment) of the ungodly shall come (vv. 13, 18).

Meekness, which is thus to end in the inheritance (see Matt. 5: 5) appears to be that temper of soul that makes us willing to be nothing till the promised inheritance comes. The Lord Jesus (in whom was all perfectness) fully expressed it. Though Lord of all, He was content to have nothing; and the kingdom is a reward of His meekness. (Matt. 21: 5) The saints, in their measure, are the meek now. The Remnant will be so in their day. (Zeph. 2: 3) This Psalm may therefore be read by us all; for the experience of all God's chosen is in kind the same as to this; but the remnant, in fuller measure, will need the consolation of it when they come to be pressed by the successful confederacies of the wicked in the latter day. Verse 11 and Matt. 5: 5 show the disciples of the Lord Jesus and the Remnant of the last days to be in much moral identity.

Thus this Psalm would teach us not to live for any hope short of resurrection and the kingdom — and that they are divinely wise, and they only, who "consider their latter end." A simple, serious, and holy lesson — a happy one to God's strangers and pilgrims. "For the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

Psalm 38

The penitent in this Psalm feels both the weight of God's righteous anger, and the bitterness of man's undeserved enmity (vv. 4, 19, 20). It suits David's suffering from Absalom because of his sin against God in the matter of Uriah. He speaks as like a leper outside the camp. And such is the figure of a convicted sinner, or of a saint under discipline. He is separated as one defiled and defiling; but Jesus can meet us in that place, though none else can. As a poor woman convicted of her sins once said, "I am too bad for any but Jesus," and that blessed Saviour, as we know, at once "spotless" and yet "made sin," was led to the slaughter without opening His mouth. (v. 13, Matt. 26: 63; Matt. 27: 12, 14) He did not answer the accusing of the wicked, but silently, or in the unutterable musing of His spirit, committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. This was expressed in David towards Shimei. (2 Sam. 16) David knew not the counsel of the sons of Zeruiah — his soul had no sympathy with it.

And this Psalm may be read as an utterance of the Remnant; for they will call to remembrance, and take upon them the sin of their nation in shedding the righteous blood of Jesus, though personally they had no share in it. (Zech. 12: 10) For the sin of David touching Bathsheba and Uriah may represent Israel's sin touching Jesus; innocent blood was shed, and unclean alliances were formed. The Jewish people cried out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," and at the. same moment said, "We have no king but Caesar." And then, we may say in a sense and measure, the subsequent sorrows of David at the hand of Absalom represent the Remnant's sorrows at the hand of their enemy, the wilful king; and this makes the same penitential Psalms the utterance of both David and the Remnant.

It is worthy of consideration whether the fool-slipping in verse 16 is not calamity rather than transgression. (See Deut. 32: 35; Ps. 94: 18)

Psalm 39

David's conduct towards Shimei can explain this Psalm also. He was dumb while the wicked were before him. He was accepting the punishment of his sin, bowing himself under the mighty hand of God in silence. His repentance, as in 2 Sam. 15-19 is a very affecting sight indeed.

The path of the soul in this Psalm is very blessed, and within the range of the experience of the saints at all times. It is to be traced thus -

Under provocation, the believer is resolved in God's strength to be silent, though this at first stirred and kindled the sorrow within (1, 2). But the Spirit, in season, brought relief, and gave the fire of spiritual affections in the soul increased and lively energy. For this is His way — if nature be restrained, the new kingdom will rise in power. So it was here. During the silence put upon nature, this warmth of the renewed heart is heated, and yields blessed fruit to this silence and mortification; for the lips are opened, not to revile again, nor to threaten those from whom he was suffering, but to commit himself to God, owning his own unworthiness, and taking all this suffering as from the hand of his gracious God for good (3-11). His soul, by all this holy exercise, learns to see itself in heavenly companionship with God himself in this earth, and he only looks for strength to travel the rest of his pilgrim journey with increased alacrity and vigour (12, 13).

This suits us all; and blessed is the soul of any saint thus healthfully exercised. We should know these paths of the Spirit better than we do. Thus will the repentant Israel of the latter day accept the punishment of their sin. (Lev. 26: 40) So, in silence, did Jesus receive our chastisement. (Isa. 53: 7; Matt. 26: 63; see Ps. 38)

Shimei did the part of that injurious multitude who surrounded the blessed Sufferer before the Governor and on Calvary, reviling Him with their lips, and gnashing on Him with their teeth. Ahithophel was the Judas of those scenes in 2 Samuel. (See Ps. 109)

Psalm 40

Probably this Psalm was uttered by David on the same occasion. But the Spirit who spoke through David, and in David's circumstances, soon leaves David to utter the heart of Jesus only. (v. 6-8; and Heb. 11: 5-7)

The opening verses give us the Lord's anticipation of His resurrection or deliverance; He afterwards rehearses His self-dedication, His ministry, His sorrows, and His cry. He tells us that He patiently waited for resurrection. He might, we know, have asserted His divine power; but He waited till He was raised "by the blood of the everlasting covenant." (Heb. 13) Thus was He, as He says in this Psalm, the poor and needy one — the one who depended on God for everything — the one who waited patiently in exercise of faith.

As in other Psalms, He confesses the sins which He had taken on Him. For such confession both vindicates God, and is a gracious adoption of that which had been laid upon Him, that we may have strong consolation in knowing the reality of the imputation of our sins to His account; as the high priest, under the law, confessed Israel's sins on the head of the scape-goat.

The unnumbered multitude of God's thoughts (see also Psalm 139) beautifully expresses the diligence and delight of God over Christ and His redeemed, as though this object were all His concern, and the centre of all His counsels. Would that we knew how to enjoy this truth as we should! (See Psalm 70 in connection with the closing verses of this.)

Psalm 41

This Psalm still suits David in the same affliction. In it he seems at the beginning to have respect to Barzillai, who in the day of Absalom, Ahithophel, and Shimei, considered the afflicted David. (2 Sam. 17: 27, 29) He then pleads against his enemies, and ends with anticipation of his own deliverance and their confusion to the praise of his God, the God of Israel.

But Jesus is surely here, as in the others. We could not, we dared not, we would not, however, see Him in verse 4; and this reminds me of what I have already observed on Psalm 27. The daughters of Jerusalem (Luke 23) may be regarded as filling in measure the place of Barzillai, as Judas does that of Ahithophel, or the multitude that of Shimei. And they moved the Lord's sympathy, as Barzillai did David's. They gave him as it were a cup of cold water, and it got its reward. But Barzillai is a pattern of all who now in the day of His rejection own the righteous Jesus; to whom He says, "ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations."

And blessed indeed is he who thus looks at the mystery of the preceding Psalm, and considers the poor and needy Jesus, and who by faith casts in his lot with Him. "Blessed is he," as He says Himself, "whosoever is not offended in me." And yet the pride of life and the course of this apostate world make our following of "this poor man" no easy or pleasant thing.

NOTE. — Here ends the first of the five books into which the Jews distribute the Psalms.

Psalms 42-49 constitute a little series or volume. They are all said to be "for the sons of Korah" — an intimation of their being connected with each other. They may have been indited at different times, but that is no matter; the Spirit of God has presented them to us together, and they so follow in order that one subject is duly unfolded in them.

The subject may be said to be this: "The sorrows of the Jewish remnant in the latter day, their triumphs, and then their joy and glory in Zion as head of the nations under their great king."

Psalm 42

This Psalm gives us the complaint of a suppliant who is in sorrow because of separation from God's house, because of the reproach of his enemies, and because of the remembrance of joy now gone by. He is, however, able to encourage himself in God, and to hope for the future.

David's sorrow at the hand of Absalom was kindred with this; for we remember how he was then driven beyond Jordan, and how he sent back Zadok and the Ark of God to Jerusalem. All his joy was in God's habitation; but he had sinned, and his soul owned that joy was not his proper portion then. (2 Sam. 15)

But in all this, we may say, like king, like people. The people, the true Israel of God, in the latter day will come to such sorrow and desire after God. They will mourn sore like doves — like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. (Ezek. 7: 16)

The Spirit of Christ, in full sympathy with them (for in all their afflictions He is afflicted), will lead the soul of the Remnant in these exercises, making them His own. The challenge of the enemy to the individual suppliant, "Where is thy God?" (verse 3) is given to us in Joel 2: 17, as said by the heathen to God's Israel, "Where is their God?"

But the spirit of this Psalm may be the burden of any righteous and afflicted one. And all such sorrow gives exercise of soul towards God, and advances the discipline of the wilderness. It gives knowledge of God's resources, which had never been otherwise brought out by Him, or known by us.

Psalm 43

This is very similar to the preceding. The character of the enemy is perhaps more defined, and the wilful king or the lawless one, and the apostate nation. The troubles of the righteous Remnant are no doubt looked at by the Spirit.

In the brokenness of his heart in these Psalms, the suppliant pours forth interrupted words; sometimes addressing God, then his own soul, and then the enemy who was grieving him. The trial of any believer very naturally utters itself in the like manner; and all of us, duly waiting for Jesus and feeling what the world is without Him, should find our sympathies in these Psalms. We should all be conscious that we have tears to drink if God's water-brooks are not with us.

Psalm 44

Here the complaint becomes the complaint of many. They stand in the consciousness of integrity, though in great sorrow; but they remember God's mercies to their fathers, and upon this they appeal to Him.

It is strikingly the cry of a martyred people, or of those who were suffering at the hand of man for righteousness' sake, and not for any iniquity or wrong they had done. Such was David when troubled by Saul; such will the godly Israel be when troubled by the bold infidel power of the latter day; and such, we need not say, was Jesus, the perfect witness of righteousness against the deeds of the world. (John 7: 7) But such, in our measure, should all of us be, in refusing the course of this present evil world, and taking the separate place of Jesus.

There is an advance in the experience of the soul here. In the two earlier Psalms (42, 43) it had been rather the cry of a penitent, righteously separated from God's house, as David in Absalom's days; but here it is the cry of martyrs.

This Psalm strikingly shows that scripture, primarily or prophetically belonging to a particular people, may have moral or general application; for verse 1 plainly shows this to be a Jewish utterance, but St. Paul applies it to all saints. (Rom. 8: 36, and v. 22) And he intimates that as it is the blessed office of the Holy Ghost to maintain the soul in the sense of God's love (Rom. 5: 5), nothing shall be so strong against us, as is the Holy Ghost for us, maintaining that love. (Rom. 8: 39)

A difference, however, between the suppliant in the Psalm and the apostle in the Epistle is this: the Psalmist gathers present confidence in the sorrow from what the fathers had told of God's mercies in times of old; the apostle gathers his from being able, through the Holy Ghost, to trace God's counsels of love and glory towards himself and all that love God — the called according to His purpose. So, I may observe, there is a difference in the affection of the two: in the one it is fear, from the knowledge that God searcheth the heart; in the other it is love, from the knowledge of His unchangeable love.

Psalm 45

Messiah in His second advent is here celebrated; and this properly forms the Lord's gracious answer to the complaints of the Remnant uttered in the preceding Psalm, and to their cry there (Ps. 44: 26) for Messiah to come as deliverer to Zion.

The heart and the tongue find ready and joyful work when the King in His beauty becomes their subject. For in such a theme, "the Ready Writer," the Holy Ghost, is at His due work. He is taking of the things of Christ to show to us. And the mind of the saint is at home also. As one of our own poets has said, speaking of the things of Jesus,

"My heart, my hand, my ear, my tongue,

Here's joyful work for you."

But in passing on to the Lord as King, the prophet's heart and tongue pause for a moment over His person and ministry in the days of His flesh. And it may be that His present glory, as Priest in the heavens, is intimated in the words, "Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever." But quickly all is passed by to see Him, as king David, fighting the Lord's battle in the cause of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and clearing the land of all workers of iniquity; and then as king Solomon, seated on the throne of glory. God consecrates Him to the office, owning righteousness to be His title, and all greet Him with love, like hers who once broke her alabaster box of ointment over His head (verses 8, 9). Jerusalem, the mystic queen, is also addressed; and the nations, her companions, set off the joy and glory of the king.

But there is something striking as regards this queen. She is looked at as coming, like any sinner of the Gentiles, from some place of defilement which she is exhorted to leave behind her. (Deut. 21: 13) This tells us the character in which Jerusalem will be finally received, even like a returned prodigal; and so the king shall greatly desire her beauty. For in such is all His delight. It is His own beauty He sees in such — the beauty He Himself hath put on them — the shoes, and the ring, and the best robe.

In this Psalm accordingly the Lord's title is owned to stand in His righteousness (v. 7); but Jerusalem's title, the queen's title, as that of every sinner, is only by grace. This is just and beautiful. And perhaps the Canticles give us the exercises of this daughter thus considering, as she is here exhorted, passing through discipline of heart in preparation for this union with the King.

Observe, the queen is the earthly, not the heavenly Jerusalem; because, first, her marriage is with the King, not with the Lamb; second, her marriage follows, not precedes, the victory. The Jews in their ancient writings speak of a Jerusalem above and a Jerusalem below, and of the one being like the other — of Jerusalem being built in the firmament as Jerusalem on earth.

We may read verses 16, 17 as addressed to the King — "thy" in verse 16, as well as in verse 17, being in the masculine gender.

Psalm 46

Here, as necessarily consequent upon the second advent which had, as we saw, just been celebrated or anticipated, the complaint of the remnant is turned into praise and gladness. God has now become their refuge. By His arm the enemy is stilled. Peace flows like a river, and the spear is turned into a pruning-hook. The mountain, according to Matt. 21: 21, had been cast into the sea, while the elect were in their closets, and now they rehearse all this. Nothing of terror touches them. They can talk of the waters gladdening, instead of overwhelming, them. They can triumph in the desolations, instead of perishing by them; for none less than God Himself has been their refuge. "Where is thy God?" has been the reproach of the enemy, and the answer is returned to him in the triumph of this Psalm.

The judgments on the ungodly precede the kingdom, as this Psalm and all the scripture teach us; for by and by, righteousness will link itself with power, and then evil will be judged; and afterwards the whole earth will be governed in peace. Righteousness will take the sword first, and then the sceptre.

Psalm 47

The God of Jacob, who had been celebrated in the preceding Psalm in His warrior character, or as God of battles, is in this greeted in a further stage of His glorious ways. His Jewish people here speak as conscious of the place and dignity in the earth to which He has now called them; and He Himself is addressed by them as having come to Zion, and there taken His seat as King of the whole earth; and all the nations are called to worship before Him. He has "gone up." The gates have now lifted up their heads to let this King of glory in. (Psalm 24) Jehovah-Jesus, God of Israel, is now King of all the earth; there is one Lord, and His name one. (Zechariah 14)

Some, competent to speak on such matters, have suggested that in the 9th verse, we should read "the princes of the people have joined themselves to the people of the God of Abraham."

Psalm 48

The same God of Jacob is looked at in a still onward stage of His glory. In the last Psalm He had just "gone up" to His throne, as after victory — here He is seated, as King and Priest, in His temple and on His throne. And because of this, Zion is the joy of the whole earth, as it has just proved itself the terror of all evil confederacies. Hope is now realized, and faith has become sight. "As we have heard, so have we seen."

The beauty of Jerusalem in the day of the glory is celebrated by the prophets, as well as the beauty of Messiah — the comeliness of the city as well as that of the Son of David — of the queen as of the King in the days of the kingdom. (See Ps. 45) So here we are told to walk round her and survey her wall.

Isaiah 60 sets forth her honour and praise in these days. For David and Jerusalem were by ancient decree linked in one covenant of peace and joy, — the Lord of Israel saying, "Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe for thy son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen." (1 Kings 11: 13)

Psalm 49

The dealings of the Lord with His Israel having been traced, and their course from sorrow and degradation up to settled glory and joy (Pss. 42-48), the Prophet of God addresses a word of wisdom and admonition to all the world, taking these ways of God with Israel as his text. He seems to look at them as a parable, and in this Psalm gives us the moral or application of that parable. He shows that God resists the proud, but raises the lowly, and that the upright alone have an abiding portion. And this is, indeed, the great moral of the world's history, as well as of Israel's. All shows that what is done "under the sun" is vanity; and that resurrection, comprehending what leads to it in grace, and what follows it in glory, is the only reality. (See Ecc. 12: 13, 14) All honour in the world will perish like the beasts (v. 12). Wise and brutish ones alike die (v. 10). Wealth is unequal to accomplish redemption from corruption (6-9). All beauty, short of that which the God of resurrection imparts, shall be consumed in the grave; but there is a morning to arise for the joy and glory of all who are His (14, 15).

Resurrection will interpret all. It is the Lord's witness. And Israel delivered in the latter day will be Israel as in resurrection.

Psalm 50

This magnificent Psalm presents the Lord conducting the judgment of the house of Israel in the last days. The judgment is set (vv. 1-6), and then the books are opened, and out of them two distinct charges are read, as we shall presently see. The remnant are separated from this judgment by one simple characteristic: "Those who had made a covenant with God by sacrifice." He does not describe them by any lengthened account of what they had either done or suffered for Him; but He speaks of them as believers, as sinners trusting in the blood and sacrifice of the Saviour. This is enough for the purpose. As Jesus, introducing the saints to the notice of the Father, tells of them in the same one character, saying, "They have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." (John 17)

Jehovah then prefers His charges against Israel. He indicts them for ignorance of His true worship, — in the same particulars as St. Paul charges the Gentiles in his sermon at Athens. (Acts 17) And it is simply this: man in his religion treats God as one who is to be ministered to and to be appeased, instead of as the blessed giver and reconciler himself. This is the grand difference between human and divine religion. God's religion is grace, man's religion is works. Israel had loaded the altar with offerings, but did not use God as a deliverer (7-15). Such is the first charge read out of the books when the judgment is set. The second is then moved against them. It concerns their practical life and conversation, as the former did their religion and worship. It condemns their conduct as astray also. Religious they were, but unrighteous also (16-21).

Upon all this the Lord addresses a word of warning' of rebuke, and of exhortation, that Israel may heed it in time, ere the judgment thus announced enters, and there be no escape. Let them learn the religion of praise, and the conduct of righteousness, and thus be duly and happily on the road to salvation or glory (22, 23).

It is well, we may say on this Psalm, that the heart be established with grace, not with meats. God's sanctuary is furnished with grace, — man's with meats or carnal observances. If it be God's sanctuary we enter, we shall do so with Praise, and leave it to walk in a well-ordered conversation onward to salvation or the kingdom as here shown us. If it be man's sanctuary we enter — the "spirit of bondage" will fill us — "meats" or religiousness will occupy us, but no real renewed devotedness to God. God's truth will free the conscience, and make us happy in Him through boundless riches of grace, and obedient to Him in ways of righteousness. Man's lie or man's religion will keep us in fear, and leave us unrenewed.

Psalm 51

This Psalm appears to come very expressively after the preceding one. It exhibits a soul giving heed to the doctrine and warning delivered there. It is a call on the Lord (50: 15) in the day of trouble — in the day of deepest trouble too — soul trouble. The poor sinner here flees to grace, flees with his burden to God alone. And this is what the rebuke on the legal religion of Israel in the last Psalm would warrant and lead to.

It is not alone the utterance of David, penitent for his sin touching Uriah and Bathsheba, but the utterance of the repentant remnant in the latter day. (See Ps. 38) The confessor brings a broken heart to God — the only present acceptable offering. But when accepted and pardoned, then will his thanksgiving and burnt offering of praise be rendered and received.

And it is in God alone, as I have said, that the afflicted soul here seeks its relief. He repudiates other confidences. Even ordinances are not his refuge. Sacrifices and offerings which he might bring he renounces as the remedy for his guilt; but it is God's washing, God's salvation and righteousness alone he pleads for and looks to.

And this is blessed. For ordinances are resorted to by a convicted soul ofttimes, as a good heart or a good life would be trusted in by a mere moralist. But it is only another, though more subtle, form of self-righteousness.

And further we may observe this Psalm tells us that as God was all David's relief and repose, so was He all David's object: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." As he says to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." This was the thought in the heart of the true penitent then, and must be still. And from the history we know that the Lord did become David's object. All his behaviour after his conviction showed this; for he would let the Lord do with him just as He pleased — bring him back to gladness as and when He pleased (2 Sam. 15: 25), and plead for him Himself with his reviler and persecutor. (2 Sam. 16: 12)

How does all this tell us to cultivate the habit of walking with God. "Little to be judged of man's judgment," says the Apostle. May we be so minded! May we desire to prove our own work in God's presence, so that we may have rejoicing in ourselves alone, and not in another! May we give the Lord His place in us! He had no place in Judas's heart, he had in Peter's; He had none in the heart of Saul, He had in David's. And so will He have in the affections of His Israel by and by, when they learn to own their sin against Him, as in the language of this Psalm, while the nation, with apostate heart, will be saying, "It is vain to serve God." (Mal. 3)

Psalm 52

This Psalm presents something quite in contrast with the preceding. There the sinner, as we saw, was broken down and turned to God in repentance; here he goes on still in wickedness and in the stubbornness and pride of his heart refusing grace. The penitent was David or the Jewish remnant, as we also saw, and this mighty boaster is as Absalom or the wilful king. This apostate is here still triumphant; but the remnant are trusting in grace, and anticipating their dominion over him.

The "taunting proverb," as Habakkuk speaks, is very fine here (v. 7). We have several of these in scripture, uttered over the fall of some proud infidel despisers of the Lord. His goodness has been scorned, His corrections unheeded, His entreaties mocked, His warnings slighted, and then, when there is no remedy, the Lord "laughs at the calamity, and mocks when the fear cometh." (See Ex. 15, Judges 5, Isa. 14, Ezek. 28, Rev. 18, for instances of these insultations or "taunting proverbs.")

And this Psalm is interesting to us as giving us a divine interpretation of "the olive tree" and its "branches." (See Rom. 11) It is grace or the covenant of promise, and those who trust in it, as the penitent here says, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever."

And such is the interpretation of the same symbol in Rom. 11; for those branches there said to be cut off were such as did not believe, i.e., trust in mercy; and those who are there promised an abiding place are so promised on their continuing in goodness, i.e., continuing in the grace of God.

And so the olive trees and the candlesticks are connected. (Zech. 4; Rev. 11) For to be a witness, we must first live by grace ourselves. We must draw forth the fatness of the olive ere we can shine on the candlestick.

Psalm 53

The wilful king or the boaster who refuses grace or divine goodness, having been apprehended by the prophet in the preceding Psalm, in contrast too, as we saw, with the penitent remnant, the same wicked one is still, through several Psalms, kept before his eye. Here he is challenged as the fool or the infidel; for such will he be. He will show himself to be God; he will act as though there were none above him; he will do according to his will, magnifying himself above every god, and speak marvellous things against the God of gods. Thus do prophets and apostles forecast the likeness of this apostate of the last days. (See Dan. 11; 2 Thess. 2)

And how different the mind of the righteous remnant from that of this apostate. They are humbled and broken in heart, while he is in the fulness of pride. They make God everything to them in this day of their trouble, while he is saying and acting on what he says, "There is no God." Such is the contrast. And thus the saints now distinguish themselves from the world. Jesus, Jesus, is their all in all — His fulness that treasure out of which they become complete. (See Col. 2)

The "great fear" of this Psalm appears to be that of the penitent remnant; on the other hand, the "great fear" of Psalm 14 appears to be that of the boaster and his bands — the enemies of the remnant. This accounts for the difference towards the close of each of these Psalms.

Psalm 54

Its first and second verses express desires on the ground of the affliction rehearsed in the third. And then to the close the suppliant, assuring himself of an answer, makes promise of offering praise to God.

Of course such might be the utterance of faith in any. But prophetically it is the language of the righteous Israel under the pressure of the wilful king, who as we saw had been just manifested. (See Ps. 52, Ps. 53) And we know that when the Lord does bring them into the wilderness of the last days, He will then speak comfortably to them, and give them hope in that valley of Achor. (Hosea 2) In this Psalm they seem to taste this hope. God's Israel here cast themselves on His name (v. 1), and His name will at the end be their praise (v. 6); for we know that His name will deliver them. (See Rev. 19) They call the apostate faction "strangers;" for strangers to God and His Israel they will be, as saints are strangers in the world and to its ways.

NOTE. — On the last verse of this Psalm it has been profitably said — "The preterite tense is used here as expressive of confidence in future mercies. In prophetic language this tense often expresses the certainty of things future."

Psalm 55

This Psalm still like the preceding ones contemplates the lawless or wilful king and his faction. Some of it is the utterance of the Lord Jesus in contemplation of the treachery of Judas and the faction that followed him.* Ultimately it is the lawless one, or some other confederate with him, felt and pleaded against by the godly Remnant in the latter days who are deceived by him, as Jesus was by Judas. For looked at as a Jew, or one of God's nation, Jesus was the Remnant in His day. But this Psalm is also the utterance, in his measure, of David himself, under the craft and treason of Ahithophel in company with Absalom. (See 2 Sam. 15, 16) John 13: 21, shows us how deeply the Lord felt the conduct of Judas, as this Psalm does; as also Ps. 41. But His relief was in prayer (verses 16, 17; see also Ps. 69: 13).

*NOTE. — See the observations on Psalm 27 as to a part of some Psalms, and not the whole being the language of Christ.

Israel took their character from Judas then. (Acts 1: 16) He led and represented them. So will the nation be confederate with the lawless one by and by, and the godly Remnant, like Jesus, will find "violence and strife in the city" (v. 9).

We may observe that the strong thought in this Psalm is this: that the city is worse even than a wilderness. For if the afflicted one here could have done so, he would have exchanged the former for the latter. But what a view of man does this give us! He makes his place more terrible than the haunts of wild beasts! For "the city" is man's place. And through human strife and fraud and violence, it becomes worse than the place of the untamed creatures. In this state, man is likened by the Spirit to the fiercer beasts of the desert. (Dan. 7, Rev. 13) And all of us should have this sense of what man and his place is. Jesus found it to be so, and His relief was only in God. And He could say to God, though in this place of man, "thou hast shown me marvellous kindness in a large city." But by and by, this city of man will be thrown down, (ver. 23, Rev. 16: 19), and place made for God's city, where all will be peace and joy.

Psalm 56

This is still the cry of the same sufferer, by reason of the pressure of the same enemy. He is here under the sense of being completely shut up, having no present resources, while his enemies are many, their plots against him daily, their enmity to him the subject of all their thoughts. Gatherings, hidings, and waitings of them against him are now what he sees or apprehends continually.

The word or promise of God is all his resource — not present strength, but the word of promise — God's remembrance of him; God's bottling of his tears; telling his wanderings or sorrows. This is all he has now, the remembrance of God, as Noah had it in the ark, (Gen. 8: 1), and as this same afflicted people will have by and by, according to Malachi's anticipation of them. (Mal. 3: 16) The word is the hope of the sufferer here, and he assures himself that the chief occasion of his praise by and by will be the word also, or the accomplishing of what he now believes and hopes. As the apostle says, "I know whom I have believed." It is not that there is present deliverance, but there is promise, and faith can listen to that and receive it as the pledge of future praise.

Such should just be the state of our souls. They should rest in the promises, knowing that they will be made good, and become the theme of constant delight. We are never straitened in "the word" or the promises. They are all we want. We need only the faith to enjoy them with full ease of heart. As this poor sufferer anticipates occasions of praise and the payment of his vows, in the light of the living.

Psalm 57

The spirit of this Psalm is much like that of the preceding, and is another utterance, without doubt, of the same sufferers, at the same season.

There are fuller and brighter anticipations of deliverance here; and there is, as afterwards in Psalm 144, expectation of that deliverance by some mission or ministry "from above," or from heaven. The scene in Rev. 19 is the answer of this expectation: there the heavens open to let down the deliverer here desired and expected.

How this collection of Psalms, contemplating strongly, as has been said, the wilful king or apostate of the last days, presents the sorrows of God's people in this world! Indeed all Scripture does, — "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." How could the Christ or the saints of God count but on resistance and martyrdom in a world that ever abides in full enmity against Him. "No man should be moved by these afflictions, for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto." — "As it were, appointed unto death." But it is rest that remaineth. And so this Psalm blessedly anticipates God's exaltation, and His people's praise and songs, when the enemy is gone for ever — when the divine "mercy and truth" and the mission "from above" have accomplished the deliverance. The saint prepares his instrument for a thankful song to the Lord — as David prepared music for the days of Solomon. (1 Chr. 25)

Psalm 58

The rulers and judges of the earth are challenged, as again in Ps. 82. But they are here called "sons of men" (see John 5: 27); but there, "gods."

Under their hand, the world is left in all its native wickedness. The evil state of it is awfully described; and the Prophet calls solemnly for judgment upon them.

And there is this also set forth in the Psalm — the ground of the triumph of the righteous when the judgment of the world comes. We have that triumph itself, for instance, in Isa. 30: 32, and in Rev. 19: 1. But here we have the ground or principle of all that righteous joy in the judgment of God. "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth." The saint could not as yet, in this present dispensation, triumph in judgment, because the Lord is publishing His name and praise in grace; but by and by he will learn to triumph in it, because the Lord will vindicate His divine glory by vengeance, and establish His government of "the world to come" by the judgment of "this present world."

All this is perfect in its season. We now rejoice in the redeeming grace of our kinsman; by and by we shall be able to triumph in the avenging power of the same kinsman. For both belonged to the Goel under the law, and both are the ways of our Jesus in their seasons Rev. 5 shows the saints in the first of these joys or triumphs; Rev. 19 shows them in the second.

This judgment of the earth and its gods or rulers will not, of course, take place till the apostate or wilful one of the last days be manifested. So that this Psalm is the utterance of the Spirit of God in the Remnant, and contemplates the same time and circumstances as the preceding ones, as we have seen from Psalm 52.

Psalm 59

This is still the cry of the same godly, consciously innocent sufferer, against the confederacy of mighty wicked ones, who, in infidel pride, despise the judgments of God. They are called "the heathen," regarded as infidel, while God is all the hope of the poor afflicted one. The language may remind us of Psalm 2: 1, and Joel 3: 12. It is to be read as the cry of the suffering Remnant in the latter day against the confederacy. Signal judgment upon it is sought for (v. 11); as Jesus desires the same on His Jewish persecutors, in Ps. 69. And as the Jewish nation are at this present time under signal judgment, so will this Gentile confederacy be in the coming day of vengeance. (See Isa. 66: 24)

The disappointment of the enemy is strikingly conceived in verses 14, 15, contrasted with their temporary advantage in verse 6. In their prosperity they belched through satiety, but now they grudge as unfed beasts.

The morning comes for the joy of the Remnant, after the evening rapine of these unclean ones has ended in their destruction (v. 16).

Messiah, to whom "the people" belong (v. 11), seems to lift up this cry for His Remnant against "all the heathen." And His confidence in God is strongly expressed in the cry He utters, and in spite of the enemy's strength and malice.

Psalm 60

Here the Jewish Remnant desire the return of the Lord's countenance, which, as we know (Isa. 8: 17), is now turned away from Israel. And they are conscious that till then, the earth will all be out of order. For Israel is the centre of the Lord's earthly arrangements

Zion is the place of His earthly rest.

They own that they had been drinking the wine of astonishment, or gathering the bitter fruit of God's righteous displeasure. But in the midst of all that, they equally own that those who had continued in His fear had known Him, because of His truth and faithfulness, to be a banner to them.

With increased confidence they claim the hopes of beloved ones (verse 5). Then God answers from the sanctuary. Their cry awakens Him, as it were, to a sense of His glory, or inheritance in the earth. For He now surveys His earthly possessions. Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, and distant parts of Moab and Philistia are now owned by Him, and He triumphs in the sight of His glory. He rejoices over them all as His possession, anticipating, in the midst of this, His insultation over Edom. This may call to mind the exulting action of the mighty angel (Christ) in Rev. 10: 1-3; He there anticipates His inheritance of the earth in a spirit of triumph.

And thus it often is. The touch of the poor woman in the crowd at once awakened Jesus, and the repentance of the prodigal opened new joys in the Father's house. And so here. The desires of the Remnant, the hopes and claims of the beloved one uttered on earth, call God's thoughts toward His possessions here, and give Him a joy and triumph over them.

Messiah, on listening to this voice in the sanctuary, in spirit enters this scene of deep and strong affections, longing for the day of battle in the land of Edom, over which His shoe is to be cast. (See Isa. 63: 1) He is "expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." He is zealous to meet the enemy, assured of victory through the help of the God of Israel.

Psalm 61

This is a beauteous and touching little Psalm. It is as an utterance of Jesus in the sense of being rejected by Israel, though He were consciously and rightfully their king. And David, hunted by Saul in the caves and deserts after he had been anointed by Samuel, was the type of Christ in such condition. (See 1 Sam.)

This rejection by Israel gives Jesus to feel Himself a stranger here. He is, as it were, at "the end of the earth;" and there He prays, and there He desires the Rock, that is, Resurrection (see Ps. 40: 2), or the Kingdom. But He trusts, with full faith, in God's present presence and shelter; and in that, as His tabernacle, He is purposed to abide "for ever," or through the age of His rejection. But after a pause, He anticipates more than a shelter in a time of rejection and sorrow. He assures Himself of God's favour to Him as King; and that, as such, He will soon abide "for ever," or through the age of a kingdom, when He will pay the vows of His present distressful hours, and His cries and prayers shall be changed for joy and praise.

Psalm 62

This same rejected King, the disowned Son of David, is here heard also. He is blessedly making God every thing to Him. He will own no other refuge, or source of strength, but God. God is His rock, His salvation, His glory. His soul waits only upon Him, and all His expectation is from Him. (See Heb. 10: 12, 13, and see Ps. 110) This is a truly excellent expression of the faith of the rejected Jesus, who was the Remnant, as we may speak, in His day; and most acceptable must have been the incense of it before God.

In this Psalm, Jesus enjoys God as His Rock; in Ps. 61. He desired the Rock — and He encourages His people to have the same mind, and to cease from man; and challenges the men of this world for their deceit and violence and false confidence.

Well indeed has He learnt the lesson, that "power belongeth unto God." For once God had spoken it, but twice Jesus had heard it. He had heard it with a full witness of its truth; so wide did He open His ear to divine instruction morning by morning. (Isa. 50: 4) Man is a duller scholar. (See Job 33: 14)

Thus the Lord shows Himself separate from fallen man. He trusts only in God, and will take only from God. The devil would have had Him trust him, and take from him, as Adam did of old (Gen. 3), and as the Apostate will by and by (Rev. 13: 2), but He refused. (Matt. 4)

And He has learnt God's mercy also. Because, though God Himself is everything, as their utterance had owned, yet will He give every one the reward of his works. Though He works all our works in us, yet will He deal with them as ours, and reward even the cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus.

Psalm 63

The same disowned King is again heard in this Psalm. But here He is making God the great source of refreshment and joy to His spirit, as in the preceding Psalm He made Him the ground of His confidence and strength in circumstances.

The whole system in Israel, as settled by the Lord, was a sanctuary. (Ex. 15: 17, Ps. 114: 2) For a sanctuary is a place where God makes Himself known, and the land of Israel was such a place. Jehovah was there. But Israel had revolted, and Jesus was disowned. And thus it was "a dry and thirsty land" to the righteous.

But in this Psalm, faith is in lively exercise. As Jesus cannot see God's power and glory in the sanctuary, He will remember God Himself. He has the sense of His loving -kindness, though the sight of the sanctuary be denied Him. His meditation on Him shall fill Him with praise, and the conscious shadow of His wing with rejoicing, though He be now cast out, and the place be in itself dry and thirsty.

This is blessed exercise of the soul upon God. And refusing His soul any other present joy than this remembrance of God, He assures Himself of other joy by and by, even royal joy, joy in His kingdom, and confusion of all His enemies, when they shall be made a portion for the beasts of the earth. (Rev. 19; Ezekiel 39) Because spiritual joy and refreshment, however blessed, is not the end. Glory ought still to be the expectation. Christ having a kingdom in store for Him, nothing less than the joy of a King can satisfy Him. He is even now, though seated at God's right hand, still an expectant. (Heb. 10: 13)

This Psalm was also, to all appearance, David's utterance when separated from God's house but still encouraged by God's spiritual presence. And our souls should know these secrets. Did not Peter know them when he slept, and Paul and Silas when they sang praises in the prison? There was no sanctuary around them, but the Holy Ghost had spread within a kingdom of light and liberty and joy in God. They were citizens of a city that needed not the light of the sun. The godly Jew in the last days will find his sympathy with this utterance also. Verse 10. "Foxes." (See Lam. 5: 18; Luke 13: 31, 34) The fox does different work from the "hen." She gathereth under her wing, — he scatters and desolates.

Psalm 64

The suffering Jesus here prays for protection from His insidious infidel persecutors, who privily plot against Him, and despise the judgments of God.

More fully, however, it is the desire of the Spirit of Christ in union with the afflicted Remnant in the latter day. For against them, as against Jesus Himself, the infidel faction, as we know both from Psalms and Prophets, will plot.

And Psalms of this character may remind us of what is said of the Lord in 1 Peter 2: 23. As we know also from John 17: 25, that He did commit the world, in its infidelity, to the notice of the righteous Father.

The righteous know that God has His arrows as well as the wicked — His of judgment, theirs of deceit and mischief (verses 3, 7). And they assure themselves that they will see their enemies taken in their own evil way, and then the world around fleeing from them, and learning, by His judgments, to fear the Lord and to publish His doings. And, finally, they take knowledge of themselves, as making their boast, putting their trust, and reaping their joy, in the God of their salvation.

Psalm 65

This is a Psalm of peculiar beauty. The Remnant in Israel are looking at the house where their fathers praised; and they own to the Lord, as it were, that that holy and beautiful place is laid waste, that all there is silent as death now, but ready to break forth again in the glad performance of vows, and in the gathering of all the world into His sanctuary, when He has heard His people's prayer (1, 2). In a spirit of repentance, they then own that their iniquities alone must account for their present ruins; but they have confidence in the coming divine remission of their nation's guilt (v. 3). They look for God's goodness to themselves, and for His righteousness upon their enemies; anticipating that the ends of the earth will be moved when they hear of these divine judgments in righteousness on Israel's enemies (4-8). And at the close, they anticipate the millennial joy and fruitfulness of the earth, when the Lord shall again become the husbandman of the land of His people, as He was in old time, when His eyes shall return to rest on that land from one end of the year to the other, when beauty and gladness and rich fertility shall attest the care and skill of the divine dresser of His loved and favoured vineyard, when days of heaven shall be on earth. (See Deut. 11: 10-21)

Nothing can exceed this picture. The thoughts of the Remnant are rapidly carried through sorrows and judgments up to the millennial rest and prosperity. But there they indulge themselves at some length over the happy scenes around them. The wilderness and the solitary place are glad. The Lord is for the mountains and hills, the rivers and the valleys of Israel again, and they are tilled and sown. "The desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by, and they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden." (Ezek. 36: 35) In poetic words

"The fruitful field

Laughs with abundance — and the land, once lean,

Exults to see its thirsty curse repealed."

Psalm 66

Here the praise anticipated and waited for in the preceding Psalm breaks forth in Zion. Jehovah has answered the prayer by terrible things in righteousness. (Ps. 65: 5, Ps. 66: 3, 5) The vows made are here paid. (Ps. 65: 1, Ps. 66: 13, 14) When they were afflicted they prayed, now being merry they sing psalms.

But this Psalm appears to have a very exact structure marked by Selahs. The Psalmist (the Spirit of Christ in the Remnant) calls on all lands to praise God for His judgments (1-4), and then invites them to look at those judgments (5-7). He then calls on the people to bless God for His mercies to them (leading them himself in that worship, 8-15), and then invites them to hearken to the story of those mercies (16-20).

Observe "come and see" in ver. 5, "come and hear" in ver. 16; for the manifested works, or works in the earth (the operations of His hand), are proposed to sight, the hidden works, or works in the soul (the operations of His Spirit), are proposed to the ear. The whole Psalm is an utterance of great liberty and joy of heart, and savours richly of the gladness of God's chosen in the days of the kingdom, remembering the judgments of the wicked and the discipline of the righteous which had ushered it in.

Psalm 67

This Psalm is the utterance of the Jewish Remnant brought near the kingdom and given faith to see what the result of their salvation will be upon the world generally. (See Hosea 1, 2; Ps. 85 Isa. 2: 2; Isa. 11: 9, 10) The "Redeemer of Israel" is to be the "God of the whole earth." (Isa. 54: 5)

Two lessons the world is to be taught through Israel, — righteousness, from the divine judgments in behalf of Israel on the nations (Isa. 26: 9); grace, from the divine goodness towards Israel itself. (Jer. 33: 9) It is the second of these the Remnant here desires the world may learn. And at this time also, the saints, glorified together and like Jesus in heaven, will teach the world to know the love, the wondrous love, of the Father, and that it was the Father who sent Jesus. This will be the highest, deepest lesson, and told out by the heavenly children. (John 17: 22, 23)

The desire of the Remnant in this animated little Psalm is, we may just add, very fervent and happy. They, as it were, "magnify their office," like the Apostle celebrating the great results of their own God giving them His blessing. And we know that the receiving of them will be nothing less to the whole world but life from the dead. (Rom. 11: 15)

Psalm 68

For grandeur and compass this Psalm stands, perhaps, unequalled. It was sung, most probably as the Ark was moving from the house of Obed-edom to mount Zion. It opens, therefore, with the words of Moses, as in earlier times the Ark was beginning to move through the wilderness. (Num. 10) And we are told that at the carriage of it by David singers accompanied it. (1 Chr. 15) Here we are as if listening to the song they sang.

And as the ark itself was a mystery, so was this journey of it. It was the expression of the return of the Lord to His Israel in the latter day. For then, through trials, they will be brought to the joy of God's presence again; as here the Ark, the symbol of that presence, is brought from its distant exile and seated in the heights of Zion.

This journey appears to be broken into several stages (1 Chr. 15: 26):

First Stage. — As the Ark begins its journey, the singers celebrate in a general way the different effects of the presence of God — of which, as has been said, it was the symbol — both on the wicked and the righteous. For that presence is doom to the one, but salvation to the other (1-6).

Second Stage. — After the first pause, the journey being resumed, the singers rehearse both the awful and the gracious tokens of the same divine presence, while Israel was passing the wilderness (7-10).

Third Stage. — Here they publish the power of God for Israel, when, having accomplished their passage through the wilderness, He brought them to Canaan, and there gave them the oil of joy for mourning, and beauty for ashes (11-14).

Fourth Stage. — This part of their journey appears to bring them within sight of Zion, and the singers hail that hill of God; and as they begin to ascend it, they prophesy the ascension of Christ, the true Ark, (in whom, as we know, the glory itself dwelt, for He was "God manifested in the flesh,") and the fruit to themselves and others of such ascension (15-19).

Observe, as to the angels, that they ascended at mount Sinai in their dignity, being able to bear the light of that fiery hill, having never lost their first estate of holiness and honour. But they attended on the ascension of Jesus in their ministry, being ready to serve in full subjection to Him.

Fifth Stage. — Being now in the act of bearing their sacred burden up the hill, as they contend for the summit, the inspired singers celebrate the day of Israel's trial, when the Lord will arise to deliver them from death and their outcast condition, to display His presence again in mighty power for them, and to recompense the controversy of Zion on her enemies. For this was in season, like the prophecy in the preceding stage; the struggle up the hill being a fit token of Israel's last trial, as the beginning to ascend it was of the ascension of Jesus (20-23)

Sixth Stage. — Having gained the heights of the hill and the Ark having attained its rest, the singers, in like suitableness, prophesy the final glorious rest of God and His Israel, when the same presence of God shall still be known though in a new form, or as the goings of "the king." The nations will then wait with their offerings: the spear and the sword will be rebuked; and He that rideth on the heavens will be found both in His excellency and strength for Israel, as is here announced (24-35).

The Lord of heaven will concern Himself with Israel in these latter days. (See ver. 33, Deut. 33: 26) For He will first, as the rider on the white horse, come forth from heaven for their rescue (Rev. 19), and afterwards in the opened heavens be the great centre of glory and power in the kingdom. (John 1: 51)

Such is this most magnificent Psalm, rehearsing the virtues of the Divine Presence throughout the history of God's people. The song that was sung after the Ark had been duly set by David in the tent which he had prepared for it on mount Zion, is given in 1 Chr. 16. That followed this. This was an interrupted song, while the Ark was on the way; that an unbroken one, when its journey was ended.

Psalm 69

In this solemn and affecting Psalm, we listen to an utterance of the Son of Man. His soul passes through the sense of His sorrow, and the anticipation of the judgment of His persecutors, up to His resurrection and His kingdom in Zion in the latter day. We have the communion of the soul of Jesus with God, both as the one who was able to save Him from death (Heb, 5), and as the one who judgeth righteously. (1 Peter 2) For He cries to the one, and commits the keeping of Himself to the other. And thus this Psalm illustrates those two things taught us by the Apostles in those two passages: so perfectly do the lights that shine in the old and new Scriptures, whether in the Psalms or Prophets, or in the Epistles or Apostles, blend together.

We may distribute it into the following sections or parts:

Verses 1- 12. Jesus the Son of man utters his sorrows.

NOTE. — Verse 5 shows how He identified Himself with His elect (2 Cor. 5: 21), and it is comfort to us to know that our sins have been thus confessed. And God knew the secret of all Jesus' grief, though man did not. (See Isa. 53: 4) Verse 6: He desires that none may be stumbled or offended because of His shame and sorrow (Matt. 11: 6), but learn that it was borne for others. For the affliction of the righteous one will be an offence to them who do not understand and value this. His sorrows from the hand of man were for God's glory in the world; His sorrows from the hand of God were for our atonement and salvation forever. Verse 4 is quoted by the Lord Himself in John 15.

Verses 13-18. He discloses His source of relief and support in these sorrows. As He says in another place, "for my love they are my adversaries; but I give myself unto prayer." He committed Himself to God. (Ps. 109: 4)

Verses 19-28. He arraigns His Jewish persecutors and calls for judgment.

NOTE. — This is accordingly the occasion of the present state of Israel. (See Rom. 11: 8-10) judgment rests on them, their souls, bodies, and estate. Their system, as God's witness, and God's nation, is in ruins.

Verses 29-31. He pleads for resurrection, making His vow of praise.

NOTE, — "He was heard in that he feared," or, "for His piety." (Heb. 5: 7) He was delivered out of the pit, in one view of the resurrection, by His own virtue and holiness. (Ps. 16: 10) His people are delivered through His blood. (Zech. 9: 11, Heb. 13: 20) But the great enemy is bound there. (Rev. 20: 1-3)

He will pay the vows He here makes. (See Ps. 116) And this praise for resurrection is more grateful to God than sacrifices of oxen and bullocks in remembrance of sin. And it is in fellowship with Jesus in resurrection that the saints now worship. There they lay, as on a new altar, their sacrifices of praise. (Heb. 13: 10, 15)

Verses 32-36. He anticipates Israel's repentance, and then the kingdom.

NOTE. — "His prisoners" is the title for the Remnant. (Zech. 9: 11, 12) Compare verse 32 with Ps. 22: 26, where the Remnant are clearly intended.

The common joy of heaven and earth, as attendant on the restoration of Zion to be the dwelling-place of His once poor but now enriched people, is sweetly anticipated.

Thus, in this very blessed Psalm, the spirit of Christ muses onward from His suffering up to the full joy of His expected kingdom.

Psalm 70

We have here much the language of the closing verses of Psalm 40. And it is a suited utterance for the man of many, many sorrows, and might have been oft repeated. It has some connection also with the next Psalm. (See verse 2, and Ps. 71: 13) We may remember, in connection with ver. 3, the railing of Mark 15: 29.

Psalm 71

David is heard distinctly in this Psalm. The Spirit of Christ also, as in company with the Remnant, whose type David in his sorrows and repentance so strikingly is. David's affliction from the hand of Absalom was the affliction of his "old age," or when he was "grey-headed." So the affliction of the Remnant will be in Israel's old age mystically. (Isa. 46: 4)

The bringing up from the grave, or the pit, or the depths of the earth (verse 20), expresses the pardon of sins, as the resurrection of Christ was the pledge of that grace. (Isa. 38: 17)

But the most striking character in this Psalm is David's desire to have God and His righteousness magnified in him. He had already been a wonder, but he desired to be more so. His history had been hitherto an exhibition of marvellous grace. Taken from the sheepfolds to be anointed king; defended from the cruel enmity of Saul; brought to honour, as he had before been strengthened for victory; these were the shining ways of grace towards him. But now, to be restored after sin and backsliding, this would make him still a greater wonder. He would indeed show that "grace triumphant reigns."

On this the soul of David is here fixed. It is not the confession of sin, of which his suffering from Absalom was the fruit, but he glories in the thought of illustrating abounding grace. He looks only at being set for God's praise "more and more" — of telling of God's righteousness, and "of that only." And truly blessed is such a rich experience as this; when a poor sinner, in the sense of divine grace, does not utter confession, but triumphs in the thought of illustrating in his own person the aboundings of God's goodness. We see this in St. Paul. David can confess sin, and that heartily, on suited occasions, and bow his head under the punishment of it (see Psalm 51, etc.); but here, it is not his sin that he confesses, but it is the grace of God abounding over it that he would have exalted for ever, and to which end he seeks and anticipates deliverance from present trouble, and the increase of his greatness. Thus would his history more strikingly than ever show forth God's righteousness and praise.

And we would add (though it has been hinted already) that Israel's history is remarkably similar to David's: — Election of him, though the least in his father's house — preservation from his persecutor — endowment and power — then, sin, and forfeiture of all, with captivity beyond Jordan — and final restoration and rest. These are the common ways of God with Israel as well as with David; and thus both of them can declare God's wondrous works, and talk only of His righteousness, all the day long. The Remnant may, therefore, in their day, well encourage themselves in the history of their beloved king in days of old. For in this way, he is set forth as a pattern to them (like Saul of Tarsus) of all divine longsuffering. (See 1 Tim. 1: 15, 16)

Psalm 72

The blessed One, who called Himself "greater than Solomon," is surely "here." Christ as King of kings, clothed in all regal dignity, and reigning in righteousness, with full universal and enduring dominion, as in the millennium or times of restitution and refreshing, is presented here. (See Ps. 45; 2 Sam. 23: 1-4; Isa. 9, Isa. 11, Isa. 32; Jer. 23: 5-8) This is the time of which it is said, "The Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one." (Zech. 14: 9)

This king does altogether differently from the earthly gods who are found unfaithful to their royal or judicial commissions. (Ps. 82) He will rule or judge wisely, as expressed by Solomon's decree between the two harlots. (1 Kings 3) And the sceptre of righteousness in His hand will secure peace — mountains and hills, or governments and offices, bringing the one by the other (verse 3). In this way, that kingdom will express the presence of the true Melchizedec, or the sovereignty of Him who is both King of Righteousness and King of Peace. For righteousness being in power then, peace, godly peace, must be the result all the world over : all inconsistent with this must come into judgment. Isaiah 11 beautifully exhibits this also.

To get a name has been the great effort of man, even though the devil give it. (See Gen. 3: 5, Gen. 4: 17, Gen. 11: 4; Ps. 49: 11; Dan. 4: 30; Rev. 13: 2) But Jesus will receive a name from God. (ver. 17, Phil. 2: 9) And then the old promise to Abraham shall be made good in Christ his seed, for all shall be blessed in Him. (See ver. 17, and Gen. 12: 3)

But all this royalty and power of Jesus is to God's praise (18, 19). For in the kingdom all will own Him Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2) And His throne shall then be an untransferable one, as His priesthood now is; for it is here written "he shall live" — it will be constituted in "the power of an endless life" (Heb. 7) — and prayer and praise shall sustain and surround it, like Solomon's, for ever. All desire ends in a scene like this, in such a kingdom as is here anticipated — the prayers of David cease — for this kingdom is their answer. And surely the thought is blessed and cheering. But we know that a gloomy night is to usher in this bright and happy day. Indeed we do — and that thought is serious. The "whole world is to wonder after the Beast," ere "every tongue confess Jesus Lord."

I may just add, that this kingdom does not now bound the expectations of faith, though it answered the prayers of David. For the further light of the revelation of God has taught us to look for "new heavens and a new earth" after this kingdom. This kingdom is to be delivered up, and then God is to be all in all. (See Ps. 8)

NOTE. — Psalm 71 gives us the old age of Jewish sorrow; and then, Psalm 73 the morning, or spring time, of Jewish joy, or Solomon's glory. For though there is the time of "Jacob's trouble," yet "he shall be saved out of it." (Jer. 30)

Here the second part of the Book of Psalms, according to the Jewish division, ends.

Psalm 73

This Psalm very tenderly and exactly delineates the path of a tempted soul. The prosperity of the wicked is the temptation. In vv. 13, 14, the tempest of the soul seems at its height, and v. 15 discloses the first gracious control given to it by the Spirit. The sanctuary is then entered — that is, the mind of God about the whole scene is understood, and all is interpreted in the light of "the end" (v. 17); for that is the light which the sanctuary yields, and in which the wise walk. (Deut. 32: 29, Ps. 90: 12) And then we see the further work of the restoring Spirit of God, till the poor soul reflects upon this its path as bringing shame to itself, but proving also the unchanging love of God; for the eater has yielded meat — the temptation has drawn out the still richer resources that are in God. The secret of resurrection is apprehended, and the soul rests. The worshipper had been as a beast, feeling and reasoning as though the present life was everything. But he learns (what Paul so set himself day by day to learn more perfectly, see Phil. 3) the power of resurrection, and that casts a new and a calm light on everything in which he walks, and sees Him who is invisible. (See Ps. 77)

Observe upon this Psalm, in contrast with the 37 the same object is before the mind in both — the course of the world, and the prosperity of the wicked. But there is not the calmness of faith here as there, but the passions of the soul. There the tranquillising light of faith and hope gilds the soul from first to last, but here the repose and joy of faith is reached through deep sorrows of heart which had risen from unbelief.

So also, in contrast with the preceding Psalm, we may observe, how different things are in "this present evil world" and in "the world to come." There, we saw that righteousness and the vindication of wrongs will mark the kingdom or world to come, and peace and prosperity will be the sure fruit of godliness then. Here, we see that the oppressor fattens on his oppressions, and a cup of tears is wrung out for the righteous.

But in this way, different lessons are learnt. The one world in which our God acts and shows Himself could never have taught the lessons of the other. In the present world we are learning that He has treasures of grace to meet our need, and in the coming world we shall learn His treasures of glory to meet our joys. Like the blessing committed to Aaron, and that committed to Melchizedek. (See Num. 6, Gen. 14) Both was blessing, but different, each suiting itself to the different condition of the people of God — to their time of need, of weakness, and temptation, and then to their time of strength, victory, and honour.

Psalm 74

We have in this Psalm a sample of very tender and sorrowful pleading with God. It is evidently the utterance of the Remnant in sight of the desolation of Zion. The enemy is seen triumphing in the full pride of victory over God's house and people, and the congregation of the Lord left to reproach without sign or prophet. The desire is, that the Lord will show Himself as the kinsman-avenger of Israel. For under the law, the kinsman was to ransom, to avenge, and to build up the brother's house. And this is a cry to Him to act as an avenger. At the exodus from Egypt He had so acted, and that is pleaded here. He had then, as their kinsman, both ransomed Israel out of Egypt, and avenged Israel upon Egypt, dividing the waters for His people, and breaking the heads of leviathan. Deborah celebrates Jehovah as an avenger in judges 5, and the heavens celebrate the Lord God as the same in Rev. 19: 2.

The prophet or suppliant is moved by the same deep and aggrieved heart as Isaiah, when he in spirit looked on the same scene of desolation. He would fain know how long the misery was to last. (v. 10, Isa. 6: 11)

The suppliant further pleads the promises which secure Israel and the earth. (See ver. 17, with Gen. 8: 22; and ver. 16 with Jer. 33: 20) He pleads also the covenant, and that this cause was God's cause. And this is according to their mediator Moses, in his day, who pleaded the fathers, and the covenant of promise, and the honour of the name of Him who had redeemed them from Egypt. (See Ex. 32: 12, 13) And the Lord says Himself, that in the present preserving of Israel and their final establishment, He has respect to His own name. (Deut. 32: 27) And in the rehearsal of His ways with Israel, in Ezek. 20 we have the same thought again and again.

The desolation of Zion here contemplated is either that by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, of the Romans, or of the Wilful King in the latter day. Indeed, in the judgment of God, Judea is one scene of desolation, from the days of the Chaldean till the enemy fall on the glorious holy mountain, and the kingdoms become the Lord's.

NOTE. — Verse 7 may remind us of the Chaldean invasion (2 Kings 25: 9); ver. 4 may call the idols on the battlements, or the abomination of desolation, to our thoughts. (Dan. 9: 27, Matt. 24: 15)

Psalm 75

This is a very striking little Psalm, and one of easy simple interpretation.

The first verse gives us the thanksgiving of the nation now, by anticipation, saved and avenged in answer to their cry in the previous Psalm. God's works in that salvation, and vengeance just executed, had shown Him to be near His people, as they here celebrate. His name had been for a long time distant from Israel. But now, as their faith anticipates, about to do His "wondrous works" for them, they know that He is returning and bringing His name near again.

The following verses, from the second to the end, are Messiah's utterance. He vows to rule in righteousness, when He receives the people as His inheritance (ver. 2; see 2 Sam. 23: 4; Ps. 101). He recognizes the apostasy of all kingdoms and systems till His own sceptre arise. (Ver. 3; see 1 Sam. 2: 8-10, Dan. 2: 44) He challenges the rebels or apostate powers of the world, who had erected themselves against the Lord, assuring them that God would soon visit them. (Ver. 4-8; see Ps. 82, Ps. 83; Haggai 2: 22; Heb. 12: 27) He then, in contrast with them, pledges Himself to hold His sceptre unto God's praise, and in the righteous dispensation of reward and punishment. (9, 10; see Matt. 25: 31, Rev. 3: 21)

What holy and glorious consciousness of Himself fills the soul of Messiah in all this utterance! He knows that when He receives the congregation He will judge uprightly. And He knows too that He alone sustains the pillars of the world.

Thus, the material of this Psalm clearly shows itself to us. The wine cup, the cup of trembling, the cup of His fury, the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath, are various titles of the same cup, which is the emblem of divine judgments, like the vials of Rev. 16. The cup of salvation, on the other hand, expresses the joy of the kingdom. (See Psalm 116; Luke 22: 18) Oh what a morning without clouds will the rise and waving of this righteous sceptre, here anticipated by the Lord Himself. spread over this groaning and thorny creation! And it is a striking and beautiful point in this Psalm, that the cup here drunk by the people of the earth does not pass on to Messiah. He takes instead of it the other cup) and at once calls on the name of the Lord. (See ver. 8, 9, and Ps. 116: 3) The cup of anger is for their hand, the cup of salvation for His. He once took, indeed, the cup of sorrows, the cup of Gethsemane, for us poor sinners; but it is the cup of praise, the joy of the kingdom, that remains for Him now, while the apostate powers of the earth are wringing out the dregs of the cup of fury.

Psalm 76

This Psalm is still in connection. For as Psalm 74 was the cry of the Remnant over the desolation of Zion, and as Ps. 75 presented Messiah challenging the enemy and taking the kingdom as in answer to that cry, so this Psalm shows Him seated in Zion, no longer therefore a desolation, but saluted as the throne and sanctuary of the Lord, made more excellent than all the mountains of prey, or the preceding kingdoms of the Gentiles. God's name is "great in Israel" now, as it has previously been brought "near" by His works of judgment. (Ps. 75: 1, 76: 1)

Though the Spirit has larger thoughts in it, yet the occasion of this Psalm was, probably, the overthrow of Sennacherib's army. For this signal deliverance was achieved eminently on behalf of Zion. (See 2 Kings 19: 20-35) So that it was said to the King of Assyria, "The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn." As here, the Psalmist says, that in Zion God broke the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle. Verse 7 may remind us of Ps. 2: 12.

In a fine strain the people publish this mighty achievement. And at the close, the Prophet of God, who had been anticipating all this, draws the moral, that the Lord acquires glory out of the violence and iniquity of man, (Ex. 9: 14, 16, 29); then overrules it all, and finally spreads around Himself a happy and a worshipping people, keeping the whole earth in godly subjection to His sceptre as King of kings.

The Gentile kingdoms are fitly called "mountains of prey." Daniel says, speaking of them, "these great beasts." (Dan. 7: 17) They were in God's esteem the haunts of wild beasts.

We may more particularly observe, that verse 10 reveals a very glorious truth. It intimates that all things, even the most unpromising — such as "the wrath of man" — shall end in God's praise; and all that cannot aid that happy result shall be cleared off the scene, forestalled, as it were, by the divine sovereign power. How truly should our souls triumph in this thought! Things may appear evil and confused, but there is not a circumstance in the "mighty maze" that shall not swell the hallelujah around the throne and in the presence of the Lord, and aid in giving them their harmony and power for ever and ever.

Psalm 77

There is something very touching, and at the same time very instructive, in the path of the soul in this Psalm. It may remind us of Ps. 73. It may be read as an utterance of the Jew under his discipline in the latter day, but the soul of any saint may use it.

The first verse gives us the result, or the end of the path, as is common in the Psalms. The soul's path is then traced back to its beginning.

It was a time of trouble, and the suppliant religiously seeks the Lord. But this was not properly faith. It was the working of religious sentiment awakened in the day of trouble. It did not lead to strength or liberty. Recollections arise to aggravate the grief. The soul sees God rather in its own sorrows and exercises than in His doings and ways. It was God, but God as in connection with present griefs; and murmurings are cast up by all this working. The Spirit of God at length, however, introduces His power and light, and at once the current of the soul is changed. He leads the suppliant to see that all this was but nature. "This is my infirmity." It had a religious character in it, but it was merely man, or the infirmity of nature, not the strength and repose of faith. And the Spirit then takes the soul off from God thus seen in the light of its own sorrows, to God seen and understood by the light of His own ways. Old things are again remembered; but they are the old things of God's salvation, and not of the suppliant's griefs (v. 5, 11); days of old when His people had to go through trackless deeps and untrod paths, and yet proved Him to be their leader and shepherd. And the doings of God display Himself, tell what He is, and thus they form a "sanctuary," as the Psalmist here speaks (v. 13).

And is it not the true Gospel comfort, to know our God in His doings for us? There we learn a simple tale that needs no interpreter — we get an undistracted witness of devoted everlasting love. We read a "glory" that gladdens us "in the face of Jesus Christ." But His dealings with us are in discipline, and wait to be interpreted. Job was troubled when he thought of God's dealing with him; but for a happy moment the Spirit led him to God's dealings and acts for him, and all was triumph. (Job 19: 23-27) So the Psalmist here.

Psalm 78

A certain distinguished Prophet here announces himself as having deep secrets to open. (v. 1, 2) A company of Prophets then, according to divine appointment and by way of admonition, trace the history of God's ways in grace, and Israel's ways in perverseness, from the Exodus to David. (3-72)

Thus we have "things new and old," — the new being the secrets just hinted at by the speaker of the two first verses, the old being the well known things rehearsed by the company of Jewish prophets.

Now we know that the Lord Jesus Christ took the place of this distinguished Prophet — this Prophet of new things, and so, in measure, does every one instructed in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 13: 35, 52) In such sense the least there is greater than John the Baptist. St. Paul was eminently among these instructed scribes, being conscious that he was bringing forth the new things (see 1 Cor. 2, Eph. 3, Col. 1), things kept secret, or hidden mysteries. And no scribe is duly instructed in the kingdom of heaven, or a due teacher in the present dispensation, who does not discern between the things "new and old."

But the old things as well as the new are of grace. The difference is rather in the old being Jewish or earthly, the new being of the Church or heavenly. (John 3: 12) This is the difference. But the old or Jewish things of this Psalm very distinctly tell of final grace and salvation. For Israel is here recorded to have destroyed themselves, and God at the last to have arisen in the grace that could set up David, and choose Zion and Judah for their help and recovery. And so will it be in the latter day. They are now a scattered and judged people again, having again destroyed themselves; but again they will be gathered and blest under the true David, the true King of Zion, the true Lion of Judah. And in the integrity of a heart that never can swerve, and in the skilfulness of a hand that never can err, He will keep and feed His Jewish flock on their native mountains.

NOTE. — I would suggest that a full stop ought to be put to verse 2; and that verses 3 and 4 ought to be read thus: "That which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, we will not hide from their children," etc., etc.

Psalm 79

I listen to this Psalm as the expression of the sorrow of the captives after Jerusalem had fallen into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. But equally do I read it as the sorrows of the Remnant under the hand of the great enemy in the latter day.

And we might observe that the captives in Babylon would express their sorrow in language suited to the Jews till Messiah and the kingdom come, because the age is one. The times of the Gentiles began with the captivity, and will not end till the throne of David revive in the hand of Messiah. The mind of a righteous Jew, if I may so speak, in one sense is the same throughout this age. And we have a similar thing in the history of the church. St. Paul prophesies of certain evils in "the latter times," and in the "last days," but yet speaks about them to Timothy as though they had then come. (1 Tim. 4; 2 Tim. 3) And so, in one sense, they had, inasmuch as the same spirit was working then. The whole age of Christendom, as of Israel in the discerning judgment of the Spirit of God, sustains one character from beginning to end.

More specifically this Psalm, I judge, is the cry of the Remnant in the hour of their deepest distress under the pressure of the beast (Rev. 13) after the slaughter of the witnesses. (Rev. 11) It may be read as the impassioned cry of the preserved remnant after their brethren had been martyred (v. 3). Such two remnants, or two portions of the same remnant, the Lord contemplates in His great prophetic word in Matthew 24. The Revelation of St. John, I believe, proceeds upon the same distinction of preserved and martyred portions of the faithful Israel in those days.

They own their sin, trust only in mercy, plead the glory of God's own name, present to God their reproach and grief, and the enemies' infidelity and oppressions, and make their reproach God's reproach, — their cause His cause.

I would observe a difference that has struck me. The psalmist or the prophets, rehearsing the cause of Israel's present rejection, speaks of their iniquities and sins as in this Psalm; but the apostle in the same connection speaks of Israel's not submitting themselves to God's righteousness. (Rom. 9, 10) Such difference is easily and beautifully intelligible.

Psalm 80

This Psalm seems to be in connection with the preceding. Psalm 79: 13 suggests 80: 1. Accordingly the soul of the Remnant advances in liberty and confidence. There is not the same confession of sin, but a stronger appeal for deliverance, and a fuller intelligence of the divine counsels. The Man at God's right hand is pleaded, — the Son of man made strong for God's purposes. What a thought, as we utter it! to think that there is a Man, "a real Man," now glorified in the highest heavens. And such is Jesus in resurrection and ascension. (See Matt. 28: 18; Psalm 110: 1; Dan. 7: 13; 1 Peter 3: 22)

Verse 2 refers to Numbers 10, where, on the journeying of the camp, we learn that the Ark went immediately before the standard of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, and on the moving forward there was a cry to the Lord as here.

Verse 17 may remind us very specially of Matthew 26: 64.

The prophet, in pleading for Israel, is animated by tender and lofty thoughts of Israel's ancient glories, as the apostle afterwards is. (See Rom. 9: 1-5) And very beautiful is this. The very nature of the ruin bespeaks the grandeur of the building, and awakens the deeper sympathy.

On the burden of this Psalm, so to call it (see verses 3, 7, 19), it may be observed that we get the person of the Lord strikingly revealed through Scripture. Thus, regarded in different lights, He is both the answerer of prayer and the suppliant. He receives the Spirit, and pours out the Spirit. (Zech. 12: 10; Acts 2: 33) He is the Rock (Matt. 16: 18), and yet He looks to God as the Rock. (Psalm 62) He is one of the flock (Psalm 23), and yet the Shepherd of the flock. (John 10) He is on the throne praised, and yet the leader of the people's praise. (Psalm 116; Rev. 5) He is a Priest, and yet the redeemed are priests to Him. (Rev. 20: 6) In one respect He is a Jew, desiring the divine favour for His nation, and waiting for the face of Jehovah to be turned again to His people. (Isa. 8: 17) In another respect He is as Jehovah Himself, the God of Israel, with His face turned away from His people (Matt. 23: 39), thus strikingly revealed in both His divine and human place, both as the expectant head of Israel, and yet as Israel's God. All this can be understood when the great mystery of "God manifest in the flesh" and its glorious results are understood. But who can utter it all? (See on Ps. 18)

Psalm 81

We are still in the same connection; for this Psalm is the expression of the Remnant quickened, as they had desired in Ps. 80. It is the language of their souls now revived and repentant, or of Israel keeping the feast of trumpets, which was the type of Israel's repentance in the latter day, according to Leviticus 23. This is the true blowing of the trumpet in the new moon, or the expression of Israel's revival after the present Gentile interval (verses 1-5) — the time of returning light, or when the moon shines again under the light of her lord.

But the Lord is moved by this repentance of Israel, and then rehearses both His ways and their ways in older times, — by, this, vindicating His dealings with them; for He lets them understand that it was their own folly and evil which had made this revival necessary; that had they obeyed His voice, "their time should have endured for ever" — they should have known no breach or interruption at all. He has now in His grace quickened them afresh; but He desires that they may never forget this — that they themselves have made a revival or re-quickening necessary.

But He not only vindicates His dealings with them in this way; but His words are beautifully suited to deepen and strengthen the spirit of repentance in them, as the look of Jesus at Peter worked, together with the cock crowing, in restoring his soul. And this is quite natural, — so strikingly does God enter into the ways of the heart of man. The heart, in a day of softness and repentance, would powerfully feel such an appeal as this.

Verse 13 may remind us of Deut. 5: 29, and of Isaiah 48: 18, — from all which passages we gather other witnesses to the deep tenderness and sympathies of the Lord; for before Israel sins, He is presented as longing that they may not sin, but remain a blessed people; after they have sinned, He is presented as mourning over their evil and loss of blessing.

Psalm 82

In this Psalm the Lord God, in sovereign right, stands to judge the powers and governments of the world, those Gentile powers to whom He had entrusted the sword during Israel's rejection. He calls them to render account of their stewardship. He reminds them of what their commission had been, convicts them of unfaithfulness to it, and then pronounces the sentence. Upon this His people take comfort, and call on Him to take to Him His great power and to reign; for this judgment is to be followed by His possession of all nations; and we know that the knowledge of the Lord will be spread by His judgments. (See Isa. 26: 9; Rev. 15: 4)

How blessed it is to see Christ's faithfulness to His stewardship in contrast with the unfaithfulness here rebuked. The kingdom, therefore, is not taken from Him, but He delivers it up. (See 1 Cor. 15: 24) This proves His faithfulness.

But we may add on this Psalm, that it helps us to see the contrast between the past and the present dispensation. Then it was that God constituted earthly gods, or judges, representatives of His power and government, among His own people, as we see in Ex. 22: 28. But now it is the Son sent forth from heaven, full of grace and truth; not again the representative of judgment in the world, but the minister of grace to the world. A judge or earthly god was the expression of the time then — the Son of the Father, full of grace to sinners, is the expression of the time now. (See John 10: 32-38) But judges or earthly gods are still owned as of God. (Rom. 13: 1) This Psalm assumes that, for it exhibits their trial and removal, when the Lord takes the kingdom in the latter day. But they do not form the character of this dispensation. Grace to sinners does that.

Psalm 83

This Psalm is still in the same connection. It is one of the cries of Israel in the latter day. They call on the Lord to break silence (Psalm 28: 1); they show Him the evil doings of their federated enemies, saying as it were, "And now, Lord, behold their threatenings;" they make the cause as much His as theirs; and they call for such signal judgment upon them that the inhabitants of the world may thereby learn righteousness, or that there is a God who judgeth in the earth. (Psalm 58: 10, 11; Isa. 26: 9)

We read throughout the Scriptures of confederacies against Israel. (Isa. 7, 8; Ezek. 38; Joel 3; Micah 4: 11; Zech. 14: 2, 3) The destruction of them will be complete, like the driving away of the chaff from the summer threshing-floor. And the Israel of God behave themselves here as Isaiah instructs them. They do not trust in a counter-confederacy, but sanctify the Lord in their hearts, and make Him their object. (See Isa. 8)

The confederacy contemplated here appears to be after Israel has become a nation again (v. 4). Such objects the Prophets seem to look at occasionally; and no doubt the action of the latter days, on the Lord taking the kingdom and appearing in His glory, will be widely extended. God, as another has said, does not only judge the last rebellion of antichrist or the beast, but having made His power felt, the moment of His wrath being come, He judges all nations. Scripture cannot be broken; that is true and precious. We, however, may be able to follow it out in our thoughts only partially.

The judgment closes in the exaltation of the God of Israel, Jehovah, in His kingdom over all the earth.

Psalm 84

This Psalm was a suited utterance of David when separated from God's house. (2 Sam. 15) It may be the desire of any saint who through the Spirit thirsts for heaven. And it will be the utterance of the patient, waiting Remnant.

In the esteem of this soul there are three orders of blessing. First, where there is constant abiding in God's house; for then unbroken praise is the occupation. Secondly, where there is travelling up to that house, with occasional refreshment of spirit. Thirdly, where there is trust in God, though in distance from that house, and no present prospect of it (verses 4, 5, 12).

Observe, the whole earth was to Jesus distance from God's tabernacles — a dry and thirsty land. (Psalm 63) His soul was parched everywhere, save when He met the faith of a poor sinner. Then He had meat to eat and water to drink even here. But God's presence was everything to Him. And to restore that presence to this apostate earth was in a sense the purpose of His visitation to it. The opening and close of His ministry expressed that. For He then cleansed the temple (John 2; Matt. 21) — an action that told of His ridding this earth of defilement, that it might be God's habitation and praise again.

The saint seems to muse with divine pleasure on the thought of the sparrow and the swallow (representing as it were all His creatures) finding their rest in God's sanctuary. For so it will be in the coming kingdom. The creation, which now groans, will be delivered into liberty and glory then.

The spirit of this precious Psalm is very comprehensive. All the saints, with Jesus as their leader, may breathe the language of it. It takes in the hearts of all the people of God. Well may it be, as it has been, the enjoyed companion of the meditations of our souls at all times. Happy, when we together reach that house where praise will still or for ever be heard"

Psalm 85

Here the Jewish election rejoices in the anticipated blessing of their land and people, uttering their desire in the day of their distress, but waiting in full assurance that it will be answered in mercy.

And they recognize the great result of this mercy:- truth springing out of the earth, and righteousness from heaven approving it — the Lord giving His blessing, and the land yielding her increase. And they seem also to apprehend the way in which this kingdom shall be introduced. And we know it is the same way as that by which we poor Gentiles get blessing now (Rom.11: 31); i.e., by the cross of Christ, where indeed "mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace kiss each other." (Rom. 3: 26)

For "truth," which required death (Gen. 2: 17), and "mercy," which can think of nothing but life and blessing, are here together. Death is endured according to truth, and the culprit given life and liberty according to mercy. "Righteousness" also kisses "peace," and "peace" kisses "righteousness." Instead of being offended at each other's presence, they welcome each other. For righteousness is more than honoured by that which He who makes peace offers to it on the cross; and peace is deeply satisfied, when it sees that it can publish itself to sinners on so sure a title as honoured and accomplished righteousness. And all these glories will shine in consistent beauty in that kingdom which this wondrous cross introduces. All is harmony where all was strife before.

In this present age of ours, instead of truth springing out of the earth and righteousness looking down from heaven, it is rebellion and sin here, and grace beaming from above.

Psalm 86

This Psalm, in the spirit of it, may easily be the companion of any of the saints in the day of their trouble — as it would appear to have been the breathing of the soul of David. The "for I am holy" of verse 2 is not to be read as more than the common appeal to God of a consciously pious soul. It does not seem to assert personal perfectness.

The dear and suffering servants of Christ desired a token to be shown for good in the face of their enemies (v. 17, Acts 4: 29, 30). And fear afterwards came on all. (Acts 5: 13) Aaron's budding rod came forth from the divine presence as a token to silence the adversaries, and so the resurrection is that glorious token in favour of Jesus which will abash all who withstand Him, and prove in its result that it is indeed hard for them to kick against the pricks.

"The son of thy handmaid" (v. 16, and Ps. 116: 16) has been judged to mean, "thy property, like the offspring of a female slave," as "one born in thy house."

But the Israel of the latter day may also take up this Psalm, the Spirit of Christ guiding their hearts — as we see so much in this book. For an infidel faction is contemplated; such as purpose the destruction of the suppliant (v. 14); proud ones who do not set God before them. And they seem to cast themselves entirely on mercy, pleading something of the name of the God of mercy, as He showed Himself to Moses after Israel had destroyed themselves at mount Sinai (v. 15, Ex. 34: 6). And their soul taking this standing, the Spirit leads them with much assurance to anticipate glory. They learn that God is both good and great (verses 5, 10).

Psalm 87

This Psalm is in praise of Zion. Zion is the witness of Israel set in grace and not under law. (See Ps. 78: 65-72) This is the distinctive character of the name. Accordingly its memorial is blessedly before God, as the name of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is before Him. (Ex. 3) And this place is here declared to be the scene of His strength or of His enduring kingdom; (v. 1) — scene of His delight; (v. 2) — the scene also of His glory (v. 3).

Encouraged as it were by this, she then appears to speak her own praise, as the mother of the family of God, giving the Lord Himself as a witness to this dignity of hers (v. 4-6). And this will be so when the New Covenant comes to be dispensed in and from Zion. (See Isa. 2, Ezek. 47, Joel 3, etc.) For the New Covenant is the Sarah, or the mother. In the present dispensation, no system or place on earth can be called the mother, because the blood and the Mediator of the New Covenant are in heaven. Therefore Jerusalem the mother is still "above." (Gal. 4) But in the coming dispensation she will be in Judea, and then the Zion of this Psalm may look on the right hand and on the left, towards Egypt and Babylon, and recognize her children everywhere.

The Lord Himself appears to sanction this, closing with an expression of Zion's joy, and of His own delight in her (v. 7).

But this suggests some blessed truth. Jerusalem has destroyed herself; but in God is her help. She is stained with blood; but the blood will be cleansed. (Joel 3) She is now desolate and rejected, because she rejected Jesus; but she shall be saluted by and by, as "the habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness," and be called "the Lord is there." (Jer. 31: 23; Ezek. 48: 35) Jesus has hitherto known her as the place of His tears and weeping (Luke 19); but here it has become the place of His fresh springs and of His singers. This change in the bearing and conditions of Zion is very blessed. "This is Zion whom no man careth after," has been her reproach; "the joy of the whole earth," shall be her praise. And in all this Zion is a sample of the earth. For as yet it has been the occasion of divine grief and repentance (Gen. 6: 6-12), it shall be the scene of divine delight and glory. (Ps. 8, Ps. 24, Ps. 104: 31)

Psalm 88

We hear in this Psalm one of the cries of Him who cried to Him that was able to save Him from death. (Heb. 5: 7) It was uttered, it may be, some moment between His being seized in the garden and His cross. For then all had forsaken Him, and He Himself could not go forth (v. 8, 17, 18). The sentence of death was then eminently in Him, though all through life He had been a dying one (v. 15) or "dying daily," as the Apostle speaks. But "free among the dead" He especially was during this interval. And then for three hours of darkness, closed by the shedding of His blood or life, He was sustaining the judgment of sin from the bruising hand of a righteous God. For we observe, that through life, the sorrows of Jesus came from man because He was righteous. But at last He was under the bruising of God, because He was made sin for us. And during the three hours of darkness, He was where no kindly ray of the Divine countenance could enter, for it was sin which occupied the place, the victim who was "made sin for us," and God could only retire and leave it all in darkness.

Jesus here pleads (see also Ps. 6: 5, Ps. 30: 9, Ps. 115: 17) to be delivered from death, on the ground that the dead could not praise God, nor the grave declare Him. For God is not the God of the dead but of the living. "The living, the living, he shall praise thee," says Hezekiah, instructed of the Spirit to open his lips as one consciously in resurrection. And so Jesus cries for deliverance on this most blessed plea, that God is known not in death but in life. "I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord."

Psalm 89

This Psalm is the language of some faithful Jew, whether in Babylon of old, or among the Remnant in the latter day, who believes the promise made to David, but is grieved at its delay. Our Lord Jesus is the David, or David's seed, here spoken of. (Cp. 2 Sam. 7: 14, and Heb. 1: 5; Ps. 132: 11, and Acts 2: 30; Isa. 55: 3, and Acts 13: 34) The certainty that all shall be well in the end and for ever is strongly expressed. The mercies of the Lord are "for ever" — mercy is built up "for ever" — the seed of David is established "for ever" — and the like. This is the soul's confidence and joy in all the covenanted, promised mercies to David, His throne, and His people. In spite of all appearances, it is the believer's assurance that "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." And we know that the resurrection of Christ has made David's mercies "sure." (Acts 13)

The following may serve as a brief opening of this Psalm.

1-18. The Jewish saint rejoices in Jehovah's covenant with David, reciting it shortly in verses 3, 4.

19-37. He then recites it very fully. And very rich and blessed it is; and forms what is called in other words, "the sure mercies of David," the ground of all Israel's blessing.

38-45. But with all this promised or covenanted blessing, he contrasts the present sorrows of David's house and kingdom. And we may observe that the condition in the covenant (see v. 30-32) was the ground of this sorrow; though quite in character with his present thoughts, the Jew does not allude to this.

46-51. He then expostulates and prays. "Reproached the footsteps," in verse 5 1, seems to be in reference to the scorners, because the Lord tarries. (See Malachi 2: 17; 2 Peter 3: 4)

52. He closes (we may suppose after a little pause), anticipating God's grace, with praise; thus linking the end of his holy musing with the beginning.

In this Psalm we may observe the combining of mercy and faithfulness. Precious security for the poor sinner! as we read, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." For our mercies are covenanted mercies — pledged, promised, undertaken, sealed, and, in a great sense, purchased mercies. Precious security! And from it we may observe that discipline is not forgetfulness, but rather the token of remembrance — David's throne is for a season in the dust because of transgression, but it has not been forgotten. The enemy reproaches because of this. They proudly talk of the footsteps (verse 51), the delays, or lingerings of the anointed. They say, "Where is the promise of His coming?" But the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. The covenant is as full and fresh in God's remembrance as it was in the days of David himself. And the Lord will appear to Israel's joy, and their enemies shall be ashamed.

Let every tried believer know that discipline is not forgetfulness but remembrance. Nay, delay is not forgetfulness. "He that shall come will come" . . . "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness."

NOTE. — The third part in the Jewish division of the Psalms ends here.

Psalm 90

At the opening of this sublime Psalm the worshipper or "man of God" utters his sense of everything failing but the Lord, and those who trust in Him. And this thought the Lord Himself in His ministry afterwards has — "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."

The worshipper then confesses human frailty, and traces the reason of it; and upon this utters his desire that in the full sense of this frailty he may act wisely, and wait only for the Lord's return; and he closes by desiring that return, when stability shall take the place of frailty, and beauty of ashes and dust.

The sense of all distance between the judgment of death on man, and his return out of death, appears to be lost to the soul here, in its strong apprehension of what God is (v. 4). St. Peter appears by the Spirit to have this scripture in mind. (2 Peter 3: 8)

The Spirit of God, by the man of God, touches in this Psalm on new creation in Christ Jesus. Of course He could not announce this mystery in the same fulness as a scribe now instructed in the kingdom. But we have it touched on. There will be heavenly and earthly scenes, but all is new creation. The Lamb's wife, the heavenly city, will bear in her the glory of God (Rev. 22: 11); but Israel and the earthly city will know that glory also. It will shine on them, if not in them: "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." (Isa. 60: 1) All will enjoy it, but in different power. This therefore is the intelligent cry of a man of God, though but with Jewish or earthly hopes, looking on to the kingdom. "Let thy works appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children; and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us." And this language tells us that Israel speaks in this Psalm, though it speak of man as such. This, however, is simple and just. Because man was tested in the Yew. Israel's fall is the witness of human frailty. Seventy years the Psalmist mentions as the period which marks man's frailty or vanity, and that also we know was the time of Israel's vanity, or their captive state in Babylon.

Truly blessed, however, the general truth of all this is. The new creation has not had its foundation in the dust, but in the Lord Himself — in the Lord as risen from the dead, when He was in victory over all the strength of the enemy, having put away sin and abolished death. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place." The Builder is the chief stone in the building. Waves and winds may beat in vain — the subtlety of the serpent is vain. This is for everlasting. "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish."

Psalm 91

In contrast with the frailty of man contemplated in the preceding Psalm, here are celebrated the rights and prerogatives of that perfect Man in whom there was no frailty (1, 2). For all beside carried the sentence of death by reason of sin, but Jesus knew no sin. His nature was clean, and He ever fulfilled the divine pleasure to perfection, and was entitled to full security and blessing. And such chartered rights are here read out to Him (3-13).

Thus this Psalm was a city of refuge to Christ, had He pleased at any time to run into it. But He was willing that refuge should fail Him, and though without sin, to be made sin for us. He emptied Himself of these His human rights, as He had before of His divine glory. Phil. 2 shows both of these.

How was the whole rife of Jesus the great contradiction of the way of Adam! Adam was nothing, but sought to be as God. Jesus was everything, consciously equal with God, yet made Himself nothing, and emptied Himself. The person He assumed — the form of a servant; the station He filled on earth — a carpenter's son; His life, His ways, His testimony — all was the full contradiction of him whose departure from God in pride has fashioned the course of "this present evil world." He was ever hiding, ever emptying Himself. He could have commanded legions of angels (as this very Psalm entitled Him, v. 11; Matt. 26: 53), but He was the silent captive of His wicked persecutors. If He taught, and the people wondered, He would say, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." If He worked miracles He would say, "The Son can do nothing of Himself."

What worship, what fragrant incense before God, was this life of Jesus! That divine delight in Him is here expressed (14-16). And what rest and solace to the heart, yea, what satisfaction to the conscience, to know that God has been so honoured, so refreshed, in this world of ours. What savour to the death or blood of Jesus does the life of Jesus render! His blood is the sinner's plea, his only title; but all God's delight in Him aids in enforcing the claim of that blood on the poor sinner's confidence. What a Christ-honouring contrast shows itself to us, when we read Psalm 91 in company with Psalm 90, "the man of God" is confessing human frailty, tracing the cause of it in human iniquity, and owning the only relief it can count upon to be a new creation of which God will be Himself the foundation as well as the former, the chief corner-stone as well as the head of the corner.

In Psalm 91 a divine oracle addresses Messiah, and tells Him that because of His perfection in faith, His moral glories, God would be His security against all frailty, accident, hesitation, danger, or damage of every kind; and God Himself is heard affirming this and recognizing Messiah's perfection in affections, as the oracle had recognized His perfection in faith and morals.

But there is this further, though not expressed, that in His day, Messiah surrendered these His chartered and divinely attested rights and securities, as Son of Man, in that wondrous mystery in which He was willing to be made sin for sinners, and the vindicator and exhibitor of the full glories of God. (See Matt. 26: 53, 54)

Thus man's frailty has to look for its relief only from God. Messiah has perfections, not frailties, but surrenders all the rights they secure Him to God.

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Psalms 92-101 constitute so many parts or chapters of one little book. They celebrate the introduction of the kingdom, or "the world to come," and show Messiah Himself, His Israel, and the nations, anticipating it. Many of the Jewish writers themselves refer them to "the world to come."

Other Scriptures might prepare us for such Psalms. Isaiah tells us, that in the midst of the judgment, the true Israel will lift up their voice and sing for the majesty of the Lord; and these Psalms might suitably be the subject of that singing. (Isa. 24: 13-15) Hosea shows that, in the second wilderness, or place of discipline, in the latter day, they shall be spoken comfortably to; and these Psalms may be the utterance of their comforted hearts. The valley of Achor is to be a door of hope, and they shall sing there. (Hosea 2)

Indeed Messiah tells His people to sing in anticipation of His kingdom. (Isa. 42: 5-16) Jehoshaphat sang as he entered the field; and in these Psalms the Remnant rejoice and sing in hope. So the Watchmen in the latter day sing at the tidings that salvation is coming. (Isa. 52: 7, 8) Having put them thus together as forming one little book, and said this much generally upon them, I would open them shortly as follows.

But how small is the measure here given to them! and how happily and largely may they, to a greater measure, engage the meditations of the saints! May we all kindle our hearts at such blessed Scriptures more and more in company with Jesus. (Luke 24: 32)

Psalm 92

This is the language of Christ, the Son and heir of David, anticipating His kingdom or Sabbath. But in this coming Sabbath, God's thoughts will be celebrated as well as His works (v. 5). This will give the joy and praise of the final sabbath a higher character than the first had, when the works alone were celebrated. For counsels of grace, which are God's deep thoughts, have produced this. The first sabbath came in simply upon creation, the last sabbath will come in upon the destruction of the enemy, as Christ here also anticipates, so that it will not be exposed to danger and disturbance, as the first was, but the righteous will still flourish and be fruitful, as is here also declared.

Zacharias spoke of Jesus as this "horn of salvation," under whom Israel was to be delivered and flourish. Here the speaker takes that character to himself. (See Luke 1: 67-79)

But Messiah, son and heir of David, takes the kingdom from God. (Dan. 7; Luke 19) It is called the kingdom of the Father. God the Father is glorified though it be the day of the Lordship of Jesus. (Phil. 2)

Jesus was anointed for the ministry of grace (Isa. 61; Luke 4); He is to be anointed for the ministry of the kingdom. (Isa.11: 2-10) This is the "fresh oil." Faith in a poor but happy pardoned sinner brought its oil to greet this anointed one. (Luke 7; John 12) The nations will also after this manner gladden and honour Him. (Psalm 45: 8; Matt. 2: 11) And here Jesus owns the fragrancy of this costly anointing which was on Him.

This is, indeed, "a Psalm or song for the Sabbath day." For this exaltation of the anointed One will be the kingdom, of which the Sabbath is the type and pledge. And then, the teil tree and the oak, which have long been withered, shall flourish again — revive as in the time of old age. Israel shall then, after so long a time, flourish and bud and fill the face of the earth with fruit (verse 14; Isa. 6: 13, Isa. 17: 6). And all this will be to God's praise. "Every tongue shall confess Jesus Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Psalm 93

This is the language of the people, anticipating, in their turn, the same millennial kingdom. They address Messiah the King, celebrating His power and glory in some grand features of it:-

1. His discomfiture of His enemies.

2. The stability of His throne.

3. The holiness of His house or government.

This Psalm seems to announce the great subjects which are in the following Psalms more detailed. It is an Introduction, doing the well-known office of a Preface.

Psalm 94

This Psalm, accordingly, resumes the first of those subjects more largely. The people, waiting for their Messiah or King, call on Him to judge the enemy, to still the floods (92: 3) that are lifting up their voice. And all Scripture joins to tell, that the millennial kingdom of Christ will not be brought in, till this judgment is executed on the enemies of Israel.

But in the course of this Psalm, the afflicted Remnant greatly comfort themselves in God, assured that He will work for them. They know that in the midst of these floods and waves, the Lord is their Rock which nothing can move.

The judgment here described is the day of the Lord's vengeance — the year of recompence for the controversy of Zion — the day of breaking up confederacies — the day of the Lord that is to be upon everything lifted up — the day of "revenges upon the enemy." (Deut. 42: 41, 42) The floods that lift up their waves will then be rebuked by the Lord. (Isa. 17: 12, 13)

But judgment is to "return unto righteousness" (verse 15). The judgment is to lead to the exaltation of righteousness in the earth, when power will be on the side of righteousness, as in the kingdom.

The infidel character of the faction is strikingly challenged and rebuked by the righteous Israel (verses 7-10). St. Peter addresses the same unbelief, but more in the way of a teacher of God's truth. (2 Peter 3)

Psalm 95

Thus encouraging themselves, their hearts are tuned to a song of joy and praise, so lively and fresh are their anticipations. The Lord by His Spirit seems to break in on all this anticipated joy, not to check or alter it, but just to give holy admonition in the midst of it (vv. 7- 11). And this interruption, or this voice of the Spirit, acts in two ways; it tells them that there is a rest (see Heb. 4); it tells them also that they must take heed and avoid all that which in their fathers caused a loss of that rest. (See Heb. 3) For they are still in spirit in the wilderness or place of discipline, — still, as of old, between Egypt and Canaan, and therefore in need of such admonition. The apostle's commentaries on these chapters give this character to this voice. But we know surely that the admonition is rightly applied to us all.

Psalm 96

They continue their joy here, which shows that the Lord had not by His exhortation (Ps. 95: 7- 11) designed to check it; and here they summon the whole earth to join it. A "new song" is called for. And the Jews themselves interpret "the new songs" of Scripture to belong to the days of Messiah; that is to "the world to come," as the Apostle speaks — the power of the Son of Man. And besides, as there was a song at creation (Job 38: 7), so another and a richer song, "a new song," will usher in the kingdom or the times of refreshing and restitution, when the earth itself shall be in the liberty of glory. (Rom. 8: 21)

This Psalm is recited in 1 Chr. 16, and forms part of that beautiful composition, that sweet compound of songs and joys, which David and Israel prepared for the ark taking its rest, which was the type of the kingdom by anticipation celebrated here.

All shall be included in the closing joy. As in Rev. 5 the redeemed, the angelic companies, and all creatures in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the seas, join in it, so here, all are summoned to the millennial song, that there may be a full chorus of praise.

Psalm 97

This Psalm is another exercise of the heart of the Remnant anticipating the kingdom. It is as though they were even now bringing the First-begotten into the world the second time, or in His glory; not in His sufferings as at His first coming; and joyously they rehearse, in spirit, His discomfiture of all His foes.

But here again, as in Ps. 95: 7-11, the Lord by His Prophet breaks in on all this joy with words of admonition (vv. 10-12). He tells them that for the righteous all this light and glory is prepared; and warns them therefore to hate evil, and to cultivate tempers worthy of the coming kingdom.

Fire is to be the instrument of the divine judgments in this expected day of the Lord. The battle of the Lord is to be with burning and fuel of fire. (Isa. 9) The throne of the Ancient of days is like the fiery flame, and a fiery stream comes forth before Him in the day of this judgment. (Dan. 7) So in the vision of John, the Temple was filled with smoke, as the God of glory and power was preparing the vials of wrath. (Rev. 15)

But Zion rejoices (v. 8). There will be tabrets and harps for the righteous then. (Isa. 30: 32) For though light and gladness are only then sown for them, and not as yet reaped by them, still they can sing, as we observed already — anticipations are so sure; for "faith is the substance of things hoped for."

Psalm 98

Upon this the true Israel sing again. As it were, they use the tabret and harp, which we know, as observed above, are to be theirs, even in the day of God's judgments. His judicial righteousness is the theme of their gladness here; and again they summon all to join with them. They also chant their own salvation in the day of this judgment. For we know that they will be drawn out of many waters: like Noah they will be preserved in the very place of judgment — like Lot, drawn forth in safety from it. (See Ps. 18: 16) They will then be spared, the same day illuminating them, and consuming the enemy. (Mal. 3, 4) They will only be refined by these fires (Zech. 13)

All Scripture shows, like this Psalm, that the joy of the whole earth will follow the restoration of Zion. And the praises of the Lord will then be as "a loud noise:" for all will join in them; and there will be no rebuking of them, or silencing of them, through the unbelief of the world. There will be nothing to check, but all to swell the full concert of praise then.

Psalm 99

The same Israel of God are still occupied here, as is very evident, with the same thoughts and joys. They largely anticipate the kingdom, the forgiveness of the nation's sin according to the pattern of the divine mercy to their fathers, and then the people rendering in the temple the services of praise, in the spirit of reverend fear, from the sense of the holiness of God's house and government.

But it is not the precursory judgments that raise the joy, as we saw before, but the actual reign in Zion. For the Lord is now seated between the cherubim, at home in the midst of His people. He is "great in Zion." And His people shout His praise again, exalting the Lord at His holy hill, or place of righteous government; all the review of the past, whether they were the days of Moses and Aaron, or of Samuel, all aiding the praise. And so it will be. For every thing that will not do that shall be restrained, as we saw under Psalm 76.

Psalm 100

This Psalm calls on all the Gentile people to follow Israel into the holy house of God with praise. The sureness of His testimonies, His truth, and His mercy, are declared. And thus the mountain of the Lord's house is established, and nations are flocking to it. Many people and strong nations, according to the prophet, seek the Lord of hosts at Jerusalem. His house there is a house of prayer for all nations; and while its walls are salvation, its gates will be praise.

And here, at the close of these songs of Israel, we may again observe that Scripture teaches us that Israel will, in the day of their discipline, know these joys (See Ps. 99) It is true they will mourn like doves; they will confess the nation's sin, like Daniel or Nehemiah; they will say "my leanness, my leanness;" but they will have their joys and anticipated songs also. The Apocalypse shows us the same in principle (See Ps. 11: 16-18) For there the joy in heaven is anticipatory in the day of divine wrath and earth's destruction. And I may say, as Isaiah 60 appears to be the Spirit of Truth teaching the Remnant what the results of the Redeemer coming to Zion (see Ps. 59: 20) are to be, surely when they learn that lesson they will have abundant occasion to sing songs in prospect of the kingdom. For the same Spirit is leading their hearts, the same Spirit is weaving sorrows and joys together, the thought of their own iniquity with the thought of the Lord's salvation and kingdom, that their souls may be led into various and profitable affections.

Psalm 101

The previous Psalms have been, as we have seen, varied happy exercises of the Remnant on the great themes connected with the kingdom, and which were suggested at the beginning — such as the discomfiture of the enemy, the stability of the throne, and the holiness of the house or government of the Lord. Here Messiah is again personally heard, as He was in the first of this series. (Ps. 92) He takes the kingdom (that is by anticipation, greatly desiring it in reality, verse 2), entering it with a song to "mercy and judgment;" for mercy and judgment had just been seen in the way of bringing in the kingdom-judgment on the enemy, mercy towards the true Israel.

And having sung this song, He undertakes to order His kingdom in righteousness, and to maintain the holiness of God's house for ever, as in Ps. 72, 2 Sam. 23: 5, Isa. 9: 7, Isa. 11: 4, Zech. 14: 21.

And observe that, in principle, "mercy and judgment" are the burden of the thoughts or songs of every believer or worshipper when entering on any divine dispensation. Adam went out of Eden to walk across a cursed earth as a pardoned sinner, with this song in his spirit — so did Noah enter on the new world — and so did Israel enter Canaan in the like way; for each of these in his day, Adam, Noah, and Israel, had witnessed judgment upon others, and were themselves the witnesses of mercy. We have entered on our age, singing likewise of "mercy and judgment;" for we have seen the judgment of our sin sustained by Christ, and ourselves the monuments of mercy. And when the glory or kingdom is entered by and by, as we read here, mercy and judgment will again be sung. And this must be so, for righteousness must be upheld, while grace takes its course; justice will not give way, though love will have its way.

What a perfect little volume this appears to be. (92-101) Messiah Himself opens and closes it. At the beginning He anticipates His being anointed for the kingdom, or the exaltation of His horn — at the close He declares how He will order His kingdom. And His Israel in the mean time have, as we have also seen, rehearsed their anticipations of the kingdom in its judicial righteousness and final blessedness. Oh for more concord with all this in our hearts! Oh that we were "tuning our instruments at the door" — getting our hearts more in harmony with the joys of this coming kingdom! May we watch and pray for such a mind, and be skilled in the songs of the Lord!

Psalm 102

Something very different is now to be heard. This Psalm opens with the complaint of "the Man of sorrows." He sees Himself deserted by His followers, reproached by the foe, and sustaining the righteous anger of God, — the indignation and wrath due to others falling on Him. (1-11 ) We then listen to God's answer to this; and that answer pledges Him life and a kingdom, and display in His glory, rehearsing also the theme of praise with which Israel and the nations will then celebrate Him. (12-22) Then Messiah is heard a second time solitarily musing on His griefs, (23, 24,); and God, in like manner, again answering Him — reminding Him, so to speak, of His ancient glories at Creation, and pledging Him, as before, life, a kingdom, and a seed. (25-28)

The quotation in Heb. 1 from this Psalm seems to give it this structure and character; for it tells us that v. 25-27 is the language of God to the Son, and this leads us to conclude that v. 12-22 is the same. And thus the above structure of the Psalm is determined.

But, in connection with it, we may notice one thing. The Lord Jesus Christ is the builder. This entitles us to see the Christ as the head of every dispensation — the great active power in all — whether in Creation, among the Patriarchs, on mount Sinai, or as the God of Israel through all their history. He made the worlds, or ordered the ages. (Heb. 1: 2) He built Moses and every house of God. (Heb. 3: 3) And it is the Christ whom God addresses in this Psalm as having laid earth's foundations, and outliving, in His glory, all things that are made — the Christ who was once the bruised and smitten one. Wondrous mystery!

It is a Psalm of very touching beauty and grandeur.

It is like Jesus in Gethsemane, exceeding sorrowful even unto death, going away and praying again, saying the same words, and yet again and again heard — the angel from heaven strengthening Him there, the answer of Jehovah assuring Him here. (See Luke 22: 43)

I might further observe that this Psalm also lets us read, in these utterances of Jesus and the divine answers to them, what we learn from other simple doctrinal Scriptures — that the glories of Jesus come from His suffering. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It shows us "the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow." For the Lamb on the throne is the Lamb that had been before on the altar. It is the bow of Him who had been once shot by the archers that abides in strength. All Scripture shows us this; and we have it in these cries of Jesus, and the answers so blessedly made to them.

And so as to our blessing. It all depends on the same sufferings of Christ. No thoughts of God's love are to be allowed which would interfere with the demands of His righteousness. The love is without measure. That is true. But it is not a mere emotion. It is that which, at an unutterable cost, provided redemption for the guilty. And if we think of love without believing the provision that it made for the claims and exactions of righteousness, we are dealing with a mere sentiment of our own mind, and not with the revelation of God. And poor are the best conceptions of man's religion — something different indeed from the moral grandeur and perfections of the Gospel of Christ, where God is just while He justifies the sinner, where we learn that He has brought back His banished ones, and received His prodigals, all the while upholding the full glories of His throne of righteousness, and providing in and from Himself an answer to all its demands. The Cross of Christ is the secret and centre of all this.

Psalms 103-107

These Psalms form the different chapters of another little book. The contents prove that; and the first of them alone having a title favours it.

It is a fine celebration of God's resurrection-power, or pardoning restoring grace.

Psalm 103 celebrates this grace or power in the Psalmist's own Person. He rehearses the forgiveness of all his sins, and the guiding of him onward to the kingdom by the safe and tender hand of his heavenly Father.

Psalm 104 looks at Creation in the same light. God's providence rules over all even now; but in the end His resurrection strength will be applied to Creation, which therefore will again, as of old, become the object of divine delight, and though it now groans and travails in pain, will then be delivered.

The 105th, 106th, 107th, celebrate the same thing in Israel;

Psalm 105 looking at Israel blest of God till they were brought to Canaan, and there set under the law;

Psalm 106 looking on all that as failing, and Israel bringing ruin and death on themselves; and then

Psalm 107 presenting the resurrection grace and strength of God, calling Israel from the place of death to know His loving-kindness and declare His goodness as a people who had been dead and were alive again, who had been lost but now were found.

Psalm 106 closes with rehearsing the cries of Israel so often heard in the days of their distress throughout the Book of Judges (v. 43-46). The Psalmist then takes up the same cry as for Israel's Present distress, and anticipating mercy and deliverance, blesses the God of Israel (v. 47, 48). Psalm 107 gives God's answer, realizing these anticipations of faith.

This little volume of Psalms may thus come happily after Psalm 102, where we heard the cry of Him who sought deliverance from death, and was heard, and whose deliverance or resurrection is the grand pledge of the same to all whom He heads; for "in Christ shall all be made alive." His own mystic body, the Church, will rise in the likeness of His glorious body, Israel and the nations will revive in the earth, and the creation itself be delivered from corruption.

There will, it is true, be different orders and glories, but all will be as in resurrection or new creation. When Jesus preached He healed. So did His Apostles and the disciples whom He sent forth. Disease departed where He came, sickness cleared off, and the voice of health and thanksgiving was heard in the villages and cities of Israel. As of old when He led His people from Egypt, it was as God their Healer. (Ex. 15) He led them. Their feet had not swelled for forty years, — Caleb's strength was green and fresh as when he set out — the witness of what would have been for all the congregation had they been obedient. And so, when the kingdom comes, the lame will leap as an hart, the tongue of the dumb shall sing. These shall be again the works of the Son of David. (Isa. 35, Matt. 12) For the earthly people shall then be in lovely healthful tabernacles (after the long leprosy, the flesh becoming like the flesh of a little child), while in the higher celestial places, the children of the resurrection will shine in spiritual bodies of glory, according to the mighty power of Christ, whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself.

Resurrection or Redemption (for they are one in principle) has been God's great purpose from the beginning. Without faith in resurrection "the power of God" is not known (Matt. 22: 29), neither is "knowledge of God" attained. (1 Cor. 15: 34) Creation is but the avenue or ante-room. Creation was for redemption and not redemption after Creation. Because in counsel before the foundation of the world, all was to stand in redemption. The law of the jubilee shows us this. (Lev. 25) And the man of God, the pardoned accepted sinner celebrates all this in this magnificent series of Psalms, rejoicing, as we have said, in redeeming or resurrection power as displayed in himself, in creation, and in Israel — seeing it every where, as his soul surveys the glorious prospect.*

*The purpose of the Spirit in these Psalms being moral and not historical — to vindicate Jehovah in His dealings with Israel, and to convict Israel in their dealings with Jehovah — the Psalmist in 104 and 106 does not give the events to which he refers in strict or accurate order. He speaks of the plague of darkness, for instance, before that of flies, and of Korah's rebellion, before the making of the golden calf This is natural, and what we ourselves would do very probably, if our purpose in narrating circumstances was, like the Psalmist's here, moral and not historical.

Having thus viewed these Psalms together, they are left to the consideration of the saints; judging, however, that a minute observation of each would confirm this general impression. And a sweet meditation they afford to the renewed mind. A poor sinner, in Psalm 103, stands, in spirit, at the golden altar (that is, in the full certainty of salvation) with his incense of praise, and from that happy place anticipates or surveys the past and future dealings of the same Lord, who had thus blest him in all His works and ways, whether in creation itself or in the midst of His people. And indeed the only adequate power of interpreting the divine way is to bear in our souls a sample of it, as is done here. For the believer is "a kind of first-fruits." (James 1) He already stands in the reconciliation, as all will by and by. (Col. 1) God's way is in grace or in resurrection, and the consciously pardoned sinner is, therefore, the only full Prophet of God — the only one who can to the full either enjoy or declare Him. "Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldest taste His works."

It is well to add, that parts of Psalm 105th and Psalm 106 were sung at the removal of the ark in 1 Chr. 16, as we have already observed; Psalm 96 furnishes another part of that same beautiful composite hymn. For that occasion, typically, set forth the season of Israel's coming joy; and these Psalms are songs of praise suited to that season.

Resurrection — the glorious interpreter of God's ways and purposes, and the full and eternal witness of His love and power — being thus the theme of this book, we may say, in the closing words of it, "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord."

NOTE. — The fourth division of the Psalms, according to the Jews, ends with Psalm 106.

Psalm 108

In the beginning of this Psalm, Messiah, identifying Himself with the Remnant in the last days of their trouble, calls for the manifestation of Jehovah's power in their behalf. But He does this with full and joyous anticipations, and therefore makes His usual vow of praise. (1-6) An answer to this comes immediately from the sanctuary, from the presence of God, or, it may be, according to the "holiness" of His counsels, to assure the suppliant that the Lord would, in due season, assert His kingdom. (7-9) This as immediately awakens Messiah's zeal for the day of vengeance or the year of the redeemed (Isa. 63: 1-5); for we know He is now expecting thus to tread down His enemies. (Heb. 10: 13) And then the whole closes with His again looking to Jehovah as the help in Jacob's trouble, and with His confident anticipation of victory.

This Psalm is made up of the joyous portions of two previous Psalms (see 57, 60) which had both begun in sorrow and ended in joy. For there the soul of the believer had sowed in tears and reaped in joy; but here the double harvest is gathered, and the bosom of the worshipper is filled with sheaves. And, truly, joy is the thing that will remain. The sorrows shall be left behind, or remembered only to raise the gladness and give length and breadth to the praise.

This Psalm may happily follow the previous little volume on Resurrection. (103-107) For resurrection leads to joy and praise. As another once observed, Jesus Himself at the tomb of Lazarus wept, indulging the tears of all around Him; but at His own vacant tomb His way was changed, and in the liberty of resurrection Himself, He could say to His loved and loving disciple, "Woman, why weepest thou?"

Psalm 109

Under the sense of the treason of Judas (and in that treason Judas was the leader and representative of unbelieving Israel, Acts 1: 16,) and under the thought of that death to which such treason was hastening Him, Jesus here cries to Him who could both save Him from death, and avenge Him on His adversaries.

I have already observed that we get notice of two characters of communion which Jesus had, and of which this as well as Psalm 69 easily reminds us. I mean, that spoken of in Heb. 5: 7, and that noticed in 1 Peter 2: 23. The first was a cry for deliverance, the second a waiting for vindication. (See Ps. 69)

In this Psalm there is also allusion to "the trial of jealousy" in Numbers 5 (vv. 14, 18) And we know from other Scriptures, that Israel will be treated and even pardoned in the character of an unfaithful wife. (See Hosea 1-3)

Judas and the nation of Israel are in this Psalm morally one, as Ishmael and that nation are in Gal. 4. Their land is but an extended Aceldama. (Isa. 4: 4, Joel 3: 21, Matt. 27) The advocate connects them, also, in His very words here, speaking both in the singular and plural number of His enemies.

The fate of Judas or of the apostate nation, and that of the elect Israel or of the Lord's Jerusalem, are strikingly distinguished. For here the great Advocate desires that Satan may stand at Judas' right hand; in Zechariah 3. He Himself rebukes Satan, when Satan takes that stand against Jerusalem or the true Israel. Here the Advocate prays for judgment against the one that his dignities, family, and possessions, may all be spoiled, and that there may be none to pity; there He desires for the other, that glory may be upon him, the mitre and the robe, and that all iniquity may pass away, all defilement be removed. And all Scripture, in this way, keeps distinct and clear the judgment of the apostate nation, and the redemption and blessing of the elect or true Israel.

The reproach of "the poor and needy man," the slaying of Him who was "broken in heart," is the occasion of the judgment here desired; that is, the rejection of Jesus. The same is the ground laid for judgment on the Jewish people by the same advocate in Psalm 69. And the New Testament teaches this also; for miserable destruction and the taking away of their vineyard have come upon Israel, because they were the murderers of the heir of the vineyard. And where is cleansing for the land, where recovery of the name of Israel, but in the faith that returns to this rejected one, that looks to Him whom they pierced, that learns to say, "He was wounded for our transgressions;" which recognizes in Him a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, and which, in further exultation of spirit, says, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord"?

Psalm 110

This Psalm conveys, impliedly or informally, Jehovah's answer to the preceding cry. Jesus' ascension in the heavens, then His vengeance on all who had stood against Him, and His exaltation in His kingdom on the earth, are declared.

This Psalm, in this way, suggests an outline of the whole purpose of God touching the earth.

The Prophet's eye, as it were, follows Jesus in the day of the mount of Olives or Bethany (Luke 24: So, Acts 1: 9-11) to heaven, and sees His session there at Jehovah's right hand (v. 1). Being in this vision, he addresses Jesus as Adon (2-4), and tells Him what Jehovah was preparing for Him — a rod of power, a willing people, and the highest personal dignities. Then, turning from Adon to Jehovah, he tells Him in what way Jesus (Adon) would possess Himself of the kingdom thus prepared for Him. (5-7)

This is, I conceive, the structure of this distinguished Psalm,

It is worthy of thought, whether the indefinite word "until" (v. 1) is not the ground of Mark 13: 32. And further, this kingdom being the reward of Messiah's service, the time and all other circumstances of it would lie at the Father's disposal. (Matt. 20: 23, Acts 1: 7)

Connected with Ps. 16, this Psalm gives us a beautiful view of the glorious ascension of Christ — God welcomed Him on high with the words, "Sit on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool;" and Christ as it were answered, "in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." And, read in the light of Heb. 10: 12, 13, we see how duly and perfectly Jehovah's promise was received by Christ. It filled Him with hope or expectation, which is always the proper answer to promise.

But let me observe, that the Lord's entrance into heaven was not only that He might take His seat at the right hand of power, waiting for the day when He is to make His foes His footstool: it was also an entrance into heaven as a sanctuary, there to occupy Himself in riches of grace, in present priestly services for His saints still travelling and militant here. (See Heb. 8)

This is indeed a Psalm of great prophetic value, and much used by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament Scriptures. For by it He interprets that Jesus is greater than David (Matt. 22) — higher than angels (Heb. 1) now in heaven as Lord (Acts 2: 34-36) — as an expectant (Heb. 10) — and in the joy of an untransferable priesthood (Heb. 7) which He has received, not of Himself but from God. (Heb. 5) All this we learn by divine comments upon this Psalm got in other Scriptures, Scriptures of the New Testament.

The Lordship of Jesus, I may say, is a principal thing here. In the preceding Psalm we saw Him as the "poor and needy man," but here, as "the Lord." And these two things form the great burden and theme of the prophets. (1 Peter 1: 11) He emptied Himself, but God has given Him a name above every name. (Phil. 2) Peter, in his early preaching to the Jews after the resurrection, sees this Lordship of Jesus every where — now in heaven, by and by on His return to earth, then throughout succeeding ages. He sees it equally over Jew and Greek. He traces the name of this Lord, the day of this Lord, and the presence of this Lord, in their different powers and virtues. (Acts 2: 20, 21, Acts 3: 19, Acts 10: 36)

But it is not mere divine lordship, but an anointed lordship. And, therefore, His lordship is for us. Israel had their interest in all the anointed officers under God; whether prophet, priest, or king, all were for Israel's use. The prophet's wisdom, the priest's sacrifices, the king's strength, were all for the people's blessing. So the lordship of Jesus, is for us. Whether He be lord of life, lord of principalities and powers, lord of every region of glory, or lord of all the keys — the key of heaven, the key of the house of David, the key of hell and death, or of the bottomless pit, — all this lordship is for us. He ranges every where as lord, but still for us. His eyes, as the eyes of the Lord, run to and fro in our behalf.

This is a wondrous lordship. It is, however, over as well as for us. As David here says "my Lord." But this has been, and is still to be, more and more practically forgotten. For both Peter and Jude prophesy of the closing form of Christendom's apostasy as the denial of this Lord and His authority, the turning of His grace into lasciviousness. (2 Peter 2, Jude) And it is, therefore, the Lord who comes to avenge the wrongs of His neglected name. (Jude 14) "Behold, the Lord cometh."

A great Scripture, truly, this Psalm is. It may well engage the enlarging thoughts of His saints who love Him, and delight to inquire after Him in His temple.

Psalm 111

This Psalm, and all those down to the Psalm 118, are without any title. This we may take as a little notice that they hang, in some sense, on the preceding Psalms. For the great divine mystery of the "poor and needy man," exalted to be "lord" in heaven now, with the promise of a kingdom, had been there revealed; and these Psalms appear to be certain exercises of heart over that mystery. And let me say, the soul should ever be ready to entertain all divine revelation in this way. When the Apostle had, under the Holy Ghost, traced deep and extensive purposes of God (Rom. 9-11), at the close, he breaks out with a note of admiration, "O the depth of the riches!" And poor and profitless will be all our knowledge, if it lead not to this — "if out of our meditations we do not bring home a few chips to kindle our own fire."

The Jews connected several of these Psalms (Ps. 113-118), and called them "the Great Hallel," using them particularly at the feasts.

Jesus Himself, or the Spirit of Christ in the worshipper, is heard in them.

Praise breaks forth at the very outset. Such would be the fruit of the lips, when the soul had been listening (as we have presumed) to the great theme of the preceding Psalms.

Here in this 111th, the worshipper is celebrating the covenant-works of God, of which, amid the multitude of them, as we know, the sufferings and glory of Jesus form the great material. The "good understanding" of those who feared the Lord is also declared, for the end will surely show the wisdom of having so lived in this present evil world.

Psalm 112

The theme is continued — the further blessings of the one who feared the Lord. Jesus is, in the full sense, this obedient one; and all that is here spoken of was pledged in resurrection to Him, and shall be His portion in the kingdom. The present virtues and advantages of the good and righteous one, the one who fears God, are also more fully exhibited. But this is another hallelujah — this is still to the praise of the same Lord — another lifting of the voice in praise.

The Jewish character of this Psalm (as is that of the Psalms generally) we may gather very surely from the way in which the Spirit in St. Paul uses v. 9 in 2 Cor. 9: 8-10. For we may observe, that that which is matter of promise here, is only matter of desire there. And this is easily accounted for — and it is beautiful. For the blessings, which the saints are to reckon upon in this age, are not earthly, or in the circumstances of the present life, as the promise of God in this Psalm intimates. We may desire, in brotherly love, present good things for the saints, as John does for Gaius (3 John 2); but such things are not the subject of promise from God to us.

Psalm 113

This is still an utterance of joy and praise prepared for the same time and people. It is a rich and lofty note of thanksgiving to Jehovah for all that He has done in grace for His people, expressed in the striking figures of raising the poor one out of the dust, and of making the barren woman to keep house. The songs of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) and of Mary (Luke 1) are kindred with this; and they were, in their day, the poor one and the barren wife, and, in a mystery, Jerusalem. The works were praised in Ps. 111; the deeper theme, the name of Jehovah, is sounded here.

Psalm 114

Again we have the same subject. The Exodus is here remembered by the Israel of the latter day. And their fathers, in their day of conflict with enemies, were commanded to have the same recollection, so that they might not fear any that stood against them. (See Deut. 7: 18)

And the secret of all holy courage is very strikingly disclosed — the power of the divine presence felt through all creation, as soon as it set itself in company with chosen and redeemed Israel.

And in a more awful form will nature again feel it, when the Lord rises up the second lime for Israel and for judgment. There will be a great shaking then. The heavens and the earth will be moved, and the sun and moon be darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. In this language the prophets announce the power of that coming day, when judgment shall fall on the nations, and Israel again become the sanctuary and dominion of the Lord. The second advent will surprise the world, as the presence of Jehovah of old did the hills and the seas, as described here in figure.

The conceptions here are in the richest style of poetry, as has been observed by others. How various the beauties of the oracles of God, how high and deep the wonders, how infinite and unspeakable the moral glories!

Psalm 115

This Psalm is still in beautiful connection. The earth may tremble, as we have just seen, when the Lord is revealing Himself and declaring His righteousness, but Israel will have a song then. And this is their song, in spirit; in anticipation, the resurrection song of Israel (verses 17, IS). It breaks forth very gloriously, ascribing all the praise of their present condition to the Lord. Conscious resurrection must do that (see Rom. 4: 20); for a dead one, now in life again, has nothing less than divine power to own. The Israel of the latter day here celebrate Jehovah as "their help and shield." Through all their holy order they do this. And they triumph over their adversaries and all their vain confidences, and trust Him for blessing still to come (verses 12, 13). And that confidence is at once honoured by an oracle from above. (14, 15)

Israel rejoices in the thought that their God is "in the heavens." (v. 3; see Ps. 110: 1) They may not fully understand it; but we know that as Jesus in the grave was a sign to them (Matt. 12: 40), so is Jesus in resurrection. (Acts 2: 30, 31, Acts 13: 32, 33) And they will have an answer to the oft-repeated challenge of their enemies, "where is thy God?" v. 2, 3; see Ps. 42, Ps. 79, Joel 2, Micah 7)

Psalm 116

This is the resurrection song of Messiah. It beautifully follows the preceding one, as though Messiah would join this joy and praise, or rather, let His voice rise and swell above that of Israel, so that He might be the leader of the congregation. We know from 2 Cor. 4: 13, that it is Jesus who is heard in this Psalm; but we there also learn that any with "like spirit of faith" may, in their measure, use it.

He, to whom Jesus called as able to save Him from death, had heard Him; and this Psalm is, so to express it, His "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me." (John 11) The true Hezekiah, the head and representative of Israel, is heard here. "The living, the living," he praises God. (See Isa. 38) He pays those vows which in His distress He had made. (Ps. 22, Ps. 61, Ps. 66) Jacob had somewhat failed in doing this, or been tardy to do it. (Gen. 28, 35)

The "land of the living," or the land of the glory (Isa. 4: 5, Ezek. 26: 20), is Canaan. The Jews so interpreted it. But that of course.

The Lord's cups are two, — that of sorrow, and that of praise; in other words, that of Gethsemane or Calvary (Luke 22), and that of the kingdom. (See Ps. 75)

The Lord's "haste" (v. 11) would seem to express the paschal character of His soul. Critics tell us, that the original word does not imply "moral defect." It is the same word as in Ex. 12: 11. For His whole life was in the stranger-character of Israel in the Passover of Egypt, and was the great sure witness that all men were liars — apostates from God. But from mere "men," He separates the elect, appearing to give them close identity with Himself, as being also precious to the Lord in their death, as He had been.

His song in the kingdom is again suggested here. (Ps. 22, Heb. 2) And if Jesus sang with His disciples in the days of His flesh (as we know He did — Matt. 26: 30), how much more will He be prepared to do so in the days of the kingdom!

But beside the Lord thus singing in company with His saints, may we not suggest that at times He will be heard alone? For it is here witnessed concerning Him, "I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people." (v. 14, 18) It is a tender thought, and the soul will touch it softly. But it does appear that He will be heard alone at times. For if His sorrows were once peculiar, so may we say His joys will be. And this may lead us to allow the thought, that Jesus will, at times, have a solitary or peculiar song, the congregation then giving audience; as at times we know they will be heard themselves; and at times He will lead them. (Psalm 34: 3)

Psalm 117

Here the earth is called on to join in resurrection joy and praise, and to celebrate "mercy and truth," as risen Israel was now doing. Israel, and Israel's living Head, had been heard chanting their several hallelujahs, and the nations are now, in their turn, called into this harmony and to take part in this holy music.

This Psalm, the shortest portion of the Book of God, is quoted, and given much value to, in Rom. 15. And upon this it has been profitably observed, "it is a small portion of Scripture, and as such we might easily overlook it. But not so the Holy Ghost. He gleans up this precious little testimony which speaks of grace to the Gentiles, and presses it on our attention."

And I may say, I have long delighted in the fact, that the Spirit in the course of the New Testament is often dragging into light, so to speak, some obscure corners of the old scriptures which might be naturally passed by — as Hosea 11: 1, Amos 5: 26, Amos 9: 11, Hab. 1: 5, Prov. 25: 22, Nahum 1: 15. But it helps to affirm the precious truth, that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God." The stars in that hemisphere of glories may differ in magnitude, but they are all equally the workmanship of one hand. There is, perhaps we may say, no portion of the Old Testament, that is not either expressly cited, or distinctly referred to, or silently glanced at in the New.

Psalm 118.

This Psalm closes this series of lofty songs of praise. The 110th had seated Adon or Christ at Jehovah's right hand in heaven, and anticipated His return to the power and rest of the kingdom. Here the nation of Israel welcome Him back, and, appropriately, in the character of the "head-stone of the corner," for such had His previous exaltation in heaven made Him. (Acts 4: 11) It is the language of Israel, just in readiness for Jesus and His kingdom. (Matt. 23) It is the bringing in of this head-stone with shoutings. (Zech. 4:. 7)

Scripture abounds with reference to Christ as "the Stone."

This wondrous Stone or Rock was formed at Calvary; for the archers had to grieve Him, and shoot at Him, and hate Him, ere He could be fully formed the stone, the "tried stone." (Gen. 49) Then, in due time, He was laid down before Israel as their foundation; but they stumbled over Him instead of building on Him. (Isa. 28, Rom. 9) He is now, in the same character, presented to a whole world of sinners, and some find Him their life-giving stone, while men generally disallow Him. (1 Peter 2) But He is in heaven, owned as the head of the corner, and from that elevation He will in season descend, and in His fall grind His despisers to powder. (Dan. 2, Matt. 21) Then, His true Israel will welcome Him, as this Psalm shows us. And in His kingdom He will be the stone — on earth, engraved with "seven eyes," exercising diligent government over the whole scene (Zech. 3) — in heaven, enthroned as the glorious precious stone (Rev. 4), with His risen saints sparkling as glorious precious stones around Him. (Rev. 21)

Wondrous story! but this only as we pass by this magnificent Psalm; our wonder, as another observed, being however nothing less than worship.

It is the kingdom, or "day of the Lord," that is here rejoiced in, as it had been "the resurrection" before, in Psalm 116. And this "day" will, of course, bring "light" (ver. 27) to Israel; and be also the great witness, that God's "mercy endureth for ever," the great theme or occasion of continued sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving (ver. 28, 29) For the joy of Jesus and His saints is twofold: the joy of resurrection, and the joy of the kingdom. Jesus knew the first, when He broke in His own person the power of death and the grave; He will know the second in the coming day of His power in Jerusalem.

This is a suited and solemn close of this great Hallel, as the Jews themselves call this collection of Psalms, as I have observed already. And this last of them, the 118th is the celebration of the glorious ways of the Lord, in a stage beyond that to which (save in prospect) Psalm 110 had led Him. There we saw Him seated at the right hand in heaven, and we left Him there, an expectant of His day and kingdom. But here His expectation is realised. His enemies have been subdued, and He is entering the gates of His royal city. As He once went up the shining way from earth to the right hand of God, so now He has descended the shining way from heaven, to execute vengeance on His enemies, as then promised to Him, to satisfy the wishful waiting hearts of His people, and to seat Himself in the kingdom.

What paths for the feet of Jesus are these! Those feet which had known only the thorny places of this desert world, in these Psalms travel these glorious paths — the path upward to God, and the path downward to the kingdom, Then the Lord will have His day. And it will be a jubilee, when God's principles form and fill the scene. (Lev. 25) His counsels of wisdom and love shall be displayed and exalted, and His people shall lift up the praise, as they do here — "bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." But who can utter it all? As our poet sings

"Who shall fulfil the boundless song?

What bold pretender dares?

The theme transcends an angel's tongue,

And Gabriel's heart despairs."

Psalm 119

This Psalm rehearses the various virtues of the word of God, and the saints' delight and profit therein. Any believer may generally use it as the breathing of his own soul; but in its full prophetic character, it would seem that it will be the language of the true Israel on their return to God and His long neglected oracles.

When the Lord came, He found the Jews neglectful and ignorant of the Scripture. (Matt. 15: 6, Matt. 22: 29, John 5: 38, 47) But the Remnant are directed to them. (Isa. 8: 20; Mal. 4: 4) And this Psalm shows their obedience to that direction, and the exercise of their heart in the divine writings. They have forsaken their own traditions and are hearing "Moses and the Prophets." (Luke 16: 29-31)

Ezra, while captive in Babylon, did, as the Remnant will do, diligently occupy himself in the word of God. (Ezra 7: 6) The Berean Jews present a sample of them, likewise, in this character. (Acts 17: 11) And the history of Josiah does the same. He reigned after judgment had been pronounced against Jerusalem. His repentance could not change that. judgment was still to come; but Josiah shall (like God's Remnant) be spared. For he had set his heart to serve the Lord when all was hastening to ruin. But we have in the history this further fact — that in the midst of his doings and services, the Book of the Law is found, and that at once operates to give a new tone to all his ways. He begins with himself. He takes the place of a convicted and humbled one. In that spirit he sets himself to work again, and makes the oracles of God the rule of all his service. (2 Kings 22, 23; 2 Chr. 34, 35)

Josiah, in this way, with zeal returned to the word of God which had been so entirely lost to the nation through their idol-vanities. And so, in the latter day, the repentant Remnant will turn with listening and obedient hearts to the word of God, and treat it with special honour and regard, conscious as they will be of having so long and grievously neglected it. For such is the fruit which repentance would duly and naturally yield. It will be restitution; restoring, like Zacchaeus, fourfold to that which they had wronged.

But we cannot pass by this valuable and deeply devotional Psalm without a little further pause. From the beginning of His ways, we see God's value for His written word. He has made a hedge about it, that no rude hand can guiltlessly touch it, either to add thereto, or take therefrom. And He has bound it round the heart, before the eyes, and on the hands of His people. The gates of the field, the doors of the house, the morning and the evening family, the walk abroad and the rest within, all was to witness it. (Deut. 6, 11) It was to mingle itself with all the personal and social life of His people, and shed its light on every path, however ordinary, of their daily journey. Is it not blessed to see the Lord thus esteeming His own revelation and thus commending it to our esteem? And is it now to be erased from our gates and doors and from the palms of our hands? "The malice of Satan has raged no less against the Book than the truth contained in it." The divine life of the saint heeds it, and cannot spare any of it. It is the food of the life of faith and hope. It bears the soul to God, and keeps it near Him and with Him, through the Spirit. The more the virtues and consolations of the new life are prized, so will the word be. And the believer pleads the word or scripture as the answer to that great question, "Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?" (Job 28: 12) For He who alone knows the path of wisdom has made scripture its dwelling place. And with Him (Jer. 23: 28) the saint says of all in comparison, "What is the chaff to the wheat?"

May we hold it fast, but use it skilfully in the light of the Holy Ghost in us! For if there be the error of taking away this key of knowledge (Luke 11), so is there the error of using it with an untaught, unstable hand. (2 Peter 3) Let us use it with the reverent and worshipping mind of the servant of God in this beautiful and most precious Psalm. Let us know something of the burnings of his heart over the holy oracles, saying, "I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for thy commandments."

Psalm 120-134. are entitled "Songs of Degrees." It has been judged that they were put together, and received a common title, because they were used on some occasion, or concerned some action, in different stages of it, — such as the return of the captives from Babylon to Jerusalem. And from internal marks, this may well be so. Though indited by the Spirit at different times, they were used, in all probability, in the order in which they here appear, by those returning captives, at different stages of their march homeward — as the various parts of Ps. 68 were sung at different stations of that procession, which was bearing the Ark to the city of David. For in these Psalms we shall find a growing sense of drawing nearer and nearer to home or the place of rest till at last that place is reached with praise.

The coming forth from Babylon is anticipatively celebrated by Prophets, in very lofty language. (Isa. 48: 20, Isa. 52: 11, 12) But deliverance from Babylon is spoken of, after the captivity had returned from thence in the days of Cyrus. (Zech. 2: 6, 7) So that the return at that time was, as a type, the pledge of Israel's return from another, that is, their present dispersion; and these Psalms may answer to the utterances of the latter day Remnant, in passing through different stages of their trials, till brought into the rest of the kingdom. And they may suitably, in spirit, under certain conditions and experiences, be the utterance of any saint journeying on through the present world to the glory and presence of the Lord — a wayfaring man with Jesus.

But I might further observe that they were probably sung by the returning captives, for with Zerubbabel 200 singers are mentioned, and others also with Ezra, on their respective exodus from Babylon. (See Ezra 2: 64, 65, Ezra 7: 7) And after such a happy pattern we, in spirit, should sing, on the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem — from man's city to God's city — from this present evil world to the world to come. The one we have in our calling left, the other we are reaching. And the sense of this should put a song in our hearts. But we should still be only "on the way," unsatisfied with all short of Jerusalem. Wells of water and songs of gladness cannot make the place of our journey our home. Gideon's chosen 300 express this. Refreshment had no power to stop them on the road. They took it only for the sake of the journey, or as a journeying people ought to take it. They lapped the water as a travelling dog laps it, and did not kneel down to it, as though they were addicting themselves to it.

And this is to be our mind. We are saved in hope; and even the Holy Ghost, the due spring of all consolations by the way, dwells in us to give strength and not check to the hope (Rom. 15: 13); for His presence is not our Jerusalem, His refreshings are not the supper of the Lamb.

These Psalms, in the Syriac, are called "Songs of ascent from Babylon." This is according to the view we have taken of them here. And the same Hebrew word, it has been noticed, is used in reference to the journey or ascent of the captives from Babylon to Jerusalem, as is used to express the title of these Psalms. (Ezra 7: 9) This is still more confirming.

We would now mark each of them a little more particularly.

Psalm 120

This Psalm duly suits an Israelite, still (though about to leave it) an unwilling captive in Babylon, or the abodes of wickedness. The tongue, as here, is often noticed as the special offender against God and His people. Doeg, Shimei, the false witnesses (Ps. 12, Ps. 52) thus offended. And so will the last enemy (Jude 15, 16) according to his type, the little horn. (Dan. 7: 25). But coals of juniper and the arrows of the mighty one (Christ — Rev. 19) await him; and the captive, though still in captivity, encourages the thought of this judgment upon his enemies. The citizen of Jerusalem may well utter the language of v. 6, 7, while he is still in Babylon; for the one is God's city, "the city of peace;" the other, man's city, "the city of confusion."

NOTE. — The Jews themselves understand this Psalm as of the present captivity, of which that in Babylon was the sample or forerunner, as we know.

Psalm 121

Here, as though the decree for deliverance had just been published, the Israelite looks to God for the expected journey, and receives an answer of peace. And what different company is this for the poor Israel of God! In the tents of Kedar before, he had the false tongue against him; now, on the journey home, he looks for his watchful Lord. It was not to be the ancient glory of the manifested Pillar guiding him, but still there was equal care and certainty from the eye of the wakeful Shepherd of His people — wakeful though unseen.

And the promises here made are still for the returning Israel in the latter day. (See Isa. 49: 9, 10)

Verse 1 leads me to say this — that we should accustom our souls to look more at our resources than at our exigencies or difficulties. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help." The Lord commands this; as, for instance, in Deut. 7: 17-19. And what is Rom. 8: 31-39, but the saint boasting in his resources in the face of all exigencies? We should make our hearts familiar with the promises and provisions of grace, so that when the occasion arises, we may enter the field of battle, like Jehoshaphat's army, with the sweet voice of these promises, like instruments of music, in our ear, and be led onward in that joy to victory. For "joy is strength," as Nehemiah told the congregation. (Neh. 8: 10)

Verses 3-8 seem to be the language of a divine oracle delivered in answer to the faith expressed in v. 1, 2.

Psalm 122

This song may have been inspired for the use of the worshippers going up to the feasts; but it suited the returning captives, who had, in the preceding Psalm, been anticipating God's care of them on the journey, and now anticipate the end of that journey, and the regained house of the Lord. So, it may be the breathing of any renewed soul looking toward Jerusalem in the heavens. And surely it will suit the afflicted Remnant in latter-day troubles.

The Psalmist very beautifully celebrates the city of God as the city of peace, the place where God had recorded His name, the scene of joy and praise, the centre of worship and of all holy solemnities, and also the seat of Jehovah's government. It is saluted as the witness of both the Throne and the Temple, where the Glory and the Sword dwelt together, where, as we speak, a Theocracy is displayed. He invites others to seek her peace, and finally addresses her with warm assurances of love, both because of his brethren, and because of the Lord his God; for their stated concourse was there, and His house was there.

Psalm 123

The suppliant (identifying himself with others) looks, amid the reproaches of the adversaries, to the Lord in the heavens; taking to him the happy mind of a servant, who may expect care and protection from the hand of him whom he serves. For v. 2 expresses the attitude of confidence, not of subjection — though of course subjection is implied. And protection may be claimed where subjection is rendered.

It suits the utterance of the captives, just as they were setting out on their long and dreary journey; those who were "at case" in Babylon at that moment reproaching and despising them. The "proud" ones there would just then have eyed them as a company of poor pilgrims, a fit mark for their derision. They endure the same scorn in their present dispersion among the heathen or Gentiles. (Jer. 30: 17) The finger is still pointed.

The quickened soul, just beginning to turn towards Jesus, must count on such despite. For, in spirit, this Psalm is the language of every saint who should understand what the reproach of the proud is, and suffer it gladly. "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad."

Psalm 124

This Psalm is uttered under a fervent sense of some fresh distinguished mercy. It is adapted to the returning captives, as they were just got beyond the scorn of their Chaldean enemies, which, as we saw, they were feeling in the previous Psalm. But it shows that they had endured persecution as well as scorn — such persecution as would have destroyed them, but for the signal help of the Lord.

In the day of the opposition of men, this utterance may, in like manner, suit any godly soul; and may, I doubt not, be especially used by the Israel of the last days who are to endure much of this opposition from the men of the earth, who have their portion in man's world.

Psalm 125

As the previous Psalm was uttered under the sense of some recent deliverance, this is the expression of being consciously more distant from all that grieved or threatened. The Israel of God here enjoy calm after storm. The hearts of the returning captives are now at ease; and their rescue from Babylon has taught them, that though the Lord may for a season use the wicked as a rod of anger upon His people, He will not let that rod rest or abide on them. He will debate with His rod, give it a measured duration as well as a measured severity, graciously remembering that the spirit might fail under too long an oppression. (See Ecc. 7: 7) Indeed He will end His indignation on Israel by the destruction of that rod. (Isa. 10: 5-25)

Israel then desires further good from the Lord, and they assure themselves that He will deal righteously with hypocrites and evil doers. And so the nation will be cleared in the latter day of all that are not the refined Israel of God, the part brought through the fire.

But on this Psalm we may say how strikingly the thoughts of the Spirit in the prophets express the Lord's varied provision for His people! He will plant mountains round Zion when she wants security; He will spread a plain around her when she wants to bask in the light of glory. (See verse 2, and Zech. 14: 10)

Psalm 126

The ransomed of the Lord, now fully on their way, as we have seen, call to mind their joy when the decree of Cyrus was published, and also the kindly words of some neighbours of theirs on that occasion. For in the crowd around the cross, while there were those who cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," there were also the weeping daughters of Jerusalem. Such too have been commonly seen at the martyrdom of the saints. And such appear here at the return of Israel from Babylon. Some despised (Ps. 123: 3, 4), while others congratulated them (Ps. 126: 2).

The captives on their return, and that very naturally, call to mind their prayer (verse 4), and are able, from the whole history, to draw the moral (v. 5, 6) — a moral, too, that marks the history of Christ Himself and all His people. He afterwards sowed in tears at Jerusalem (Luke 19: 41), but by and by He will there reap in joy. (Isa. 65: 18, 19)

How little do believers realise the joy of deliverance as expressed in this beautiful Psalm. The captives, on the decree of Cyrus, were like men that dreamed. It was as though some brave fiction had filled their hearts, so rapt were they in the joy of that moment. O that we knew this when we think of salvation and of Jesus! The eunuch went on his way rejoicing, and the joy seems to have made him indifferent to the strange departure of his dear companion. How should our hearts covet this satiating delight in Him!

NOTE. — We Cannot fail to have noticed that Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon and the deliverer of Israel, is a type of Christ, and so treated by Isaiah. (See Isa. 44, Isa. 45) He and his conquests were named and described by that prophet nearly 200 years before he was born.

Psalm 127

This Psalm is also suited to the returning captives, who must on their journey have had the house and the city in their prospect, and the joys of homes and households again before them, when their fruitfulness and prosperity in their own land would give a triumphant answer to many a scornful word of their haughty adversaries. And so it will be with the Remnant in the coming days when, though in trials, they will have expectations given them from the God of hope. And this Psalm is a devout confession that these expected blessings, yea, that all strength and blessing come from God alone, and that without Him human toil is vanity. (See Zech. 4: 6)

But often (how often!) is there exercise of spirit where all should be stillness (verse 2). "Stand still and see the salvation of God." It is unbelief which raises all this. As with Jacob: he was praying when he should have been sleeping in the promise. (Gen. 22) He fears and calculates and settles all according to man's best advice, when as the heir of the blessing and the possessor of the birthright, he should have trusted and rested. So was it not, however, with Peter. In the very prison, between two soldiers, and bound with two chains, he sleeps, and sleeps so soundly in the promise and sufficiency of God, that his deliverer has to smite him on the side to raise him up. (Acts 12) And how did the true "beloved blessed one" sleep, when winds and waves were around Him. (Mark 4)

Psalm 128

Thoughts arising from the same expectations are continued. The happiness of a citizen of Zion, in his temporal prosperity, in his family enjoyments, and in the peace and honour of his country, is rehearsed. It may have been, as well as the previous Psalm, the language of Solomon; for in his days citizens of Zion were thus manifested in their prosperity. But also, like the previous one, it well suits the returning captives; for they return, of course, full of visions of all such happiness. And it will be the joyous expectation of God's Israel in future days.

Patriarchal family happiness is here expected; for that will be revived in the kingdom on earth (ver. 6, and Gen. 1: 28). Human delights in family order and general earthly blessing will be the portion of Israel in the days of the kingdom. As of old, in days which were typical of the kingdom, we read that "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making merry." (1 Kings 4: 20)

Psalm 129

Mere the same company have a remembrance, as in the two preceding Psalms they had a prospect, in their minds. They look back here, as there they had been looking forward. There it was their expected blessing in Jerusalem that filled them, here their recollected griefs in Babylon — yea, the griefs of their nation from its infancy.

All this is varied and natural exercise of heart for a people on their way; as our souls have such also in journeying across this world of confusion home to our God and the rest that remaineth.

The ransomed of the Lord rehearse their wrongs at the hand of their enemies, and the Lord's deliverance of them; and they look for righteous judgment upon the haters of Zion — all of which will suit another generation of Israel in a like condition. And again they publish that the Lord Himself was everything to them. They contrast also the faded withered state of the ungodly with their own flourishing estate just set forth in the previous Psalms. (See also Psalm 1; Jeremiah 17) The quick destruction of the enemy and the wicked in the latter day, even in the very moment of their fullest pride, may also be intimated. For this will be the fate, it would appear from the word of God, both of Babylon and the Beast. (Dan.11: 45; Rev. 18: 17)

Psalm 130

This Psalm expresses the joy and confidence that spring from the simple sense of God's forgiving love; for that unaided and alone has power to turn the convicted sinner into an accepted worshipper, and an expectant of glory. (Rom. 5: 1, 2) It is the gospel that is here learnt and enjoyed by the soul. The poor soul had been crying out from its own depths, but apprehending God's forgiving love, it was at once made to sing of His heights and to wait for Himself.

It is a beautiful abridgment of Rom. 7, 8 — perfect, though so short. For here, as there, the soul is first heard as in the sorrows of conviction; then, on the firm ground of confidence; and then, in the bright elevations of hope, the longings and expectings of an heir of God. And a gospel this is, suited to be the utterance of returning captives, of any soul consciously on its way to God, and so, too, of the awakened and exercised Israel of the latter day. And as in the three preceding Psalms we listened to the returning captives, both remembering Babylon now behind them, and anticipating Jerusalem now before them, here in this Psalm they have remembrances and anticipations also, but of a deeper character, personal and spiritual.

The consciously accepted sinner may boldly and happily tell his fellow-sinners to look with him to Jesus — as here the soul calls on Israel to hope in the Lord because of His mercy and salvation.

Psalm 131

The happy confidence of the preceding Psalm is not to be condemned as presumption. Eliab may accuse David of naughtiness and pride of heart, but it is not so. Hope "in the Lord" may be bold; and such was David's then, and such is that of the soul in these Psalms, and such is that of every poor sinner who receives the grace and salvation of the gospel.

This Psalm, therefore, strikingly and beautifully follows the preceding one. It was the feeling, possibly, of the really meek David, on turning away from the reproach of Eliab. (1 Sam. 17: 28, 29) But it could have been afterwards happily used by ransomed Israel, who were then free and confident in the salvation of God. And this assured "hope in the Lord" is ever, when real and spiritual, combined with the quietness and subjection of a weaned child.

This allusion to David leads me for a moment to look at him in 1 Sam. 16, 17. We may call the time of those chapters the youth or spring-time of David's soul. And how beautifully simple, and how full of real moral dignity it is!

He was the neglected one of the family. But he was content to be so. He would readily tend the sheep in the field, while his more esteemed brothers remained at home to receive the guests, and do the honours of the house.

On the arrival of the prophet Samuel he is called in. But as scorn had not dejected him, distinctions do not elate him. As soon as the occasion is over, he is back again among the flocks.

He is then summoned to the court of the king to do a service which none but he could do. But again, when the service is done, he is in the wilderness with his few sheep, despised but contented. (1 Sam. 17: 15)

A third time he is called for. He has now to go to the camp, as before to the court. But after achieving the greatest feats, he is willing to be still unknown, and without thought of resentment tells who he was to those whose ignorance of him was itself a kind of slight or indignity. (1 Sam. 17: 55, 58)

What beauty, what true elevation of soul! And what was the secret of all this? He found his satisfaction in Christ. The sheepfold was as important to him as the court or the camp, because "the Lord was with him." He did not live by excitement, nor pine under neglect. He let the world know that he was independent of what they could either give him or make him. Blessed attainment! It may remind us of those affectionate words from the Olney Hymns

"Content with beholding His face,

My all to His pleasure resign'd,

No changes of season or place

Could make any change in my mind.

When blest with a sense of His love,

A palace a toy would appear;

And prisons would palaces prove

If Jesus would dwell with me there."

Psalm 132

This Psalm is Solomon's pleading with the Lord to arise and possess Himself of the house which he had builded, upon the ground of David's zeal and affliction, and of the Lord's own covenant and promises (1-13). The Lord seems at once to answer this with still larger promises than He had made before, and with richer blessings than His servant had desired. (14-18)

For this is His way — this is divine. Even the promise of His own lips, as well as the wish of His people's heart, is exceeded. And the promise which was conditional (verse 12) is now yea and amen in Christ Jesus (verses 17, 18).

I think I see a very right mind, if I may so speak, in Solomon here. For while he desires God's blessing on himself, the "anointed one," he desires it in connection with God's presence, or with the Ark's entrance into its rest. This is quite as it should be. We may seek happiness if we seek it in and with the Lord.

The ark had been a stranger in the days of Saul. (1 Chr. 13: 3) David's earliest desire was to restore it; and this Psalm shows that that desire consumed him. We can admit this, when we understand David as presented to us in 1 Chronicles. And this in David is pleaded here by Solomon. So, Jesus could say, "The zeal of thine house has eaten me up." To restore to God a habitation among men, and to bring back man to God, was the spring of His energies, the secret of His many sorrows. The griefs and cross of Jesus have opened a way for the glory to return, or the long estranged presence of God to fill the earth again in its season; as the same blood has already rent the veil, and is preparing mansions in the heavenly house for us.

The "lamp," which is here promised to shine in the kingdom of the Son of David by and by, had been espied afar off by Abraham (Gen. 15: 17), who thus saw Christ's "day," and "was glad." It has been the desire both of Christ and His people, all through the night-time of this present world. (Isa. 62: 1) The Lord Himself, in answer to that desire, will light it up in due season. (Ps. 18: 28) And then it will shine in steady full brightness through the kingdom. (Isa. 60: 1)

So the "horn" shall then "bud," as here also promised. The oak of Judah, the stem of Jesse, has long been a withered stump. But the substance has been in it, though it have cast its leaves (Isa. 6: 13); and in the latter day brought forth, like Aaron's rod, as from the presence of God (Num. 17), it will revive, and bud, and be fruitful. "The mercies of David" are "sure" in Jesus risen. (Acts 13: 34)

All this we have in this magnificent Psalm of Solomon. And being of such a character, it could very happily have been used by the captives, now drawing near to this house which Solomon had built for the Lord. And so it may be again taken up by the heart and lips of the people in the days of Israel's revival, when expectation counts on speedy fulfilment.

Psalm 133

The preceding Psalm was an utterance of the captives, just approaching Jerusalem or the house of God. This comes in order, and suits them on their being about to enter that house. For it was the centre of the tribes, the place of the common joy of Israel, where, accordingly, the precious ointment of brotherly unity, as here declared, was shed, so as to make the place good and pleasant and fruitful under the dew of the divine blessing. I can suppose that it was recalled to mind by some of the first gatherings of New Testament saints in Jerusalem in the day of Acts 2. It may also be the breathing of the saint in the joy of his heart on beholding the concord of brethren. And it may do for the Israel of God in the latter days, when their desire for peace and restoration shall be satisfied; for the coming days of the kingdom have been thus anticipated, — "In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig-tree." (Zech. 3: 10) "Home," when reached by the returning brethren, shall witness and secure their "unity."

Blessed prospect! It should arm us with a spirit of forbearance and long-suffering while on the road; for all will be right by and by. We are on our way to "that which is perfect." "Every Christian is treading the ascent of wisdom and goodness, and an era in his course shall arrive, when supernal beings, ancient proficients in virtue, shall count him their worthy companion, and delight in his converse."

Psalm 134

Having now entered the house, the worshippers fill it at once with the blessing of the Lord. It is in the spirit of Melchizedec — suited to their standing in "the hope of glory;" for they bless the great God and bless others in His name, the name of the possessor of heaven and earth, as that king of Salem did. He had been dwelling alone in the high places of his glory, neither the ways of the world disturbing him, nor even the story of the people of God noticing him, till the servant of God had ended his warfare. But then he appeared. That was the due moment for his shining forth, bringing his rewards with him, his refreshment and his blessing. And then those solitary abodes of glory, where he had been dwelling as in a temple and a palace, were disclosed, and their rich treasures produced. As here, the voice from the same sanctuary, the Zion of Melchizedec, greets the returned captives.

This is a joyful end of their way across the desert. And, further, it is happy to observe that these two Psalms, 133, 134, give us two aspects of the house of God which the returned captives, as we have seen, have now reached — that is, the unity of the people of God, and the praise of the God of the people — the joy of the family, and the glory of their head; for the house of God ever in principle provides for and exhibits these things. It is the dwelling of love, and the court of praise.

And let me add this — that divine joy in the Lord has wondrous moral power. As Nehemiah, in the day of revival, the day of the new moon, or of the feast of trumpets, the first day of the seventh month, said to the congregation of Israel, "This day is holy unto the Lord, neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8: 10)

We have an instance of this in 1 Chr. 12: 30-40. It was a bright and animated moment. David was to be made king, and, as we read, "there was joy in Israel." Judah could not then have provoked Ephraim, nor could Ephraim then have envied Judah. The common joy had linked all hearts, and borne them away and made 'hem its own creatures. One tribe was therefore the ready servant of the joy of another. No private feelings could be indulged, nor separate interests consulted. It was one of the days of heaven upon earth (Deut. 11: 21); the congregation of Israel, felt the power of it, as Peter did of the Holy Mount. For how willing was he then, because of the gladness of his heart to be the servant of others. "Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias."

Psalm 135

This Psalm is of the same character as the previous one. It is not entitled "a song of degrees," nor has it, indeed, any title at all. It is a kind of adjective to the preceding Psalm. For the congregation are still at the house of God — the court of praise, which, as we saw, they had just reached. Out of Zion God is still shining.

The Lord Himself is praised, and His name is praised — His name, as distinguished from Himself, being that various honour and dignity which He has acquired by His mighty acts.

And the Lord of Israel is here glorified as the only true God who does His pleasure in heaven and on earth, and who also got Himself victory and honour in Egypt, among the Amorites, in Bashan, and in the kingdoms of Canaan, but all for the sake and on the behalf of His people. And how blessed is this association! The Lord who formed and spread out the heavens, and none other or less than He, was the one who parted Canaan by lot among the tribes. The one who measures the waters in the hollow of His hand is He who gathers the lambs in His bosom, and bears them in His arms. (Isa. 40)

And very duly this Psalm of the returned captives, prepared for those who stand in the courts of the Lord, declares the vanity of the idols; for that had just been manifested in the downfall of Babylon, and in the decree of the Persian to let Israel depart from that stronghold of idolatry. The name of the only true God, the God of Israel, thus endures for ever, while the memorials of all beside perish for ever. (See also verse 14, and Deut. 32: 36)

Psalm 136

This Psalm is of the same general character. It is still appended, without any new title, to the 134th, as we have already observed the 135th is.

It is a Psalm which awakens peculiarly happy thoughts. It tells us, and echoes again and again, the joy and the song that are prepared for eternity.

The Jews say that it is prepared for the days of Messiah, which means, in their thoughts, the days of the kingdom. And this surely is so. It is a millennial national hymn, in which everything is found, in the review of it, to draw out the nation's gratitude.

In contrast, however, with the 135th, we observe that this Psalm sees mercy where that had seen glory. The creation of the heavens and their daily courses, the divine dealings with Egypt, with the Amorites, with Bashan, and with the Canaanites, all these had declared God's name or glory, and had drawn forth Praise (135); but now the very same things are celebrated as publishing His mercy, and draw forth thanksgiving. (136) For this is so. The same ways and works of the Lord publish both His name and His mercy, His glory and His grace. With equal clearness and sureness they honour Himself and bless His people. And thus they are the theme of both the Praise and the thanksgiving of His saints. Praise first opens their lips (135), and then thanksgiving. (136) For it is at God's name or glory, as reflected in His works, they first look, and then at their own blessings or profit from those works. His name endures for ever (Ps. 135: 13) and His mercy also. (136)

And, most surely, God has linked His praise and our blessing together in all the counsels and works that He has formed and executed. And such a thing is worthy of Him. In the garden of Eden, or at creation, He provided for His own honour and His creature's happiness. In Canaan, or in the settlement of Israel, it was still the same; the sanctuary, pitched in the midst of the land and the people, witnessed the constant service both of God and the congregation; the same altar meeting His due as the Lord of the Temple, and their necessities as sinners, day by day. So, at the birth of the Lord Jesus, the word of the angels was this: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace." And in the same unchanging grace and wisdom, when at the close the holy city descends out of heaven, it will bring with it both "the glory of God," and "the tree of life" — it will witness God's honour and the creature's health and happiness. Thus, from beginning to end, in every scene and dispensation of divine energy, we see these two things joined together, as these two Psalms in their order celebrate.

But this by the way: the burden of this very joyous Psalm has been called the Jewish chorus — "for His mercy endureth for ever." It was heard at Jerusalem in the days of Solomon (2 Chr. 5), for those were, in type, the days of the glory. And it was heard before, when David brought in the Ark to its place. (1 Chr. 16) And afterwards, as the returned captives were laying the foundation of the second temple. (Ezra 3) For such occasions also savoured of the kingdom, or of the nation's joy. And here this Psalm or national chorus is sung, as the captives accomplish their journey, and stand in the sacred city again. And raised it will be in still loftier joy, when Israel learns "the songs of Zion," in the days of the kingdom.

Psalm 137

This Psalm has no title either. It may be read, therefore, like the preceding Psalms, as still the language of the captives arrived at Jerusalem. They remember their captivity in Babylon, and that then and there they had no song. (See James 5: 13) They refused to put their harps to any music but that which celebrated Zion, or to have music at all in the presence of Zion's foes. This they now remember. And this remembrance is easy and natural. They were now reaping in joy, but in the midst of the harvest, they remember how they had sowed in tears. And the feast of Tabernacles, which was the grand season of Jewish festivity, and the type of the millennial joy of the nation, retained the like recollections. For the people then dwelt in booths seven days in remembrance of the wilderness. But all such thoughts of the past only give zest and fulness to the present; as our hearts themselves well understand.

The returned Israel, also, desire judgments on their oppressors. This is still in character. And these exercises of heart are according to heavenly patterns. For, in the Apocalypse, we hear the glorified saints thus variously occupied, either telling out their present joy, remembering their past sorrow and degradation, or anticipating the coming judgment of their enemies. (See Rev. 5: 7, 11) Christ as kinsman-Redeemer they celebrate; Christ as kinsman-Avenger they look for. And, when He rises to act as Avenger, they are then prepared to triumph in His judgments (Rev. 19), as before they had been to celebrate His grace (ch. 5); as the mother in Israel of old sang, "Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel." (Judges 5)

Edom and Babylon are the enemies looked at by the long afflicted Israel of God. Babylon, we know, is greatly treated as a mystery in Scripture. As to Edom, we may just notice that its judgment is awfully announced also. "When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate." (See Isa. 34, Jer. 49, Ezek. 35, Obad., Mal. 1) For Esau (called the "profane") deliberately took the world for his portion, giving up his interest in God in exchange for it.

But, to turn to the happier thoughts of this beautiful little volume (Ps. 120-137), we may observe that it shows us, that while Israel were in Babylon, they had no songs; while they were on their way home they had occasional songs; but after they reached home, they had constant songs — either blessing (Ps. 134), praise (Ps. 135), or thanksgiving (Ps. 136), continually. So with the believer. He learns, that all his mirth before he knew the Lord ought to be shame and sadness; he now finds mingled services of joy and heaviness, of prayer and praise; but he looks to be a dweller in God's house, and then to have undivided songs and joys for ever.

We may observe, however, in addition to this, that reading these Psalms as the utterances of the returning and returned Remnant, and seeing those captives also in the light of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, we may judge, that while in Babylon, they were more blessedly exercised in their souls than the nation before had been in Egypt; and during the returning, than Israel in the wilderness. There was not the same manifested glory, but more of inward spiritual energy. The cloud was not over them, but the exercised heart was in them. While in Babylon, they hang their harps on willows; when risen up to depart, they exercise beautiful faith on the banks of the Ahava; as they journey, they stir up their souls with an occasional song; and on their return, though in weakness and scorn, they set themselves to service and to singing.

Psalm 138

This Psalm is one of peculiar interest to the soul. In Psalm 56 the soul rejoiced in the word above all. All in God was matter of praise, but above all, His word, His promise, His covenant. "In God will I praise His word." (v. 4, 10)

In this Psalm the word is praised again — esteemed above all God's name or revelation of Himself The worshipper owns that he had cried, and the Lord had heard him. This was to the honour of His word; this was the faithfulness of His promise. But we know that it is only in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that all the promises are thus yea and amen (2 Cor. 1: 19, 20), and that He Himself, in an eminent sense, is the word. So that this Psalm is as the language of a soul upon its discovery of Jesus. He learns "the Word" (John 1: 1) or "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and sees that God has magnified Himself in that revelation beyond all other, and that there He shines, full of loving-kindness and truth, or, in the language of the New Testament, of "grace and truth" (v. 2, John 1: 14). God has published His Name again and again in the progress of this world's history. He has successively unfolded the glory of it. He is "God," "the Lord God," "God Almighty," "Jehovah;" and now He stands revealed in fulness in the light and glory and blessedness of His New Testament name.

Upon this discovery, all manner of joy and blessing is anticipated; for the cry of the sinner has been answered and the soul has been strengthened. Kings are heard not merely fearing or falling down (see Ps. 72, Ps. 102), but singing in God's ways. The lowly are exalted, the proud are abased, according to the ministry of Jesus (Matt. 23: 12), and the preaching of His apostles (v. 6, James 4: 6, 1 Peter 5: 5) joy in trouble, victory in the face of enemies, yea, revival or resurrection, are anticipated, and the full accomplishing of all that concerns the soul which thus apprehends and trusts this precious revelation of God. For such an one is God's own work, as the Gospel teaches — "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus," as is here, with true Gospel confidence and liberty, pleaded. And this is the highest and most blessed confidence — the believer making his cause God's cause. As the prophet said, "the battle is not yours but God's," (2 Chr. 20: 15), when he would, through the Holy Ghost, encourage the host of Israel and king Jehoshaphat., The saint's blessing is thus God's cause: and the confidence is, that it shall never be forsaken.

Psalm 139

This Psalm appears to accompany the previous one. It is like the feast of unleavened bread attending on the Passover. For there the grace, here the holiness, of our calling in Christ Jesus is set forth. For light is light of God, comforting the sinner but rebuking sin.

The believer begins by confessing the terribleness of the fact that God knows him. This was overwhelming to a soul duly convicted of sin. But he finds full relief and occasion for praise in this, that he knows God; — knows Him, too, in the mystery of the grave of Christ and the new creation there. (Eph. 2: 5) This is the fearful, wonderful workmanship; Eve taken out of the sleeping Adam. This at once puts praise into the lips, the desire of further purifying into the soul, and a readiness, not a fear, to be searched out by the inquiring "word of God" (Heb. 4), that no leaven may be found in that which is now consciously an Israelite's dwelling. The sense of the richest grace is thus in company with the exactest jealousy of holiness. (138, 139) The passover and the feast of unleavened bread are still together.

Perhaps there is no place in the Scriptures of old where the mystic oneness of Christ and His saint is more distinctly owned.

NOTE. — The human body is, we know, treated as the symbol of the Church or mystic Christ Both have been fearfully and wonderfully made. And this "great mystery" is looked at in this Psalm.

It is heard as on the lips of Christ Himself (v. 14-16). For personally, if I may so express it, Christ is heard in these verses. The theme was so worthy of His own lips and of His own personal presence. The convicted saint, led by His Spirit, had, as we have observed above, owned the searching light of God, aid it was solemn to the soul (1-13); but now, having listened to this welcome and cheering interruption from the lips of Christ (14 - 16), he goes on with his meditations and communion, but in the full relief of one who had, in spirit, drunk in the refreshing of such a mystery. (17-24) And now the happy saint can desire (in his love of God and of the holiness and righteousness of His power) present spiritual judgment of himself and the coming destructive judgment of evil. He invites that searching which the convicted saint had dreaded.

Psalms 140-150 form another little Book, giving us the cries first, and then the praises, of the Israel of God in the last days. They may have been indited to serve different times and persons (as we have observed upon Psalms 120-134), but they are here together, suiting, in their full and final application, that Jewish election, whose sorrow and deliverance will close this age and usher in the kingdom. And thus they form a seasonable and beautiful close to the whole Book.

The Israel of God speak here rather as martyrs than penitents. And this is still morally fitting. For they are now on their direct way to the kingdom.

The Spirit of Christ is heard distinctly in the midst of His Israel. He takes up their sorrows and expresses them as in His own person. It is the language of one suppliant, and the enemy is addressed or referred to individually also. But it is Christ in sympathy with His Israel, and the enemy is but the head of a great faction, as other scriptures so fully tell us.

These sorrows of the Psalmist are as those of David from Saul, and not from Absalom. And those were the sorrows (martyr-sorrows) which led, in like manner, directly to the kingdom. He had consolations, however, as well as trials. The enemy persecuted him as a partridge in the mountains; the ungrateful men of Keilah, and the time-serving Ziphites, betray him; and even his companions, in the heat and anguish of a trying hour, speak of stoning him; but he has the sword of Goliath, and the prophet, and the priest with him; the refreshing too of the faith of Abigail; and the strength of the Lord against the Amalekites (in the moment of their fullest pride), that bitter and ancient enemy of Israel, whose spoil he is able to share with his beloved ones in the land. And all this is David in 1 Sam. 21, 30, the days of his exile from Israel through the enmity of Saul.

And these are the days too of Jacob's trouble, as the prophet Jeremiah speaks (Jer. 30: 7); but Jacob shall be delivered out of them, as the anointed exile was led by his sorrows up to his kingdom; and as these Psalms begin with a soul in the heaviness of the night, but leave him in the joy of the returned and eternal morning — the day-break of the kingdom.

Psalm 140

In this Psalm the afflicted Israel are brought into trial with "the violent man" and the "evil speaker" and those who are associated with them. They (or Jesus, their great forerunner and also their sympathizing Lord in all this affliction) cry for protection against the devices of these enemies and for judgment upon them, especially the judgment of "fire" and the "pit" upon the chiefs or "heads." (See Rev. 19: 20; Rev. 20: 1) He then expresses His confidence that the Lord whom He makes all His trust, will maintain His cause as that of the poor and righteous one.

The enemies contemplated are too clearly, I would say, to be questioned, the great infidel apostate ones of the last days — "the Beast" and "the False Prophet," and their army or associates.

At different times in the ripening of human iniquity, there has been this confederacy of kings and counsellors against the Lord's anointed. Pharaoh and his magicians withstood Moses; so Balak and Balaam afterwards. Saul took counsel of the witch, that deep abomination in the land; so did Absalom and Ahithophel meet together against David. The Jews and Caiaphas, with Herod the king, are in company against the true anointed One. And so in latter days will the beast and the false prophet resist the righteous seed in the earth, and affect the power and honour of the Lord Himself. Whether in Egypt, in Midian, in Israel, or in Christendom, thus it has been and will be (and in spirit ever is), man putting forth all his powers, his strength and his wisdom combining. But the Lord is to prove that He sitteth above all water-floods and reigneth king for ever. He will have them in derision.

Psalm 141

This Psalm very suitably follows the preceding. For it is the prayer of the Remnant to be kept from all fellowship in word or deed with those apostates, for whose wickedness, in word and deed, judgment (as they had there desired and anticipated) was to come upon them. And they desired to be kept from all such wickedness, even though at the cost of being smitten by the rebukes and admonitions of the godly. Then, as to the enemy, they refuse to take vengeance themselves, (as David, 1 Sam. 24: 6, and as Jesus, Matt. 26: 51, 52,) but leave their wrongs in the hand, and to the vindication, of God the Lord.

Verse 6 may remind us of 1 Sam. 24 and 26; for there the judges or heads of the people were as in stony places, and might have been broken and overthrown; but, instead of that, they heard David's words of peace.

And rather remarkable, as in connection with ver. 5, David, in the intervening chapter (25) had been reproved by the words of the righteous Abigail, which had proved an excellent oil for his head, anointing him as with a spirit of wisdom and of the fear of the Lord, to turn him away from the counsel of his heart. (1 Sam. 25: 30-34)

But all this time David was the martyr; he and his company had the sentence of death in them, that they should not trust in themselves, but in Him who raiseth the dead. But the Spirit of Christ looks beyond the sorrows of David here; for David's people were not then slaughtered, as some of the Israel in the latter day will be. (See Ps. 79) So that this Psalm is still the breathing of the Spirit of Christ in sympathy with them. Though it may (like all others, in a large sense, we may say) be used by any saint, when his circumstances and state of soul suggest it; as words given to Moses (Deut. 31: 6, 8) and to Joshua (Joshua 1: 5) may "boldly," in the holy boldness of faith, be received and adopted by any of us. (Heb. 13: 5, 6)

And how does ver. 4 warn our souls that the evil ones against whom the Spirit of the Lord here cries in the righteous, have their "dainties," their beguiling subtle temptations, to ensnare, if it were possible, even the elect.

Psalm 142

This Psalm, in its conceptions, appears to have been likewise the cry of David in the day of his desertion. The visits of Jonathan (1 Sam. 20, 23) were very happy pledges to his soul that in due season the righteous (as this Psalm speaks, ver. 7) would compass him about. It might have also been the musing of the soul of Jesus in such an hour as that of Gethsemane, when He was calling to mind the overwhelming of His spirit, and foretasting the subsequent desertion of His disciples. (Matt. 26: 42, 56) In its application, too, as I have noticed above, it may well suit the soul of any saint tried in such a way; as St. Paul might have found an utterance for his heart here, in the circumstances of 2 Tim. 4: 16, 17.

But still more exactly is it the language of the Israel of God, on entering into the sense of that condition in which they are to be, just on the eve of their deliverance. For then the Lord will take knowledge of them as deserted and friendless, with no eye to pity, no hand to save, but His own (Deut. 32: 36; Isa. 59: 16); and in this condition, He Himself will awake for them. And in this affecting little Psalm, they understand and are in sympathy with this; they are feeling that state of things which the Lord thus, in other scriptures, is said to see and relieve. And I may observe another sympathy like this in Ps. 140; for their language in ver. 8 is according to the thoughts of the Lord Himself in Deut. 32: 27. This may be noticed by our souls with great interest — the Spirit forming experiences in the saints in company with the mind of God.

Psalm 143

The cry in this Psalm seems naturally to follow the preceding one; for there the suppliant was deserted of his friends; here he finds himself, consequently, in the midst of enemies. Both in its conception and application I read it as I did the last.

"The land," where this afflicted one is now toiling in so much conscious grief and enmity of the wicked, he calls a "thirsty land;" but the land he looks for he calls by two beautiful titles — "the land of the living," and "the land of uprightness." (Ps. 142: 5; Ps. 143: 6, 10) These are happy, honourable titles of God's place and kingdom in Judea, as it will be by and by. In divine reckoning, righteousness (uprightness) and life are always found together, as are sin and death. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law."

But this Psalm suggests, that while they are suffering for righteousness' sake in the latter day, Israel will be learning their own ways, and that before God they are but poor sinners. While they cry for deliverance and vindication against man, they confess sin to God, desiring to be led of His Spirit, without whom nothing is holy. The land of uprightness, as well as the land of the living, they seek, — to be kept in God's paths of righteousness, as well as to be led out of their present place of death into the kingdom of the living God.

This is blessed preparation for the kingdom to which they are now hastening — suffering for righteousness' sake, and yet learning their worthlessness as sinners. And this is the path of each saint, humbled before God, broken-hearted by reason of conscious short-coming, standing in the full liberty of Christ, and walking among men in suffering righteousness.

Psalm 144

This Psalm follows, I may say, in the train of the previous one; for at the close of that the suppliant had sought the destruction of the enemy, and here he speaks as being assured that God would be his strength, his shield, and his victory, in the battle. He, therefore, desires the day of conflict, anticipating victory. And beyond that, he anticipates its fruit and joy in the kingdom, all human prosperity, children and wealth and settled peace, and the common verdict of the whole world, that "happy is that people whose God is the Lord." (See Deut. 33: 29)

The suppliant (Christ, no doubt, in sympathy with the remnant) contemplates God as making Himself to him all that he can need or desire (verses 1, 2); and immediately upon this he marvels that it should be so (v. 3). And this surprise is expressed in the same language as in Psalm 8, only there it is the sense of the divine greatness, — here it is the sense of the human vanity that awakens this surprise that God should take such counsels of grace and glory about us.

In all this we again find Israel learning divine lessons about themselves, as we observed in the previous Psalm. They own that they are less than the least of all God's mercies, wondering, as it were, that they should be His objects at all.

The spirit of Psalm 18 is much breathed here. And that is strikingly the language of the true David in the great Jewish deliverance of the latter day leading to the kingdom. (See also v. 5, and Isa. 64: 1) So here the suppliant knows that this desired deliverance will lead directly into the joy of the days of Messiah or the kingdom (11-15). As the creation knows that her deliverance from present bondage to corruption will be into glorious liberty; and as the saints can and do sing, "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." (Rom. 8: 21, 30) For when the blessed God makes a way of escape for sinners or captives, in His love He will carry them into more than liberty.

Psalm 145

Quite in order, this Psalm prepares thanksgiving for the victory and the peace anticipated in the preceding Psalm. And this introduces the praises of the kingdom, which occupy the Prophet's harp from thenceforward to the end. The first verse is very significant of this. "I will extol thee, my God, O King "it is God as King that the prophet's heart now peculiarly or exclusively celebrates. This gives strong and decisive character to this Psalm as being millennial, or touching the kingdom. The Lord was as "a man of war" in the preceding Psalm, but here, the war being over, He is a "king." The Jewish millennial people had been just pronounced to be happy (Ps. 144: 15), and here they utter their happiness. As it were, others had said, "the Lord has done great things for them;" and they now reply, "the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad."

Praise and song express this gladness. And so does their conversation; for they speak of His glory and talk of His power. (ver. 11) In sadness, disciples once talked of the things which had happened at Jerusalem (Luke 24), but now her people help each other's joy, as they walk and talk together. And converse tunes the heart to praise, and then rapture breaks in on the even flow of their ever cheered and happy spirits. As in the progress of the Book of Revelation the family in heaven are at times heard in their rapture, in the swelling of their joy beyond its orderly current. (See Rev. 5, 7, 11: 12, 14, 15, 19)

The materials for this unceasing praise are also largely prepared, — His mighty acts — the glorious honour of His majesty — His greatness, goodness, and righteousness — His upholding of the weak — His fulfilling of the desire of the needy — His preserving of them that love Him — His vengeance on the wicked — these are among the themes of praise which will engage the joys and songs of the coming kingdom. One generation is to rehearse them to another. And the Lord Himself is the leader of this praise, according to what He had vowed in His distress. (Ps. 22: 22) Jesus — the saints or Jewish people — the sons of men or all flesh — the works of creation — all join in their way and measure. The saints, as it were, take it from the lips of the Lord and teach it to the nations, and one generation teaches it to another.

For now, the character or generation of the Jewish people has changed. It has hitherto been "perverse and crooked" (Deut. 32) "stubborn and rebellious." (Ps. 78) But the final generation will be a new creation — a people formed by God to show forth His praise. (Ps. 22: 30, Ps. 102: 18; Isa. 43: 21) The first generation has not yet passed away. (Matt. 24: 34) Israel is still perverse; but the Lord will have a seed in Israel that shall be accounted to Him "for a generation." And such Psalms as this let us see and hear some of their happy enjoyments. (See Ps. 12)

NOTE. — Verse 1. Christ is surely the "King." (See Ps. 45: 1) David here owns Him as his "God," and in Ps. 110 he owns Him as his "Lord" See John 20: 28.

Psalm 146

This note of praise rehearses the vanity of man and of all confidence in him, which surely now, in this day of the closing history of man's world, will have been abundantly proved. But it celebrates, on the other hand, the blessing of him who has the God of Jacob for his help and portion. The Spirit enlarges on the excellencies of the God of Jacob, and ends with repeating the call to praise Him.

We may observe, how much loftier are the songs which close than those which of old opened the ways of God. The work of creation was the only theme for the "morning stars" and the "sons of God" then. But now the Lord, the God of Jacob, has gathered praise in other acts than in that of creation — His keeping of truth, His executing of judgment, His feeding the poor, loosing the prisoner, healing the blind and the oppressed, loving the righteous, preserving the stranger, and reigning in His Zion for ever — these are new and honourable praises for the Lord of heaven and earth.

These beautiful Psalms are the earth's or Israel's expression of that same joy which is heard in heaven thus

"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever." (Rev. 11: 15)

Israel's joy will lead and secure earth's joy, for the king of Israel is God of the whole earth (Isa. 54); and what will their recovery be but life from the dead? (Rom. 11) "Scenes surpassing fable and yet true" will then be witnessed. And in words often enjoyed, I may close this meditation

One song employs all nations, and all cry —

Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain for us!

The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks

Shout to each other — and the mountain tops

From distant mountains catch the flying joy,

Till, nation after nation taught the strain,

Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round."

Psalm 147

This Psalm constitutes another of the praises prepared for the kingdom. "The instrument," as one has expressed it, "is tuned here at the door." It is of larger compass than the preceding song, celebrating the praise of the Lord in all His high and holy honours — in His power and knowledge, in creation and providence, in Israel, in grace, and in judgment — as one who, though so high that He numbers and names the stars, yet hears the cry of the young ravens. And the God of heaven and earth is Israel's God. He who does His pleasure throughout the universe gives peace and plenty to Israel. Zion is therefore especially summoned to join in this praise, for God has especially become her God; and they who have been forgiven much and blessed much should love much and praise much.

And as the previous Psalm had shown how God received praise in His acts of grace and redemption, beyond all that His acts in creation had brought Him, so here we see that the same acts of grace and redemption bring Him more delight than the others. It is not "the strength of a horse" or "the legs of a man," that are now the divine delight, though such show forth His handiwork; but "the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy."

Nothing gratifies love (we may, from this, say) like using it. Love does not act to be admired, but to be used. Nothing answers the heart of Jesus so much as drawing from Him, and trusting Him. The woman of Samaria far more refreshed Him by going away with a heart filled out of His wells, than had she staid to give Him (though He needed it then) out of her pitcher. For that enabled Him to say, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." This was Jesus on earth, this is God in heaven. And Israel will give Him this delight by and by, as now every poor sinner does who knows that the blood of Christ and the righteousness of God are his precious property, and therefore takes them, and all things with them, as the gift of grace, with confidence and joy of heart.

NOTE, — The Septuagint divides this Psalm into two, beginning a new one at v. 12. (See Psalm 10 note.)

Psalm 148

This hallelujah, or song of praise, calls on heaven and earth and all things therein, to join in celebrating the glory of the Lord. And it challenges this praise from Israel, whose horn or majesty has been exalted, to whom "the first dominion," as another Scripture expresses it, has now come. The Lord Himself, however, is above all this millennial earth and heaven, in His own proper glory. His name alone is excellent. (See Psalm 8)

All this joy of heaven and earth is much spoken of. The times of restitution and refreshing are felt throughout — "the presence of the Lord" becomes the exhilarating atmosphere every where. John, in spirit, heard all creatures in heaven, in seas, on earth, and under the earth, uttering their praise in prospect of this. (Rev. 5) But I would observe, that all this joy of creation the apostle hangs upon "the manifestation of the sons of God" (Rom. 8), and the prophets, upon the redemption of Israel. (Isa. 44: 23, Isa. 49: 13, Isa. 55: 12) For these distinct testimonies are according to the several ministries of apostles and prophets. In one place our Psalmist shortly connects the two, touching the chord where their harmonies lie — "when the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory." (Ps. 102: 16)

May we not, upon this, say, that often, among the saints, there is wanting one to do this happy office of "the sweet singer" in Israel, thus to strike the true unisons. For the voices are not discordant, save in the unattuned ear. There may be real oneness in the spirit of our minds, where there are divers judgments and thoughts, — "eating" and "not eating," if both "to the Lord," is real oneness, in the esteem of the Spirit of God, though in man's judgment it may be discordance and separation. (Rom. 14) But this only as we pass.

NOTE. — The supremacy of "the Word" in the operations of what is called nature is declared, as in 2 Peter 3: 5-7. (See Ps. 147: 15, 18; Ps. 148: 8)

Psalm 149

This is still, I need not say, of the same volume of songs for the kingdom. But it is exclusively for Israel.

It appears, from many Scriptures, that Israel will be employed as the Lord's weapons of war against the factious heathen who come up against their land. (Isa. 41: 15; Jer. 51: 20; Micah 4: 13; Zech. 9: 13, Zech. 10: 3, 4) But they will enter into the battle "with tabrets and harps" (Isa. 30: 32); or, as this Psalm expresses it, "with the high praises of God in their mouth," so satisfied and happy will they be in the sure results of having the glory with them.

The order of these things we speak not of: but after the land has become one of "unwalled villages," and "the deserted places are inhabited," and "the people are gathered out of the nations," another army, it appears, will come up. But they shall perish under the withering of the Lord's strength in hailstones, pestilence, fire, and overflowing rain; and then shall Jehovah be "Most High over all the earth." (See on Ps. 83; and see Ezek. 38, 39)

We have but partial thoughts of all the extended action of these coming days. But this we know, praise shall close the history and fill the scene. The "valley of decision" shall become the "valley of blessing." For the valley of Jehoshaphat is the place of the last struggle (Joel 3), and that is the valley of Berachah or blessing (2 Chr. 20), where the din of battle was lost in the music of praise. And the millennial earth will be an extended valley of Berachah. All will be blessing there. Man's city will have become a ruin then; the feet of the poor will have trodden it down. God's city then shines; its walls are salvation and its gates praise; and the righteous nation enter (Isa. 25-27) The light and the gladness, which have been as yet but sown (Ps. 97), shall then be reaped, and "it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

"The wars of the Lord" (Num. 21: 14), I might take occasion from this Psalm to say, are of two kinds — those which He conducted entirely alone, and those in which He employed His People.

The battle at the Red Sea was of the first kind. The Lord was there all alone. Israel had nothing to do but to be still and see God's salvation. He looked forth from the cloudy pillar and troubled the host of Egypt. (Ex, 14) So, in the controversy with Balaam. The Lord was again all alone, apart from Israel, who did not know at the time what was going on in the distant and high places of Moab. (Num. 22-24) The scenes in 2 Kings 7 and 19, in Israel's latter history, are the same.

The battles with Amalek, with Arad the Canaanite, Sihon the Amorite, and Og of Bashan, are of the second kind. The Lord employed His people in them (Ex. 17, Num. 21) So, after they enter the land, the battles of Gideon, Jonathan, David, at Jericho and Ai, and generally, I need not say, are of this class. In the one case, Jehovah triumphed for Israel, in the other, in Israel.

Each of these kinds of battle has its own proper moral or spiritual sense. Thus — the great act of redemption, like the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, was entirely single-handed, as we know. The Lord drank the cup alone, and to the dregs. "His be the victor's name, who fought the fight alone." But there is a class of battles, for the fighting of which we must enter the field ourselves. Our business is to fight, and nothing is done without us. Spiritual conflicts the believer goes through in his own person. In them he is deeply conscious of the fight. He may know that he has no strength equal to the occasion, but he knows that he must be in the field from first to last. The Lord, it is true, brings the strength, but it is used in and through His saint. The indwelling Spirit meets the indwelling sin; or, the new man in Christ mortifies the earthly members.

Thus is it now with us. And in days still before us, the God of Israel will revive His work both for and with Israel. As with the rod of another Moses, and with the sword of another Joshua, He will write over again the story of the Exodus and of Canaan. Again will He bend Judah for Himself, and fill His bow with Ephraim. (Zech. 9) As this Psalm finely has it in the closing verses.

Psalm 150

This is the closing hallelujah, the praise of God in His sanctuary, His upper sanctuary, "the firmament of His power." The preceding was His praise in the lower sanctuary, "the congregation of saints." There Israel was heard, but here, the heavens. His acts and Himself, His greatness and His ways, are the themes of this lofty praise. "All kinds of music," as it were, dulcimer, sackbut, flute, psaltery (for loud joy will, in its place, be as holy, as once it was profane, Dan. 3), are summoned to sound it, and to sound it loudly, and all who have faculty to praise, to join the hallelujah. Every verse teems with praise. Every thought is about it. Every object awakens it. Every power uses itself only in this service.

The Levites have changed their service. No longer have they burdens to bear through a wilderness, but they lift up their songs in the house of the Lord. (1 Chr. 15: 16, 1 Chr. 23: 25, 26, 30)

The heavens have changed their bearing also. They have ended their laughter at the proud confederates, (Ps. 2) for such confederates have been answered in judgment; and they are filled with joy and singing, and with that glory which is to break forth from them, and to be a covering over all the dwellings of Zion. (Isa. 4)

These are "the days of heaven upon the earth." (Deut. 11: 21) The kingdom has come, and the will of the Blessed One is done here as there. The mystic ladder connects the upper and the lower sanctuaries.

But these closing Psalms, I may observe, do not spread out before us the materials of the millennial world. Jerusalem, Israel, the nations with their kings, princes, and judges, the heavens and the earth, and all creation throughout its order, are contemplated as in "the restitution" and "refreshing," but they are detailed, as there, in their mere circumstances. It is rather the praise of all that is heard. The Psalmist anticipates the harps rather than the glories of the kingdom; and this is beautifully characteristic.

Praise crowns the scene. The vision passes from before us with the chanting of all kinds of music. Man has taken the instrument of joy into his hand; to strike it, however,, only to God's glory. And this is the perfect result of all things — the creature is happy and God glorified. "Glory and honour are in His presence; strength and gladness are in His place." (1 Chr. 16: 27)

What a close of the Psalms of David! what a close of the ways of God! joy indeed has come in the morning, and struck its note for the "one eternal day." Praise ye the Lord! Amen.

Yes, praise, all praise; untiring, satisfying fruit of lips uttering the joy of creation, and owning the glory of the Blessed One. This is righteous happiness.

And here, in connection with this, and on closing these meditations, let the thought cheer us, beloved, that happiness, and that for ever, is ours. There may have been a path through Calvary, and the scorn of the world, and the grave of death; but it led to joy and everlasting pleasures. The way for a season lay by the waters of Babylon, but Jerusalem was regained — as our Psalms have shown us. The valley of Baca was the way to the house of God. "Tribulation," it may be; but," I will see you again," said Jesus.

As to our title to it, there is to be no reserve, no suspicion in our souls. It is our divinely appointed portion. To come short of happiness will be the end only of revolted hearts. Our title to look for it is of God Himself. It lies in the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, the God-man, given for us, in the riches of divine grace; and faith in us reads, understands, and pleads that title. And there is no reason for hesitating to enjoy its fruit and benefit — none whatever. No more reason than Adam would have had to question his right to enjoy the garden of Eden, because he had never planted it; nor for the camp of Israel in the desert to drink of the water from the rock, because they had never opened it. The garden was planted for Adam, the rock was opened for Israel, and so has the Saviour, and all the joy that His salvation brings with it, been as simply and surely provided for sinners. Our souls are to make it a question of Christ's glory, and not of our worthiness. He made it so when He was here. He never led a diseased or maimed one to enquire into his own fitness, but simply to own His hand and His glory. "If thou canst believe," that is, if thou art ready to glorify me, to be debtor to me for this blessing, then take it and welcome.

Then as to our resources. It is not merely love we have to do with, Power is on our side also. Love and power together shall form the scene we are to gaze on for ever, as they have from the beginning been "workers together" for us, teaching us our wondrous resources.

See them thus working together in some little instances in the days of the Lord Jesus. Five thousand are fed with five loaves and two fishes. Fed to the full — and twelve baskets of fragments left! This tells the wealth of the Lord of the feast, as well as His kindness. And what satisfaction of heart does this communicate! If we draw on the bounty of another, and have reason to fear that we have partaken of what he needed himself, our enjoyment abates. This fear will intrude, and rightly so, and spoil our ease while we sit at his table. But when we know that behind the table which is spread for us, there are stores in the house, such fears are forbidden. The thought of the wealth of the host, as well as of his love, sets all at case. And it is to be thus with us in our enjoyment of Christ.

So in using His strength as well as His wealth, His resources are immeasurable. Look at this in the scene of danger on the lake of Galilee. He shows Himself on high above all the difficulty that was frightening the disciples. He walks on the tops of those waves and amid the blowings of those winds, which were bringing them to "their wit's end." What triumphant relief for them was this! Danger could be nothing in the presence of such a deliverer. How easily could He manage a boat for them in the storm, who thus controlled the storm without any boat at all! There was strength enough and to spare here, as there was bread enough and to spare before, and they could not perish. (See Mark 6)

Here are pictures of our resources! We draw on a wealthy Lord as well as on a loving one. We use a mighty arm as well as an outstretched one. We consult a physician who can heal death as well as sickness. It is as David speaks, "the kindness of God" we enjoy. "A fulness resides in Jesus our Head." We are fed and rescued and healed in ways worthy of Him whose wealth and strength and skill know no measure. His resources, and therefore ours, are glorious and fathomless, and fragments remain, let who will draw on them. And the coming kingdom will disclose them to perfection.

Then, after thus inspecting our title and our resources, I may just say as to the joy itself, the character of it will be worthy of its Giver, and will utter itself, as we find in these Psalms, in a loud noise, as from overflowing hearts, in all kinds of music. And joy of such rare quality this will be, that it will never satiate, never weary, never end, but still begin with more than earliest freshness.

Divers orders of glory, as we know, there will be then. "The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." But both will be glory — and glory is the fruit of love, or the manifestation of what love has prepared for its object.

And this coming day has had its past shadows. The joy of Adam in Eden with his days of coronation and espousals (Gen. 2) the settlement of the land under Joseph (Gen. 47) the meeting of Jethro and the camp of Israel at the mount of God (Ex. 18); the feast of tabernacles and the year of jubilee (Lev. 23, 25); the brilliant and palmy days of Solomon, with the nations paying their honours and gathering their joys at Jerusalem (2 Chr. 1-9); the holy mount and its two companies (Matt. 17): these are among the past or fled shadows of these future glories shining together, or in their several spheres. In spirit we can sing of them beforehand, and also distinguish their orders, heavenly and earthly, as these verses of our hymn witness:

"Blessed morning! long expected,

Lo, they fill the peopled air!

Mourners once, by man rejected,

They, with Him exalted there,

Sing His praises,

And His throne of glory share.

"King of kings! let earth adore Him,

High on His exalted throne;

Fall, ye nations! fall before Him,

And His righteous sceptre own.

All the glory

Be to Him and Him alone

O for power to long after such joys in the present unsatisfied desires of our hearts! we are to count largely, and richly, and with unmeasured confidence, on being unspeakably happy.

But there is to be reserve in this point — that we take heed that our expected happiness be righteous happiness, such as God can warrant and Jesus Himself can share. (See on Ps. 132) And this cannot be in the earth as it now is. The gospel does not propose to produce a happy world, or to replant Eden here. The return of the glory, the presence of the Lord, must do that. For where the glory is, there alone is the scene of righteous joys and expectations. If that have left the earth, our expectations should leave it also. When that returns, our delights and prospects may return with it. Happy scene, when all tells of God again, and He finds a footstool on earth as grateful to Him in its place as His throne in heaven! And then it will be rebellion in the nations not to find their joy here. The bread of mourners was not to be eaten before the Lord. And so, when it is said of Jerusalem, "the Lord is there," if the nations come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles, if they refuse to be joyful before the Lord the King, they must suffer the rebuke and the judgment.

Oh that, with world-weaned hearts, and desirous affections towards Himself, we could indeed say, "Come, Lord Jesus."

Great Father of mercies, we bow,

With thanks for our headship above!

Nor less, holy Jesus, art Thou

The object of praise and of love!

In the three glorious persons in God,

Whose sovereignty all shall adore,

Through Christ, and by faith in His blood,

We'll glory and boast evermore.

______________

Having now, in our measure, passed through these breathings of the Spirit of God, we might ask, what have we got in them? rather, perhaps, in a large sense, what have we not got in them? For how many passions of the renewed mind, how many acts of divine, discipline and their corresponding experiences in the believer, has the Spirit of God here anticipated? And how largely has He traced the ways of the heart of Jesus! His cries, and tears, and praises, His solitary hours, His troubles from man, and His consolations in God; all these are felt here in their depth and power. What was passing in His soul when he was silent as to man, led as a lamb to the slaughter; what they who then surrounded Him did not hear, we listen to in this wondrous Book. His thoughts of men, His worship of God, with all the incense of His various and perfect affections, are understood here. The New Testament tells us that He prayed and sung, but this book gives us His prayers and songs themselves.

And beside this — the whole mystery of Jesus, from the womb to the throne of glory, is rehearsed here in its joys and sorrows. We trace it as far back as "the volume of the Book." We read Him surrendering Himself before the foundation of the world. The deep silence of eternity is broken to our ear by those words "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." And from thence we see Him onward to the eternity before Him. Taking up our nature; hanging in infancy on His mother's breast; in His life of shame and grief and poverty; and in His last sorrows, the treason of His companions, the lying of the false witnesses, the deriding of enemies, the spear and the nails and the vinegar, and above all, the forsaking of God. This is all heard and felt here. And then we follow Him in His joys and songs in resurrection, and witness His ascension and His welcome and honours in heaven. And at last we watch His return from thence to the judgment of the nations, and to His glorious headship of Israel and the whole earth. All this is told out in this volume, not merely, as it were, with pen and ink, but in living lines, in fragments of the heart which this book has gathered up.

These are among the vast and wondrous contents of this little book. And, as we have noticed, it delineates the experiences of the saints. For the saints having "the mind of Christ," and "the same spirit of faith" (2 Cor. 4: 13, 14), are able to read their sorrows and joys, and the meditations of their hearts there also.* Accordingly, this book has been the companion of their souls, when often almost every thing else would have been intrusive and uncongenial.

*In Isa. 50: 10, and Matt. 11: 29, the Lord seems to present His own experience to the saints as a pattern of what theirs should be. And so in the Psalms — among others, Ps. 27, Ps. 31, Ps. 34.

But still, in using it, we should remember that, having the Holy Ghost in us, our experiences are to flow from that. Christian experience is the tasting of the fruit of the presence of the Spirit, and is according to the forms in which, as we are told in Scripture, He acts in us. And how rich should that be, when He dwells and acts in us, as an Unction, an Earnest, and a Witness. What joy of hope, what largeness of understanding, what strength of faith, should be ours! what sense of the divine love, when the Holy Ghost Himself is shedding that love abroad in our hearts! And as this is the due experience of the saint, as far as the Book of Psalms reflects the heart of a righteous Jew merely, the saint is now borne beyond it, or beside it. The Psalmist says, for instance, "My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments;" the saint now is to prove, that "perfect love casteth out fear," and that he has "boldness in the day of judgment." So again — "Let me not be ashamed of my hope;" the saint is taught to know, that "hope maketh not ashamed." In ways like these, the saint now passes beyond the Psalmist, and walks in the warmer, brighter light of the New Testament, in the strength of the Holy Ghost in him.

So, in Psalm 112, all earthly prosperity is promised absolutely to the godly man; but the apostle, quoting that Psalm (2 Cor. 9: 8-11), only states God's Power to give prosperity, — and prays for a measure of it in behalf of the saints at Corinth.*

*So Peter quotes Hosea; but he does not go on with Hosea to promise the saints now, as the prophet promises Israel, that they shall have all blessing in the earth — the earth hearing the corn and the wine and the oil, and they bearing Jezreel; but he exhorts them to behave as those who are only strangers and pilgrims while they remain in the earth. (See 1 Peter 2: 10; Hosea 2: 21-23)

But many a mistake on this subject of Christian experience has arisen, I believe, from the wrong use of the Book of Psalms. Many, diligently and graciously desiring to walk with God, have made it something of a model for themselves, and sought to have the heart conform itself to the trials, consolations, and other experiences delineated in it. But this is not its proper use. It should be read, rather, as the varied picture of the soul exercised by the Spirit under certain conditions and circumstances. The circumstance, together with the grace and energy of the Spirit, and not any effort of our own souls, is to be the parent of the experience.

This, I believe, is to be remembered. The Psalms were not models to Jesus. He did not, for instance, go through either the patience or the joy of Psalm 16 and Psalm 22, as though He were conforming the ways of His soul to certain patterns. These Psalms were rather the inspired anticipations of what the paths of His spirit were to be. The circumstances through which He was passing drew out His perfect soul in those utterances.

There are, no doubt, many other sources of mistake connected with this subject. But this I have long thought may be observed as one of them.

But to return. On the difference in the language of the Psalms and the New Testament, we may say, all this is perfect in its season, but strikingly intimates a difference in heavenly and earthly persons and things. And this going beyond the book of the Psalmist in our experiences, is like going beyond the books of the Prophets in our hopes and calling,. For the earth, its people, its judgments, and its glory, are the due theme of the prophets. And heavenly things are not to be expected to come within the mind of the Spirit in the Psalmist more largely than in the Prophets. Saints find their sympathies in this book, and use it for their spiritual comfort, but their calling and glory in the heavens is not the subject of the book. The Jerusalem of the Psalmist is not the heavenly Jerusalem of Rev. 21, but the Jerusalem in the land of Israel. And the people of this book generally are her people, or that Remnant which our meditations have so largely contemplated.

And let me here observe something more particularly as to this idea of "a Remnant," so common in Scripture.

It has its formal foundation in the incorrigibleness of man. Man may smart and cry out under the rod, but he returns to his naughtiness again and again. The Book of Judges illustrates this. And Isa. 1 shows us that the idea of a Remnant, as I have said, arises from this. For the prophet there tells us, that those who had been brought up as loved children had rebelled, and that afterwards, chastised as disobedient children, they had refused to repent. They were incorrigible. Piped or mourned to, they had no answer. And upon this the Lord has only to act on the sovereignty of grace, or on the principle of a Remnant — as the prophet further says, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been made like unto Gomorrah." (Isa. 1: 1-9)

The Lord was constantly, through Israel's times, exhibiting this sovereignty of grace in the election and manifestation of a Remnant. Such seasons have been called (and justly so) "Revivals." The times of Samuel, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, mark so many revivals or eras of spiritual recovery from a state of disease. But the present condition of Israel tells us, that again the bloom has gone up as rottenness. Their summer is departed. The land and the people witness this. But it is not to be always so. There will be still the greatest revival of all. Those which we have here traced were only the occasional recoveries of a diseased system, which carried the principle of death in it! but this last revival will be effectual, for it will be in the resurrection life and strength of the Son of God. For while nothing in man can be trusted, and nothing committed to man abides, in Him all the promises of God are yea and amen. (2 Cor. 1)

And in the time of this last and glorious revival in Israel, there will be a great doing of the Lord, as at such seasons there has always been. Samuel was exercised in heart before he was manifested, and David likewise, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the rest of them, though variously. The Spirit of God was getting ready the instrument ere the hand of God used it. As we read of Samson, "and the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol." (Judges 13: 25) And so, in the coming days of Israel, there will be the secret work of the Spirit again in the election from the midst of the nation.

The Prophets, again and again, tell us the fact, that they, a revived people, will be brought through much exercise of soul; viz., that they will bear the indignation of the Lord because they have sinned against Him — bewail their leanness and that they are only as grape-gleanings — wait for the God of their salvation — remember His former doings — be an afflicted and poor people, abstaining from iniquity and from speaking lies, and shutting their eyes from seeing evil — come with weeping and supplication — be led into the wilderness and there spoken comfortably to — return and seek God and David their king — take with them words — acknowledge their offences — speak often one to another, etc., etc. All this is given to us, historically, of the Remnant by the Prophets, as the Evangelists give us, historically or as facts, the ways of Jesus. And then, this book of Psalms comes, and, in its turn and place, under the same Spirit, gives us the hidden path both of Jesus and of this His elect Israel through these circumstances thus recorded by Prophets and Evangelists.

Of this election from the midst of Israel, or the Remnant of whom we have so much spoken, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and others, give us samples. Their righteous souls were drawn out into godly exercise over the state of the nation, and over the oracles of God. So, Josiah is exercised in a day when the judgment could not be averted from the people, but the righteous seed would be preserved. (2 Chr. 34)

And as the voices of Haggai and Zechariah animated the people in the work of the Lord's house, so will revived attention to the words of the Prophets give quickening and direction to the hearts of a kindred Remnant by and by, destined, through grace, to be the sons or citizens of the earthly Jerusalem. (See Ezra 5)

But the purposed fruit of all this discipline of soul and of all other discipline, is only this — "to take away their sin." (Isa. 27) For, when all this purifying is over, "the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old." The valley of Achor is to be a door of hope, as it was before (see Joshua 7, Hosea 2) — from the sorrow and discipline (assuredly through that blood of Jesus which is the only fountain for all sin, whether theirs or ours, Zech. 13: 1), is to spring for them joy and honour. Their wilderness is to yield a vineyard, or a garden of roses. (Isa. 35, Hosea 2) Achan must be removed, and the land shall then be taken. The rebels must be purged out, and then the flock shall be saved again lie down as "under the shade of Lebanon," and David be their shepherd again.

These simple considerations may prepare us for hearing the voice of this people, the true Israel of God in this book. They will, in their day, be led to find in it what will suit the condition of their souls from the circumstances into which their obedience to God will bring them. For the Spirit of Christ, in sympathy with them, has indited these Psalms for their use in their day. And of this, Acts 4: 25-27 gives us a very simple and yet very clear instance. For there, the circumstances then around them so form the mind of the disciples (under the Holy Ghost surely), that their souls are at once cast into fellowship with the Psalm 2; and, without effort or delay, they get the proper utterance of their hearts through it.

This is just a sample of what we mean; and it is a very happy warrant for our saying, that Psalms are prepared by the Spirit of Christ for His Israel in the day of their quickening, which is to be the day of their trials also. And we may observe that the 78th Psalm was, in this way, prepared for other distant generations, as we are told at the very opening of it. So, Moses tells us, that his song was for all generations of the people, and would be used for blessing in testifying against them, and leading them to know the grace in God that aboundeth, the mercy that rejoiceth over judgment. (Deut. 32) These, therefore, are further warrants for our saying, that ancient words of God's Spirit in the Scriptures have been prepared for the future use of His people, in the day of the softening of their hearts. And is not such a Scripture as Isa. 53 clearly of this character? We all now use it as our own to the full; but surely, from the very terms of it, we must see that Israel will use it, as though it had been altogether written for their sakes (see 1 Cor. 9: 10), in the day of their repentance.

Certain Psalms, then, we doubt not, are written by the Spirit of Christ for His people in the time of their revival. And this comes from the sympathy of Christ with His elect Israel; which sympathy we might be prepared to find in the Psalms, for we hear of it continually in other Scriptures: — "In all their afflictions He was afflicted;" — "His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel;" — "He that touches you toucheth the apple of His eye." Here is the doctrine of the Lord's sympathy with Israel. And still more in the words of the Lord by Nathan to David: — "Wherever I have walked with all Israel, spake I a word to any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not built me an house of cedars?" For He world not rest till His people rested, but still go, as He farther says, "from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another;" as He had walked with David "whithersoever he had walked." (1 Chr. 17) A beautiful scripture on the Lord's full sympathy with His David and His Israel. And His ways had exhibited the same. For when they were in the Egyptian furnace, He was in a burning bush; when they travelled through the desert, He was in a cloudy chariot; when they were seated under the hostile walls of Jericho, He was as captain of their host. As afterwards, He was in the field with the judges or deliverers of Israel; as Deborah encourages Barak, — "Up, is not the Lord gone out before thee?" Here is sympathy. Here is the Lord speaking and acting as one with Israel. And in like manner, He was tending the flock with David, when the lion and the bear met him: and with him in the plain of Elah, when the uncircumcised Philistine came out against him.

Now the Psalms (as far as they are these utterances prepared by the Spirit of Christ for His people) are but the expression of all this over again. 'They are, so to speak, the voices of Jehovah-Jesus again from the burning bush, or from the chariot cloud, or from under the walls of Jericho the night before the battle. In them, we may say, Jesus is again with Moses and David, with Joshua and with Gideon; again alive to the entrance of the sword of the persecutor, and saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And these are among the utterances we listen to in this wondrous, precious book. For the experiences of the soul of Jesus, either in His own personal history, or in His sympathies with His people, may have been as fully matter for the anticipations of the Spirit in the Psalmist, as the facts and circumstances of His life were for the anticipations of the same Spirit in the Prophets.

These sympathies are, truly, deep and fervent; and they help to tell us, as all Scripture does, that when the Lord returns to Israel, He will return with all the fervency of "first love." For it is not only whom He loves He loves to the end, but as He loves He loves to the end. First love never cools there. "Nothing changes God's affection." Happy truth, whether for Israel, or the church, or any saint. When the Lord visited Israel in the days of righteous Jehoshaphat, there was a sample of the restored days of Solomon — the Gentiles bring him presents, his officers of state wait around him, and the fear of the Lord falls on all the world because of Jehoshaphat. Here was something of the palmy days of Solomon again. And all this shows that the ancient glory was still in waiting. It had but retired within a thin veil. And so now; let but Israel learn to say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," and the departed glory will return.

Has He changed? Has the Lord become a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? Or does He still remember the kindness of youth, and the love of espousals, when all who would devour Israel offended Him? Surely he does. And when He returns, in the day of her repentance, it will be in the fulness of His "first love" to her, in this kindness of her youth. Love holds its first warmth, as well as its object, in "God's affections." Therefore Isaiah says of the return of the Lord to Zion, that it will be thus — "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee." (Isa. 62) So Hosea 2, so Zephaniah 3, so all Scripture. And so our Apostle writes, "As touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake," words which tell us that the early love, the first affection, is still remembered; that it is the love towards Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is to gather and delight over Israel, in the day of their covenant. And the end will prove that repentance is hid from His eyes; and that the manner as unchangeably as the object of His love is remembered to the end.

But this we will not pursue farther, but notice another subject, which these short meditations have also suggested; — the Lawless one, or the proud Apostate of the latter day.

As we said before of the Jewish Remnant, so now may we say of this one, that the Prophets again and again tell of him. And no wonder. For this wicked one will perfect the history of human apostasy. And so special a place does he hold in the accomplishing of the divine purposes in the earth, that he has had his type throughout Scripture, from beginning to end — Nimrod, and Pharaoh, and Amalek, Balak, Adonizedek, and Abimelek, Saul, and Absalom, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, and Herod — these, stretching along the whole line of Scripture history, present him in different features of his character and actions. And, at last, he appears under the symbol of the Beast, to whom the Dragon gives his power and his seat and great authority, and who at last falls before the brightness of the coming of the Lord.

The enmity of this Wilful king, the infidel pride of this Lawless one, will close that course and power of the world which opposed Jesus in His day, and has been ever in revolt, in contradiction of God.

And from this we may expect to find (as we have) this great Apostate of the latter day much noticed in the Psalms. For, in the prophetic Scriptures, the Spirit of God is continually looking at the great crisis — the solemn closing scenes of the conflict between light and darkness, between Christ and the enemy; and if so, the Jewish Remnant and this Apostate and his faction must be seen also, for they have each their distinguished part in that crisis. Not forgetting, however, but fully allowing, that we have more personally and immediately to do with those principles and workings of iniquity which are leading to this crisis — "the mystery of iniquity," which, with greater or less energy, has been at work from the days of the apostles. And it is more important for our souls to know the false principles now thus working, than to have great knowledge about the Antichrist or Wilful king.

But though this is our point of observation, and our wisdom and duty in watchfulness, still the Prophets and the Psalms have to do (prophetically) with the crisis. And a wrong direction will be given to the soul of a believer, if, in their prophetic character, the Psalms be not so applied. just like the misdirection that was given, in days before ours, to the minds of many children of God, from reading the wars of the Israelites, as though they were the types of the proper actings of the saints now, and thus getting from them a warrant for taking the sword, and going to battle as on the Lord's side. But all this was zeal without right direction. For we are not now to call on the Avenger to show Himself, as the Psalmist does, — to call on the Lord to pluck His hand out of His bosom, or to lift up His heels to the perpetual desolations. In contradiction of this, we are rather to be willing to wait for our inheritance, rejoicing that the delay or the long-suffering of God is salvation to others. (2 Peter 3)

When the day of the Avenger is come, the saints will sing. (Rev. 29) For the present season, they have their tears over the corruptions around them, and such tears are the fruit of a godly mind. But still, though this is so, such sorrow is to have its measure. We weep over a defiled creation, a forfeited Eden, a lost land of Canaan, or the present ruin of Christendom. But there is to be measure in such mourning. Jesus bewailed the unbelieving cities, but He had relief in the counsels of the Father. (Matt. 11) Paul could be grieved over apostate professors, but he had relief in the sureness of God's foundations. (2 Tim. 2) Samuel, in older days, had tears over Saul's sin and the dishonour of the anointed of the Lord, but they were dried up by the Lord Himself. (1 Sam. 16) And in the Psalms, Jesus, in sympathy with the afflictions of the righteous, when iniquity is filling up its measure, waits for vengeance and vindication, knowing that there is resource in God for all the mischief that men can work. Thus, as they show us, He desires the deliverance and prosperity of the righteous — the raising of the humble, the abasing of the proud, the vindication of the name of the Lord, and the settling of all things according to right. He can say, it is true, "O that my people had hearkened unto me" (Ps. 81), as in the days of His flesh, He said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem." But still, His Spirit in the Psalms is generally exercised on the righteous and settled counsels of God. Jeremiah, in the like spirit, calls for judgment. (Jer. 17) For it is resistance to God that He sees: as Paul, in his measure, when he speaks in Gal. 1: 8, and in 2 Tim. 4: 14. And He sees much of this, as I have said, in sympathy with the suffering Remnant of the last days, when iniquity is filled up. As another has said, "Once that the gospel has run its course, Christ will demand righteous judgment against the world. It is Christ calling for righteousness, asking it (generally by His Spirit in the humble and lowly ones of the Jewish nation) against the proud and violent man. It is not David asking to rule over his enemies, but Christ who demands judgment, because the time is come."

This has been said, I believe, very justly, on much that we get in the Psalms, and simply accounts for breathings and desires there, which are not, and ought not to be, in concert with the present movings of the renewed mind of the saints. But we will not pursue this further.

The book of Psalms gives us, as we may say, fragments from the history of Redemption. They are not the orderly parts of a narrative, or of an argument, or even of a poem. They are but fragments, and scattered also here and there. Still, however, there is to be discovered something of method even in the scattering. It is not altogether wild disorder. And the apostle, naming one Psalm as "the second," witnesses that there is something of order in the Book known to the Holy Ghost. And so, in these short meditations, we have found some Psalms grouped together, while others lie alone before the eye. But there should be holy care in the soul to gather up these fragments, and to put them together with a cautious hand, and to walk over the ground where they are lying with unshod feet. Surely we should esteem it "holy ground," since Jesus is there in His sorrows and in His joys. The strings of David's harp are the strings of Christ's heart; and when they are touched we should be still. There should be something of the deep silence of those who listen to distant music; for the melodies of that heart are far enough away from this coarse and noisy world.

It should be thus with our souls in our meditations here. What sorrows, trials, temptations, groans, prayers, meditations, joys, songs, shouts, and praises, do we listen to in this wondrous Book! It is the seat of the affections, — the heart, as it were, of the whole inspired volume, as we have before taken leave to call it. And how many exercises of spirit have been awakened in the saints through them! How have they soothed and raised the hearts of the Lord's people, regulated the motions there, and, like the prophet's minstrel, enabled them to take their easy and happy course again! The presence of the King of Israel disturbed the mind of Elisha, — and ere he could prophesy he needed to hear the harp of a minstrel. And so has this harp of David, this harp of many, strings, done for many a saint of God when other occasions have arisen to grieve them. This has been its gracious ministry under the Holy Ghost, the Comforter of the saints, and still is every day.

But, as these meditations show us, the passions of the soul, uttered in this Book, are not descriptions merely, but the felt power of real circumstances. They are experiences in actual scenes of life, so that we learn events in the utterances. The passion of the soul is the principal thing, but the event or circumstance which had produced it is disclosed through it. In this way a Psalm is like a song. In a song the music is principal, the subject is only secondary, though it may have given occasion to it. So the passion of the soul is principal in a Psalm, though the event conveyed through it occasioned it. The Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Canticles of Solomon are of this kind — the one, the deep-toned sorrows of the Spirit in Jeremiah, or in the righteous Remnant in Israel, or of Christ Himself; the other, the joyous motions of that soul that has learnt to delight itself in the Beloved, and is longing for more of His presence. And the event being intimated through those utterances, gives us the historic or prophetic ministry of this Book.

This Book, therefore, yields twofold service to us. As devotional, it soothes, and regulates, and cheers our souls, and is the welcome companion of all our trials of heart: as prophetic, it teaches us the counsels and works of the Lord, and much of what has been, or is to be, His way.

These short meditations are an endeavour to draw forth from the Psalms both of these, the experiences of the soul, and the events from whence they have arisen. But they are only sketches or outlines. And such would we rather have them; for we are not to think for others. Our communion as saints is not that of the blind leading the blind, nor is it that of the seeing leading the blind, but it is children of light walking together under the common grace of the one blessed Lord and Author of light; and the mind of one brother is to give occasion to others to exercise themselves in the truth, in dependence on the Holy Ghost in them; owning, withal, the gift or grace in some to teach, or to exhort; as it is written, "He that teacheth (let him wait) on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation."

But some are urgent after knowledge. They are ever schooling the mind. Their way calls for a continual effort, and acts as a constant pressure. But the apostle had another method. He would have the teacher as little as possible act the teacher. He could call himself the teacher of the Gentiles (1 Tim. 2), but he speaks rather as a loving companion or brother. "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." (Rom. 1: 11, 12) "I speak as unto my children," was his word also.

And this style of the apostle was but a distant expression of that of the Great Master Himself. As he intimates when he says (2 Cor. 10), "I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." For this lets us know the Lord's style, so to speak, as a teacher. And it is blessed to know that this was the style of the Son of God in the midst of us. He wanted to invest the heart of His disciples with a sense of nearness to Him. He did not deal with them as a patron or benefactor, as man deals with man. (Luke 22: 25) Man will be ready enough to confer benefits if he may occupy the place of acknowledged superiority. But the Lord Jesus brings His dependent one near to Him. He sat at the well's mouth beside the sinner whose spirit He sought to fill. Was this patronage after the manner of men? Was this the condescension of a benefactor?

I believe it is something of heaven to apprehend this mind or style in Christ. But we have to be admonished as well as comforted. If we have this way in the Great Master to notice, we have our way as His disciples to consider and order.

It has been said — and it is much for the observation of our souls — that "we should take care how we traffic with unfelt truth."

A time of peace is a time in which the mind may indulge itself, and handle knowledge at leisure or speculatively. But knowledge is not divinely attained, truth is not spiritually learnt, if the mind have it as a speculation, or as propositions which the intellect digests and traffics with.

There is danger, now-a-days, of making the Bible "easy." The clear and full character of revelation in our dispensation is one of its great distinctions. That is true, and very blessedly true. "Blessed are your eyes, for they see," said the Lord. But still the facility with which divine knowledge may be now attained has its snare and its danger. We may get pleased with the attainment itself, without being stirred up, as we ought to be, to walk in those richer affections and in that deeper moral power, which is alone consistent with our enlarged measure of light and understanding.

The Church at Corinth abounded in knowledge (1 Cor. 1: 5), but their walk was so unspiritual that the apostle would not treat them as though they had knowledge (1 Cor. 3: 1) And this shows us how the Lord abhor; the trafficking in unfelt truth. In heaven there may be ignorance or want of knowledge, but no such thing as the possession of unfelt truth. The angels are heavenly creatures, but they confess their ignorance by their desire to know. (1 Peter 1: 12) Ignorant of certain truths they are, but not uninterested about them. So, righteous men and prophets have been ignorant, but not uninterested. (Matt. 13: 17; Luke X. 24; 1 Peter 1: 10) And in the person of the patriarch Abraham, we see how some of old, in dispensations of less light and communicated know. ledge, had such right affections, that the Spirit carried them beyond the measure of the stature of their age.

Speaking of Abraham, the Lord says, he "rejoiced to see my day; he saw it, and was glad." (John 8: 56) His "rejoicing" was the early or previous condition of his soul. It tells us, that he took an interest in the notices which had been afforded him of Christ. They were comparatively few and faint; but they captivated his soul. The glimpses were powerful. And the Lord honoured such an affection, and gave His servant a fuller vision. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it." And then, as we further read, "he was glad." He used the knowledge he attained aright, as he had sought it aright. His affections were engaged in the search, and they were not cooled or deadened when he had found.

Here was knowledge sought and used in the due order. O how the heart can say, O for more of this within and among us!

A little knowledge, with personal exercise of spirit over it, is better than much knowledge without it. As the proverb says, "There is much food in the tillage of the poor." For the poor make the most of their little. They use the spade, the hoe, and the mattock; they weed, and they dress, and turn up their little garden of herbs. And their diligence gets much food out of it. And we are to be these "poor ones," ever to use divine Scripture, as they carry on their tillage, and make the most of our little. It may be but milk we feed on, but if we use our diligence to lay aside malice, and hypocrisies, and envies, and the like, we shall be really feeding and growing. (1 Peter 2) And because of this much more savour of Christ do we often find in those who have less knowledge, for theirs is this "tillage of the poor." (Prov. 13: 23)

"We know in part, and we prophesy in part." We have reason to say one to another, "I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say." And especially, in a little work like this, taking a view of the heart of the Lord Jesus and of His saints, there will necessarily be much that can be entered into only by feeling. Who has not experienced at times vivid emotions, when meditating on the ways of the Lord, which would find a portraiture in a Psalm; while, at other times, we should in vain look for the same features, and, perhaps, wonder how they had once come so bright before us? The soul of one who is in the habit of meditating much on the Lord, would refer one verse of the gospels, it might be, to a whole Psalm; and in doing a certain act, or in suffering a certain unkindness, would find an utterance for his heart to God in a certain portion of this Book. And another, according to the measure of his spiritual apprehension, would refer this to another portion of a different complexion. This could not be with any other part of Scripture. For this Book is not one of doctrine, but of the experiences of the soul.

May nothing in these meditations be allowed to hinder any of its value! For they aim only to be the companion of the meditations of the saints, if haply, through the Spirit, they may help their joy and light in the Lord.

The present is a time, when many are running to and fro to increase knowledge of all kinds. And this must be a caution to our souls; for the saint has always to watch against the spirit of the times. And in these present times of light and knowledge (though it may be knowledge of God), we are still to remember that it is not food merely, but digestion, that nourishes. The clean animal, under the law, chewed the cud. And the Spirit of God, through the wisdom of Solomon, has said, "Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it." (Prov. 25: 16)

And our Lord Himself, I may add, instructs us to know how we should cultivate divine knowledge, or knowledge of Scripture. For, in answering questions, He never appears to be satisfying curiosity, but He entertains enquiries, as one who had His eye on the soul of the enquirer, and not His ear merely open to his question. His words, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," show us, that His purpose was not to convey information, as we speak, but to direct the conscience, and feed the renewed mind according to its growing capacity. And this is divine. All other questioning and gathering of knowledge will be but the vain traffic of mere human or Athenian intellect. (Acts 17: 21)

But above all, beloved, we would remember, that with our knowledge, we must seek and cultivate that faith which appropriates what we know, makes it our own, and gives us personal joy and interest in it. This is the point of chief blessing to us. "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Because it is faith which thus appropriates God — makes the Blessed One and His fulness our own, our home. And this is the thing of great price to us. God is a home to us — He is ours. We are said to dwell in Him. A home becomes the very symbol of the due state of our souls when thinking of God. And faith alone gives us this, and this is of chiefest value to us. For who does not feel the charm of home? As we say, "Home is home, be it never so homely." We instinctively appropriate to ourselves all that is there. The furniture may be mean, but it is our own. That is the thought the heart prizes. All that we see reminds us of our rights, our connections, our enjoyments. And thus "home is borne." And so with our God. Faith makes Him a home to the heart. Knowledge furnishes the house, but faith eyes all, be it more or less, as our own.

O for increase of faith! A scribe may be much instructed; he may look at the house of glory, and speak of its costliness, tell of the trophies of David, and of the curtains of Solomon, which hang there; but all the time he may be but a visitor. He may pass through all this grandeur, without appropriating faith, without his soul carrying the sense that he is at home in this wealthy place. While another may have less faculty to unfold those curtains, and decipher those trophies, or to weigh the gold and silver of the house, but withal he may have that precious faith which blessedly appropriates all that it sees, be it more or less, and thus makes him not a visitor, but a child at home in God's house.

And seasonable, most seasonable, now-a-days, is the voice of one in other days — "Wouldest thou know that the matters contained in the word of Christ are real things? then never read them for mere knowledge sake. Look for some beams of Christ's glory and power in every verse. Account nothing knowledge, but as it is seasoned with some revelation of the glorious presence of Christ and His quickening Spirit. Use no discourse about spiritual truths for mere conversation sake, but mind the promoting of edification. And use not duties for mere custom or service sake, but for nearer communion with God." - Henry Dorney's Contemplations.

This is the grace we may well covet: "Lord, increase our faith."

And as clay in the divine potter's hand, may we be not at the disposal of man, to be what his thoughts, his wisdom, or his religion, would make us; but in the Lord's hand, lying there, to be fashioned by His truth and Spirit, after His mind, and kept to the end in "the simplicity that is in Christ;" and then in season be removed from the potter's house, to be set as vessels of His praise in the sanctuary of His glory for ever and ever. Even so, Lord Jesus!

Praise ye the Lord.

Praise God in His sanctuary: praise Him in the firmament of His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts: praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: praise Him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.

Praise ye the Lord."

Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us, kings and priests unto God and His Father: to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."

The Son of God

The Son of God.

J. G. Bellett.

Chapter 1

"The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father"

(John 1: 18)

I am sure that I dread reasonings where affections should animate us, and the withdrawing from the place of living power into anything like a region of notions or theories. But the mysteries of God are all of the highest practical value, in either strengthening for service, comforting under trial, or enlarging the soul's communion.

The apostle speaks of himself and others as "ministers of Christ," and also as "stewards of the mysteries of God." And so we, in our measure, are to be ministers (that is, servants), in all practical, personal readiness and devotedness; patient, diligent, and serviceable in labours; in all of which some of us may know how little we are in comparison with others.

But we are also to be "stewards"; and that, too, of "mysteries," keeping uncorrupt and inviolate the peculiarities of divine revelation. Reasoning men may not receive them. The cross was foolishness to such; and "the princes of this world," the men of philosophy who professed themselves to be wise, knew not "the wisdom of God in a mystery." But that mystery is not to be surrendered to them in anywise. Our stewardship is of such; and it is required of stewards, that a man be found faithful (1 Cor. 4: 1, 2).

The guardianship and witness of the personal glory of the Son of God form a chief part of this high and holy stewardship. I observe John guarding that glory with a jealousy quite of its own kind. There are, for instance, measures and methods recommended, when Judaizing corruptions or the like are to be dealt with. In the Epistle to the Galatians, where the simplicity of the gospel is vindicated, there is a pleading and a yearning in the midst of earnest and urgent reasoning. But in John's epistles, all is peremptory. There is a summary forcing out, or keeping out, all that is not of that unction of the Holy One, which teaches the Son as well as the Father, which will admit of no lie to be of the truth, and which distinctly says, "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father" (1 John 2: 23).

This diversity of style in the wisdom of the Spirit has its value; and we should mark it. The observing of days or the not eating of meat are things which really depreciate the full glory and liberty of the gospel. But they are to be borne with (Rom. 14). But depreciation of the person of the Son of God would not be thus borne with, or have a decree passed in its favour after this manner.

A mere journeying from Egypt to Canaan would not have constituted true pilgrimage. Many a one had travelled that road without being a stranger and pilgrim with God. Nay, though the journey were attended with all the trials and inconveniences of such an arid and trackless wild, it would not have been divine or heavenly pilgrimage. A merely toilsome, self-denying life, even though endured with that moral courage which becomes God's strangers on earth, will not do. In order to make that journey the journey of God's Israel, the ARK must be in their company, borne by a people ransomed by blood out of Egypt, and tending, in their faith of a promise, to Canaan.

This was the business of Israel in the desert. They had to conduct the ark, to accompany it, and to hallow it. They might betray their weakness, and incur chastening and discipline in many a way, and on many an occasion; but if their direct business were given up, all was gone. And this did come to pass. The tabernacle of Moloch was taken up, and the star of Remphan and this was despite of the ark of Jehovah; and the camp had, therefore, their road turned away from Canaan to Babylon or Damascus (Amos 5; Acts 7).

And what ark is in the midst of the saints now for safe and holy and honourable conduct through this desert-world, if not the name of the Son of God? What mystery is committed to our stewardship and testimony, if not that? "He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any one unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed" (2 John 9, 10). The wall of partition is to be raised by the saints between them and Christ's dishonour.

It is upon the heart a little to consider the Lord Jesus as Son of God; and, if He give help from Himself, the subject will be a blessing to us.

We are baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28: 19). This carries with it the formal declaration of the mystery of the Godhead; the Son being a divine Person (in the recognition or declaration of this sentence), as is the Father, and as is the Holy Ghost.

It appertains to other scriptures to give us the same mystery (that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three Persons in the one divine glory or Godhead), in other and more moral ways; showing it in its grace and power, and in its application to our need, our life, and our edification. John's Gospel specially does this, drawing it out from its orderly form, as in the words of baptism, and giving it to our understanding as saints, our affections, and our consciences, making it our possession in faith and communion.

In connection with this, I might observe, that in John 1: 14, the saints are heard, as it were, interrupting the story of the glories of Jesus, and sealing, by their testimony, the great truth of "the Word" being "made flesh." And, in the fervour which became them at such a moment, they break or interrupt the current of their own utterances in that verse. For they begin to speak of the Word made flesh, but, ere they end that record, they (in a parenthesis) publish His personal glory, which they say they had seen, even "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." And this only begotten of the Father is spoken of, very soon afterwards, as "in the bosom of the Father" — words to be deeply cherished by our souls* (ver. 18).

*He is prototokos or first-begotten in several senses: and we have companionship with Him, prototokos or First-born among many brethren. But He is also the monogenes or Only Begotten, and there He is alone.

I doubt not the Lord is called "the Son of God" in different respects. He is so called as being born of the Virgin (Luke 1: 35). He is such by divine decree, as in resurrection (Ps. 2: 7; Acts 13: 33). This is true, and remains true, though further revelation be made to us of His divine Sonship. He is the Son, and yet has obtained the name of Son (Heb. 1: 1-3). Matthew and Mark first notice His Sonship of God at His baptism. But John goes back farther still, even to the immeasurable, unspeakable distance of eternity, and declares His Sonship "in the bosom of the Father."

And there were, I doubt not, different apprehensions of Him, different measures of faith touching His person, in those who called on Him. He Himself owns, for instance, the faith of the centurion, in apprehending His personal glory, to be beyond what He had found in Israel (Matt. 8; Luke 7). But all this in no wise affects what we hear of Him, that He was the Son "in the bosom of the Father," or "that Eternal Life, which was with the Father," and was manifested to us (1 John 1).

We must not, beloved, touch this precious mystery. We should fear to dim the light of that love in which our souls are invited to walk on their way to heaven. And  - what is a deeper and tenderer thought, if I may be bold to utter it — we should fear to admit of any confession of faith (rather, indeed, of unbelief) that would defraud the divine bosom of its eternal, ineffable delights, and which would tell our God that He knew not a Father's joy in that bosom, as He opened it; and which would tell our Lord that He knew not a Son's joy in that bosom as He lay there from all eternity.

I cannot join in this. If there are Persons in the Godhead, as we know there are, are we not to know also that there are relationships between them? Can we dispense with such a thought? Is there not revealed to faith, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeding? Indeed there is. The Persons in that glory are not independent, but related. Nor is it beyond our measure to say that the great archetype of love, the blessed model or original of all relative affection, is found in that relationship.

Can I be satisfied with the unbelieving thought, that there are not Persons in the Godhead, and that Father, Son, and Spirit are only different lights in which the One Person is presented? The substance of the gospel would be destroyed by such a thought, and can I be satisfied with the unbelieving thought that these Persons are not related? The love of the gospel would be dimmed by such a thought.

It was once asked me, Had the Father no bosom till the Babe was born in Bethlehem? Indeed, fully sure I am, as that inquiry suggests, He had from all eternity. The bosom of the Father was an eternal habitation, enjoyed by the Son, in the ineffable delight of the Father "the hiding-place of love," as one has called it, "of inexpressible love which is beyond glory; for glory may be revealed, this cannot."

The soul may have remained unexercised about such thoughts as these, but the saints cannot admit their denial.

"Lamb of God, Thy Father's bosom

Ever was Thy dwelling-place!"

The soul dare not surrender such a mystery to the thoughts of men. Faith will dispute such ground with "philosophy and vain deceit." Even the Jews may rebuke the difficulty which some feel regarding it. They felt that the Lord's asserting His Sonship amounted to a making of Himself equal with God. So that, instead of Sonship implying a secondary or inferior Person, in their thought it asserted equality. And, in like manner, on another occasion, they treated Jesus as a blasphemer, because He was making Himself God, in a discourse which was declaring the relationship of a son to a father (John 5, 10). The Jews may thus, again and again, rebuke this wretched, unbelieving difficulty which the "vain deceit" of man suggests. They were wiser than to pretend to test, by the prism of human reasonings, the light where God dwells.

"No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father" (Luke 10: 22), is a sentence which may well check our reasonings. And the word, that the eternal life was manifested to us, to give us fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1: 2), distinctly utters the inestimable mystery of the Son being of the Godhead, having "eternal life" with the Father. And again, as we well know, it is written, "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." I ask, Can any but God declare God? In some sense God may be described. But the soul of the Church will not rest in descriptions of God; though the wisdom of the world knows nothing else. It asks for declaration or revelation of Him, which must be by Himself. Is not then, I ask, the Son in the bosom a divine Person?

Nothing can satisfy all which the Scriptures tell us of this great mystery, but the faith of this: that the Father and the Son are in the glory of the Godhead; and in that relationship, too, though equal in that glory. "He who was with God in the beginning, as eternal as God, being God Himself, was also the Son of God" — as another has expressed it; and then adds, "God allows many things to remain mysteries, partly, I believe, that He may in this way test the obedience of our minds; for He requires obedience of mind from us, as much as He does obedience in action. This is a part of holiness, this subjection of the mind to God; and it is something which the Spirit alone can give. He alone is able to calm and humble those inward powers of mind which rise and venture to judge the things of God, refusing to receive what cannot be understood; a disobedience and pride which has no parallel, except in the disobedience and pride of Satan."

Holy, seasonable caution for our souls! "Who is a liar," asks the apostle, "but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" And he immediately adds, "He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son." And again, "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father" (1 John 2: 22, 23). These are very serious sentences under the judgment of the Holy Ghost. And how can there be knowledge of the Father, but through and in the Son? How can the Father be known otherwise? And therefore is it written, "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." I may say, "Abba, Father," in the spirit of adoption; a poet may say, "We are also His offspring"; but God is not known as the Father, if the Son in the glory of the Godhead be not owned (Rom. 8; Acts 17). Sure we may be, nay, rather, assured we are, on divine authority, that if the unction which we have received abide in us, we shall abide in "the Son," and in "the Father."

Can the Son be honoured even as the Father, if He be not owned in the Godhead? (John 5: 23). The faith of Him is not the faith that He is a Son of God, or Son of God as born of the virgin, or as raised from the dead; though those are truths concerning Him, assuredly such. But the faith of Him is the faith of His proper person. I know not that I can call Jesus "Son of God," save in the faith of divine Sonship. The understanding which has been given us, has been given us to know "Him that is true," as being "in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ"; and to this it is added, "This is the true God, and eternal life" (1 John 5).

Is not "the truth," in the sense of John's Second Epistle, "the doctrine of Christ," or the teaching which we have in Scripture respecting the Person of Christ? And in that teaching, is not the truth of Sonship in the Godhead contained? For what is said there? "He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." And the door is required to be shut against those who bring not that doctrine; the very same epistle speaking of Him as "the Son of the Father"; language which would not attach to Him as born of the Virgin by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.

But still further. I ask, Can the love of God be understood according to Scripture, if this Sonship be not owned? Does not that love get its character from that very doctrine? Are not our hearts challenged on the ground of it? "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Again, ",Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And again, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Yet again, "We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (John 3; 1 John 4).

Does not this love at once lose its unparalleled glory, if this truth be questioned? How would our souls answer the man who would tell us that it was not His own Son whom God spared not, but gave Him up for us all? How would it wither the heart to hear that such a One was only His Son as born of the Virgin, and that those words, "He that spared not His own Son," are to be read as human, and not as divine? (Rom. 8: 32).

Good care are we to take not to qualify the precious Word, to meet man's prejudices. Was it with his servant, or with a stranger, or with one born in his house merely, that Abraham walked to Moriah? Was it with an adopted son, or with his own son, his very son, his only son, whom he loved? We know how to answer these inquiries. And I will say, I know not how I could speak of the Son loving me, and giving Himself for me (Gal. 2: 20), did I not receive Him by faith as Son in the bosom of the Father, Son in the glory of the Godhead.

The Son is the Christ. God, in the person of the Son, has undertaken all office work for us, all work for which anointing or Christhood was needed. And this He has done in the person of Jesus. We therefore say, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God." The Only Begotten, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, are one. But it is in personal essential glory, in office, and in assumed manhood, that we see Him under these different names.

We track His wondrous path from the glory to the heirship of all things. What discoveries are made of Him, beloved! Read of Him in Prov. 8: 22-31; John 1: 1-3; Eph. 1: 10; Col. 1: 13-22; Heb. 1: 1-3; 1 John 1: 2; Rev. 3: 14. Meditate on Him as presented to you in those glorious scriptures. Let them yield to you their several lights, in which to view the One in whom you trust, the One who gave up all for you, the One who has trod, and is treading, such a path; and then tell me, Can you part with either Him or it?

In the bosom of the Father He was. There lay the eternal life with the Father; God, and yet with God. In counsel He was then set up ere the highest part of the dust of the earth was made. Then, He was the Creator of all things in their first order and beauty; afterwards, in their state of mischief and ruin, the Reconciler of all things; and by-and-by, in their regathering, He will be the Heir of all things. By faith we see Him thus, and thus speak of Him. We say, He was in the everlasting counsels, in the virgin's womb, in the sorrows of the world, in the resurrection from the dead, in the honour and glory of a crown in heaven, and with all authority and praise in the heirship and lordship of all things.

Deprive Him of the bosom of the Father from all eternity, and ask your soul if it has lost nothing in its apprehension and joy of this precious mystery, thus unfolded from everlasting to everlasting? I cannot understand a saint pleading for such a thing. Nor can I consent to join in any confession that tells my heavenly Father it was not His own Son He gave up for me.

If we could but follow the thought with affection, how blessed would it be to see the Lord all along this pathway to the throne of the glory!

And still further. In each stage of this journey, we see Him awakening the equal and full delight of God; all and as much His joy at the end as at the beginning; though with this privilege and glory, that He has awakened it in a blissful and wondrous variety. This blessed thought Scripture also enables us to follow. As He lay in the bosom through eternity, we need not — for we cannot — speak of this joy. That bosom was "the hiding-place of love"; and the joy that attended that love is as unutterable as itself.

But when His Beloved was set up as the centre of all the divine operations, or the foundation of all God's counsels, He was still God's delight. In such a place and character we see Him in Prov. 8: 22-31. In that wondrous scripture, Wisdom or the Son is seen as the great Original and Framer and Sustainer of all the divine works and purposes, set up in counsel before the world was; as several scriptures in the New Testament also present Him to us. See John 1: 3; Eph. 1: 9, 10; Col. 1: 15-17. And in all this He can say of Himself, "Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him."

So, when the fulness of time was come, the Son of God lay in the Virgin's womb. Who can speak the mystery? But so it is. But it is only another moment, and a fresh occasion, of joy; and angels came to utter it, and tell of it to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem.

Then again, in a new form the Son of His love was to run another course. Through sorrows and services as Son of man, He is seen on earth; but all, and as unmixedly, awakening ineffable delight as in the hidden ages of eternity. "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;" "Behold My Servant, whom I uphold, Mine Elect, in whom My soul delighteth," are voices of the Father, telling of this unchanging joy, while tracking the path of Jesus across this polluted earth (Matt. 3; Isa. 42).

And that same voice, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," is heard a second time; heard on the holy hill, as on the bank of Jordan. in the day of transfiguration as at the baptism (Matt. 17). And the transfiguration was the pledge and type of the Kingdom, as the baptism was entrance on His ministry and witness. But the same delight is thus stirred in the Father's bosom where the Son lay, whether the eye of God track Him along the lonely path of Jesus the Servant in a polluted world, or on the heights of the King of glory in the millennial world.

It is delight in Him, equal and full delight, all along the way from everlasting to everlasting: no interruption, no pause, in the joy of God in Him, though various and changeful joy; the same in its fulness and depth, let the occasions proceed and unfold themselves as they may. The One who awakens the joy is the same throughout, and so the joy itself. It can know no different measures, though it may different springs.

And that One was alike unsullied through the whole path from everlasting to everlasting; as holy in the virgin's womb as in the Father's bosom; as spotless when ending His journey as when beginning it; as perfect as a Servant as a King; infinite perfection marking all, and equal complacency resting on all.

If the soul were but impregnated with the thought, that this blessed One (seen where He may be, or as He may be) was the very One who from all eternity lay in the divine bosom; if such a thought were kept vivid in the soul by the Holy Ghost, it would arrest many a tendency in the mind which now defiles it. He that was in the virgin's womb, was the same that was in the Father's bosom! What a thought! Isaiah's enthroned Jehovah, whom the winged seraphim worshipped, was Jesus of Galilee! What a thought! As spotless as Man, as He was as God, as unstained in the midst of the human vessel, as in the eternal bosom; as unsullied in the midst of the world's pollutions, as when daily the Father's delight ere the world was!

Let the soul be imbued with this mystery, and many a rising thought of the mind will get its answer at once. Who would talk, as some have talked, in the presence of such mystery as this? Let this glory be but discovered by the soul, and the wing will be covering the face again, and the shoe will be taken off the foot again.

I believe the divine reasonings in John's First Epistle suggest, that the communion of the soul is affected by the view we take of the Son of God. For in that epistle, love is manifested in the gift of the Son, and love is our dwelling-place. If, then, I judge that, when the Father gave the Son, it was only the gift of the Virgin's seed, the atmosphere in which I dwell is lowered. But if I apprehend this gift to be the gift of the Son who lay in the Father's bosom from all eternity, my sense of the love rises, and hence, also the character of my dwelling-place. The communion of the soul is thus affected.

I know, indeed, from converse with saints, that many a soul, through simplicity of faith, has a richer enjoyment of a lower measure of truth, than some have of higher measures. But this does not affect the thoughts and reasonings of the Spirit in that epistle. it is still true, that love is our dwelling-place, and that our communion will therefore take its character from the love which we apprehend. And why, I ask, should we seek to reduce the power of communion, and thus hazard our enjoyment in God? The sorrow lies in this (if one may speak for others), we but scantily care for the good things we have in Him.

The Son, the only begotten Son, the Son of the Father, emptied Himself that He might do the divine pleasure in the service of wretched sinners. But will the Father suffer it, that sinners, for whom all this humiliation was endured, shall take occasion from it to depreciate the Son? This cannot be, as John 5: 23 tells us. Jesus had declared that God was His Father, 'making Himself equal with God.' It is a question, Will God vindicate Him in that saying? And yet, He is scarcely justified in it by the thought of those who deny Sonship in the Godhead. But the Father will not receive honour if it be not rendered to the Son, as we read, "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him."

The Spirit was given, breathed out, by Jesus risen (John 20). The Holy Ghost then proceeded from Him, and in that way became the Spirit. But will it be thought that He was not "the Spirit" in the Godhead before? Never, by a saint. And so the Son. He was born of the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, and so became Son of God; but, in like manner, shall that affect the thought that He was "the Son" in the Godhead before?

Look again at John's First Epistle. There he addresses "Fathers," "young men," and "little children" (1 John 2). And he distinguishes them:

The "Fathers" are they who "have known Him that is from the beginning." They abide in "the doctrine of Christ," having "both the Father and the Son." The unction is powerful in them, if I may so express it. They have listened, as it were, with deep attention of soul, to the declaration of the Father by the Son (John 1: 18). Having seen the Son, they had seen the Father (John 14: 7-11). They keep the words of the Son, and of the Father (John 14: 21-23). They know that the Son is in the Father, they in the Son, and the Son in them, They are not orphans (John 14: 18-20).

The "young men" are they who "have overcome the wicked one," that wicked one who animates the world with the denial of the mystery of the Christ (1 John 4: 1-6). But they are not in the full settled power of that mystery, as the "Fathers" are, and they need exhortation; so that the apostle goes on to warn them against all that belongs to the world, as they had already stood in victory over that spirit in it which was gainsaying Christ.

The "little children" are they who "have known the Father." But they are only "little children," and need warning, teaching, and exhorting. Their knowledge of the Father was somewhat immature; not so connected with the knowledge of the Son, of "Him that is from the beginning," as was that of the "Fathers." He, therefore, warns them of antichrists, describing them as set against "the truth," or "the doctrine of Christ." He teaches them that "whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;" that if the anointing they have received abide in them, they will surely abide in the Son and in the Father; and that the house of God was of such a character as that none who savoured not of such anointing could remain there. He reminds them that the promise which the Son has promised is eternal life. And, finally, he exhorts them so to abide in what the "unction" teaches, that they may not be ashamed in the day of the Son's appearing.

It is, therefore, all about the person of the Son, or "the doctrine of Christ," that this distinguishing scripture deals. It is their attainment in that truth, their relationship to it, and not their general Christian character, which distinguishes them as fathers, young men, and little children. These addresses, therefore, hold in jealous view the great object of the whole epistle; and that is, the Son of God. For the mention of the Son of God pervades it all from beginning to end. Thus: It is the blood of the Son that cleanses. It is with the Father we have an Advocate; which intimates the Advocate to be the Son. It is in the Son the "unction" causes us to abide. It is the Son who has been manifested to destroy the works of the devil. It is in the name of the Son we are commanded to believe. It is the Son who has been sent to manifest what love is. It is the Son, faith in whom gives victory over the world. It is the Son about whom God's record or testimony is. It is the Son in whom we have life. It is the Son who is come to give us an understanding. It is the Son in whom we are. It is the Son who is the true God, and eternal life.

All this is declared to us in this epistle about the Son of God; and thus it is the Son who is the great object through the whole of it; and the fathers, the young men, and the little children, are distinguished by the apostle because of their relation to that object, I believe, because of the measure of their souls' apprehension of it. All is, in this way, divinely and preciously consistent.

And in this same epistle John speaks much of love and of righteousness, as necessary parts or witnesses of our birth of God. But, in the midst of such teaching, He speaks of right or wrong confession of Christ. Does he, I ask, treat the former as living and practical matter, and the latter as speculative? He gives no warrant to any one thus to distinguish them. Not at all. All are treated as being equally of one character, and he lets us know that the exercise of love and the practice of righteousness would not complete the witness of a soul being born of God, without the knowledge and confession of the Son.

Had the opened eye of Isaiah tracked the path of Jesus through the cities and villages of his native land, how must he have been kept in continual adoration? He had been taken into a vision of His glory. He had seen the throne, high and lifted up, His train filling the temple, and the winged seraphim veiling their faces as they owned in Jesus the Godhead-glory. Isaiah "saw His glory, and spake of Him" (Isa. 6; John 12). And it is the like sight, by faith, which we need — the faith of the Son, the faith of Jesus, the faith of His name, the apprehension of His person, the sense of the glory which lay behind a thicker veil than a seraph's wing, the covering of the lowly and earth-rejected Galilean.

And let me, in closing, remember what the Lord says about giving the household their meat in due season (Matt. 24; Luke 12). We must be careful not to corrupt that meat. "Feed the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood," says one apostle. "Feed the flock of God which is among you," says another. And the Church of God or the flock of God is to increase with "the increase of God." Wondrous language!

Let us watch, beloved, against the attempt of the enemy to corrupt the meat of the household. The unfoldings of John about the Son of God, and of Paul about the Church of God, are meat in due season now; and we are not to attemper the food, stored up of God for His saints, to man's taste or reasonings. The manna is to be gathered as it comes from heaven, and brought home to feed the travelling camp with angels' food.

"I commend you to God," says one in the Holy Ghost, "and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified" (Acts 20: 32).

Chapter 2

"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"

(John 1. 14).

In the history of flesh and blood, given to us in Scripture, we learn that by sin came death. To all, as headed or represented in Adam, it was this: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Touching, however, the promised Seed of the woman, who was not thus represented, it was said to the serpent, "Thou shalt bruise His heel." The death of this Seed was thus to be as peculiar as His birth. He was, in birth, to be the woman's Seed; in death, He was to have His heel bruised. In the fulness of time this promised One was "made of a woman." The Son of God, the Sanctifier, took part of flesh and blood; He became "that holy thing" (Luke 1: 35).

Had death, I ask, any title? None whatever. Whatever title the everlasting covenant had on His heel, death had none on His flesh and blood. In this blessed One, if I may so express it, there was a capability of meeting the divine purpose, that His heel should be bruised; but there was no exposure to death in anywise.

Under the covenant, under this divine purpose, at His own divine pleasure, He had surrendered Himself, saying, "Lo, I come." For the great ends of God's glory and the sinner's peace, He had taken "the form of a servant." And, accordingly, in due time He was made "in the likeness of men," and being found in that "fashion," He went on in a course of self-humbling, even to "the death of the cross"* (Phil. 2).

*Had He not been equal with God, He could not have done this; because every creature, every one less than God, is already a servant to his Creator. One Jew might be a voluntary servant to another Jew — a servant with a bored ear (Ex. 21)  - but no creature could be a voluntary servant to God, inasmuch as all creatures are already bound servants to Him by reason of the relationship of Creator and creature.

In such a course we see Him through life. He hides His glory, "the form of God" under this "form of a servant." He did not seek honour from men. He honoured the Father that had sent Him, and not Himself. He would not make Himself known. He would not show Himself to the world. Thus we read of Him. And all this belonged to the "form" He had taken, and gets its perfect illustration in the histories or narratives of the Gospels.

Under the form of a tributary, He hid the form of the Lord of the fulness of the earth and sea. He was asked for tribute; at least, Peter was asked if his Master did not pay it. The Lord declares His freedom; but, lest He should offend, He pays the custom for Peter and Himself. But who, all the while was this? None less than He of whom it had been written, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." For He commands a fish from the sea to bring Him that very piece of money which He then passed over to the receivers (Matt. 17).

What an instance of the precious mystery that He who was "in the form of God," and "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," using thus the treasures of the deep, and commanding the creatures of God's hand as all His own, — took on Him "the form of a servant!" What glory breaks through the cloud in that passing and trivial occurrence! It was all between the Lord and Peter; but it was a manifestation of "the form of God" from beneath "the form of a servant," or of a subject to the power (Rom. 13: 1). The fulness of the earth was tributary to Him at the moment when He was consenting to pay tribute to others. As, on another occasion, the unnoticed guest at the marriage-feast spread the feast, not merely as though He had been "the bridegroom," but as the very Creator of all that furnished it. There again He "manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him" (John 2).

So again we read of Him, He would not strive nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the street. He would not break the bruised reed, but rather withdraw Himself. And all this because He had taken "the form of a servant." And accordingly, on that very occasion, the scripture is quoted, "Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen" (Matt. 12).

Very significant of His way, all this was. Show us a sign from heaven, was another temptation to Him to exalt Himself (Matt. 16). The Pharisees then tried Him, as the devil tried Him when he would have Him cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple; and as the kinsfolk were doing when they said, "Show Thyself to the world" ( John 7). But what said the perfect Servant? No sign should be given but that of Jonas — a sign of humiliation, a sign that the world and the prince of the world were apparently to get advantage over Him for a moment, instead of such a sign as would awe and silence the world into subjection to Him.

Excellent, indeed, are these traces of God's perfect Servant. David and Paul, standing, as it were, on either side of Him, like Moses and Elias on the holy hill, reflect this Servant thus hiding of Himself, as a well-known tract has told us. David slew the lion and the bear, and Paul was caught up to the third heaven; but neither of them spoke of those things. And lovely reflections of the perfect Servant such actings were. But they, and all like them which we may find in Scripture, or among the saints, are more distant from the great Original than we have measures to measure. He hid "the form of God" under "the form of a servant." Jesus was the strength of David when he killed the lion and the bear; and He was the Lord of that heaven to which Paul was caught up; but He lay under the form of one who had "not where to lay His head."

So on the top of "the holy hill," and again at the foot of it. On the top of it, in the sight of His elect, for a passing moment, He was the "Lord of glory"; at the foot of it, He was "Jesus only," charging them not to tell the vision to any till the Son of man were risen from the dead (Matt. 17).

Observe Him again in the vessel on the lake during the storm. He was there as a tired labouring man whose sleep was sweet. Such was His manifested form. But underneath lay "the form of God." He arose, and as the Lord who gathers the wind in His fists and binds the waters in a garment, He rebuked the sea into a calm (Prov. 30: 4; Mark 4).

It is in the full and varied glories of the Jehovah of Israel that Jesus passes at times before us. In other days, the God of Israel had commanded the creatures of the great deep, and "a great fish" was prepared to swallow up Jonah, and give him a burying-place for the appointed time. And so, in His day, Jesus approved Himself the Lord of the fulness of "this great and wide sea," summoning a host of the "small beasts," thereof into the net of Peter (Ps 104; Luke 5). "Both small and great beasts," that find their pastime therein, thus in earlier and later days, owned the word of Jehovah-Jesus.

So, the God of Israel, as the Lord of the fulness of the earth as well as of the sea, would use the dumb ass to rebuke the madness of the prophet. But more in character than even that, when the ark had to be brought home from the land of the Philistines, the God of Israel controlled nature, forcing the kine that were yoked to the cart on which the ark was placed, to take the right and ready road to Beth-shemesh, on the borders of Israel, though this journey was taken by them under the strong resistance of all the instincts of nature (1 Sam. 6).

The Lord Jesus acted afterwards in the very striking assertion of this same glory and power of the. God of Israel. For in His day, He, the True Ark, had to be borne homeward. In the progress of His history the moment came when He needed, like the ark in the days of Samuel, to be borne from the place where He was. He had to visit Jerusalem in His glory. It was needful that as King of Zion He should enter the royal city; and He gets the ass, and the colt the foal of an ass, to do that service for Him. And He does this in all the conscious dignity and rights of the Lord of the fulness of the earth. The owners of the beast had to listen to this claim, 'The Lord hath need of him;" and, contrary to nature, opposed to all that the heart of man would have stood for and pleaded, "straightway" they sent him (Mark 11; Luke 19).

Thus again was Jesus shining in the characteristic glory of the God of Israel. The veil may have been very thick, and so it was. It was no other than that of Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter, the carpenter's son (Matt. 13: 55; Mark 6: 3). The cloud that covered was heavy indeed; the glory that was under it was infinite. It was the full Jehovah-glory; and no ray of all the divine brightness would refuse to assert and express it. He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," though He "made Himself of no reputation." Faith understands this veiled glory, and affection guards it as with a wall of fire. "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in His fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is His name, and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?" (Prov. 30).

We will not attempt to tell it; but, like Moses, while Jesus passes by, we will learn to bow our head to the earth, and worship (Ex. 34).

What instances are these in which Scripture teaches us to trace "the form of a servant" hiding "the form of God." But so also, I am bold to say, of this same character and meaning, are those cases in which He appears to be sheltering Himself from danger, or securing His life. And a delightful task it should ever be to the soul to discover thus His beauty and His glory, which he hid from the eye of man. But many of us, who would not for worlds sully that glory, may still be unapt in apprehending it, and often mistake the way of it, or the form which it takes.

The Son of God came into the world the very contradiction of him who is still to come, and after whom, as we read, the whole world is to wonder. As He Himself 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" (John v. 43). And, in accordance with this, if His life is threatened, He does not at once become a wonder in the eyes of the world, but the very opposite. He makes Himself of no reputation. He would be nothing and nobody. He refuses altogether to be a wonder in the sight of men — the great and glorious contradiction of him whose deadly wound is to be healed, so that the whole world may wonder and worship, whose image is to live and to be made to speak, that all, both small and great, may take his name in their foreheads (Rev. 13).

The Son of God was the very contradiction of all this. He came in His Father's name, and not in His own. He had life in Himself. He was equal with Him of whom it is written, "Who only hath immortality;" but He hid that brightness of the divine glory under the form of one who appeared to shelter his life by the most ordinary and despised methods. Blessed to tell it, had we but worshipping hearts! The other who is to come "in his own name" by-and-by, may receive a deadly wound by a sword, and yet live, that the world may wonder; but the Son of God will flee into Egypt.

Are we so far wanting in spiritual apprehension that we cannot perceive this? Is the sight of the glory thus hidden to be indeed forced upon us? If we need that, the Lord even so far bears with us, and gives it to us. For under this veil there lay a glory which, had it pleased, might, like the flames of the Chaldean furnace, have destroyed its enemies at once. For at the last, when the hour had come, and the powers of darkness were to have "their hour," the servants of those powers, in the presence of this glory, "went backward, and fell to the ground"; teaching us that Jesus was entirely a willing captive then, as afterwards He was a willing victim.*

*When I remember who He was, the woman's Seed, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh; when I remember also that death, come he in what shape he may, had no title against Him, I can have no other thought. Considered in the flesh and blood which He took, death had no title, because there was no sin there: considered in His full person, death could not touch Him, save as He voluntarily met it under the everlasting covenant. So that the soul fully refuses the thought of His saying His life in the ordinary sense of these words.

In connection with this, look at Him on the occasion to which I have already referred, in Matt. 12. Did the Lord, I ask, fear at that moment the anger of the Pharisees, and feel as one that must provide for the safety of his life? That cannot be my thought. He was taking one suited and consistent stage in His beautiful and precious path as a servant, going on, not to get Himself a name of honour in the world, but such a name (through humiliation and death), as that the Gentiles might trust in it, sinners be saved through the faith of it.

Look at Him for another moment, when the sword of Herod a second time threatened (Luke 13). How did the Lord rise before it or above it? In the consciousness of this: that, let the king be as crafty as he may, let him add subtlety to force, He Himself must and would walk His appointed journey, and do His appointed work, and then be perfected; and His perfection, as He there speaks, was to come, as we know, not by any prevailing of Herod or of the Jews over Him, but by His surrender of Himself to be made the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. And on the same occasion, He recognizes this: that, though as a Prophet He may have to die at Jerusalem, it is that Jerusalem may fill up the measure of her sins; for that He, all the while, was Jerusalem's God who throughout ages of patient love had borne with her, and pleaded with her, and would soon in judgment leave her desolate (vers. 31-35).

Again I say, What glories are hidden here under the lowly form of One who was threatened with the anger of a king, and had to meet the scorn and enmity of his people!

But I may refer to one or two cases still more marked than these. Look at One in the earliest time of His ministry, in His own city. There the same great principle is exhibited; for the hill of Nazareth is, in my sight, not a place of danger to the life of Jesus, but just what the pinnacle of the temple had been (Luke 4: 9, 29). The devil had no thought of the Lord's death at the bottom of the pinnacle; none whatever. He tempted Him  - as he had tempted the woman in the garden — to magnify Himself, to make Himself, if I may so speak, as the devil had said to Eve, to be as God. He sought to corrupt the sources in Christ, as he had corrupted them in Adam, and to get "the pride of life" in as one of the master-springs. But Jesus kept "the form of a servant." He would not cast Himself down, but obediently remembered, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

So at the hill of Nazareth. That hill was not higher than the pinnacle of the temple. Jesus was in no more danger at the one spot than at the other. He would have been as entirely unhurt at the foot of the hill as at the bottom of the pinnacle. But how then should the Scripture be fulfilled, that He came not to honour Himself? He, therefore, "passing through the midst of them, went His way." He retired unnoticed and unknown, fulfilling His form as a servant, and manifesting His grace in the thoughts of His saints.

We dare not speak of such things as being done to save His life. The thought is contrary to the glory of His person, "God manifest in the flesh." Jesus was again and again, in the days of His flesh, refreshed in spirit when faith discovered His glory under the veil. When the Son of David, or the Son of God, or the Lord of Israel, or the Creator of the world, was known to faith under the form of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus rejoiced in spirit. And so now, we may say, at this time, when the form of a servant is afresh presented to our thoughts, He will joy in the saints' discovering the glory under the cloud.

The "flight," as we may call it, into Egypt, in earlier days, the days of the "young Child" of Bethlehem, is a very peculiar and beautiful incident. We may remember, that in the time of Moses, Israel in that land was like a bush in the midst of fire; but because of the sympathy and presence of the God of their fathers, the bush was unconsumed. Jehovah was above Pharaoh; and when Pharaoh would have destroyed the people, Jehovah preserved them, and caused them to multiply in the very heart of Pharaoh's land. And this was done, "not by might, nor by power"; for Israel was there no better than a bush, a bramble-bush which a spark might have consumed. But the Son of God was in the bush. That was the secret. He was with Israel in Egypt, as afterwards He was in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego; and the smell of fire, though the bush was burning, and the furnace was heated seven fold more than was wont, did not pass on them.

A "great sight," so that Moses turned aside to look at it. And we may still, in the spirit of Moses, turn aside and visit the same spot. We may read Ex. 1-15, and then look again at this strange sight, why the bush was on fire, and the bush was not burnt; how the poor bramble of Israel was kept in the midst of the Egyptian furnace unhurt, because of the presence of the Son of God.

Let the fire be heated again and again, it never prevails. And how at the last does Israel leave Egypt? Just as the three children afterwards left the furnace which Nebuchadnezzar had heated: in triumph; with nothing burnt but the bands which bound them. Pharaoh and the Egyptian host perish in the Red Sea, but Israel goes out under the banner of the Lord.

But was Israel in Egypt with the sympathies of the Son of God more secure than Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh"? Shall the Israelitish bush be proof against the strength of the Egyptian fires, and shall not the lowly flesh of Jesus though in the full enmity of man, the hatred of the king, the envy of the scribes, and the rage of the multitude, be unassailable when God Himself is manifested in that flesh? The full mystery of the burning and unconsumed bush lies in that. Israel could not suffer beyond divine appointment, because of the sympathies of the Son of God; Jesus could not be touched beyond His pleasure, because of the incarnation of the Son of God.

"Out of Egypt have I called My Son," was true of Jesus as of Israel. Both Jesus and Israel, in their day, were burning, unconsumed bushes; weak things, to all appearance, and in the judgment of men, but unassailable. Both may know their sorrows in this Egyptian world, but life is unreached; Israel from the sympathies they enjoyed, Jesus because of the Person that He was.

Was it, then, to save His life that "the young Child" was carried into Egypt? Did Israel of old leave Egypt to save their lives? Did Shadrach and his companions leave the Chaldean furnace to save their lives? Israel's life was as safe in Egypt as out of it. The Jewish children were as little hurt by fire in the furnace as out of it. Israel left Egypt to witness the glory of Jehovah their Saviour; and so did Israel's children the Chaldean fires. In like manner, and for the like end, "the young Child" was taken from Judea, from the wrath of Herod the king. The Son of God had taken the form of a servant. He had not come in His own name, but in His Father's. He had emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation, and in the fulfilling of that form He began His course while yet but a "young Child"; and He was, among other humiliations, obedient even to a flight into Egypt, as though to save His life from the wrath of the king, for the glory of Him who had sent Him.

We must watch indeed against taking these instances of His perfect servant-form, and using them to the depreciation of His person. He was unassailable. Till His hour came, and He was ready to surrender Himself, captains and their fifties again and again would fail ere they could reach Him; but rather than this, He would again and again "humble Himself," going into "Egypt "on one occasion, and into "another village" on another, the scorned, rejected Son of man.

Shall we treat this mystery of the subjection, the voluntary subjection of the Son of God, with a careless mind? Shall we draw aside the veil irreverently? And yet, if these instances to which I have referred, and others kindred with them, be cited to prove the mortal condition of the flesh and blood which the Lord took, we do draw aside the veil with an irreverent and unskilful hand. Yes, and with more than that. We do Him double wrong. We depreciate His person through acts which manifest His boundless grace and love to us, and His devoted subjection to God.

And yet it is now said, that nature or violence or accident would have prevailed over the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus, to cause death as with us. But does not such a thought, I ask, connect the Lord Jesus Christ with sin? It may be said that it is not meant to do so. That may be. But is it not really so? Does it not link the Lord with sin, inasmuch as in the inspired history of flesh and blood — and we are to be wise only according to what is there written — death attaches to it only through sin? If flesh and blood in His person were liable to die, or by its own nature and condition capable of dying (save by His gracious surrender of Himself), is it not therefore connected with sin? And if so, is Christ before the soul? This suggestion treats Him as one exposed to death. It takes such knowledge of Him as leaves Him liable to die in a way which He could never have taken up in the fulfilling of His form as a servant. And beyond what he took up in that character He was liable to nothing.

There is, indeed, something in this suggestion to make one fear that "the gates of hell" are again attempting the "Rock" of the Church, the person of the Son of God. And if it be vindicated on this plea, that it is designed only to illustrate the Lord's true humanity, the vindication itself becomes matter of increased suspicion. For, is it mere humanity, I ask, I get in the person of Christ? Is it not something immeasurably different, even "God manifest in the flesh"? He would not, as a Saviour, do for me, a sinner, if He were not Jehovah's Fellow. Every creature owes all that he can render. None but One who thinks it not robbery to be equal with God can take "the form of a servant"; for he is a servant already, as I have said before. No creature can supererogate, as another has said; the thought would be rebellion. None could be qualified to stand surety for man, but One who could without presumption claim equality with God, and consequently be independent.

True humanity was capable of sinning. Adam in the garden was so, for he did sin. We may say, more simply and certainly, that he was capable of sinning, than that he was capable of dying. The history shows us the first, but forbids us to determine the second; inasmuch as it tells us, that death came in by sin. By nature there was a capability of sinning, but we are not told the same as to a capability of dying.

If, then, by and by, another were to come, and, just to illustrate, as he might say, the true humanity of Christ, were to suggest the capability or possibility of His sinning, I ask, What would the soul say to him? We may leave the answer to those who know Christ. But we may, at the same time, be sure of this: that the devil is in all these attempts upon the "Rock" of the Church, which is the person of the Son of God (Matt. 16: 18). For His work, His testimony, His sorrows, His death itself, would be absolutely nothing to us, if He were not God. His person sustains His sacrifice, and in that way His person is our Rock. It was a confession to His person, by one who was at that time ignorant of His work or sacrifice, which led the Son of God to speak of the "Rock" on which the Church was to be built, and also to recognize that truth or mystery against which "the gates of hell," the strength and subtlety of Satan, were to try their utmost again and again.

And they have been thus engaged from the beginning, and are still so. By Arians and Socinians, the full glory of "God manifest in the flesh" was clouded long ago with either a deeper or a more specious falsehood. Lately, the moral nature of the Man Christ Jesus, "over all, God blessed forever," was assailed in Irvingism, and it was blotted and tainted, as far as that evil thought could reach. Still more lately, the relationships to God in which Jesus stood, and the experiences of the soul in which Jesus was exercised, have been the unholy traffic of the human intellect; and now His flesh and blood, the "temple" of His body, has been profaned.

But one can trace a kindred purpose in all, the depreciation of the Son of God. And whence comes this? And whence comes the very opposite and contradictory energy? What is the Father occupied with, or jealous about, if it be not the glory of the Son, in resistance of all that would depreciate Him, be it gross or subtle? Read, beloved, the Lord's discourse to the Jews in John 5. There that secret is disclosed, that though the Son has humbled Himself, and can, as He says, "do nothing of Himself," the Father will see to it, that He be not thereby dishonoured, or in anywise depreciated; watching over the rights, the full divine rights, of the Son, by this most careful and jealous decree, "He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him."

Patience in teaching, patience with the simply ignorant, is surely the divine way, the way of the gracious Spirit. The Lord exercised that way Himself: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" But no allowance of any depreciation of Christ is the divine way also. John's writings prove this to us  - the most awful portion of the oracles of God, as well as being so peculiar and precious, because they so concern the personal glory of the Son. And they seem to me to show but little, if any, mercy to those who would sully that glory, or carelessly watch over and around it.

And, let me add, other facts in the history of the blessed Lord, such as hunger and thirst and weariness, are not to be used as the least warrant for this thought about the mortality of His flesh and blood. The Son of God in flesh was exposed to nothing. Nothing outside the garden of Eden was His portion. He was hungry and wearied at the well of Samaria. He slept in the ship after a day of fatiguing service. But whatever of all this He knew in the place of thorns and thistles and sorrow and sweat of face, He knew it all and took it all, only as fulfilling that "form of a servant" which in unspeakable grace He had assumed.

The "Man of sorrows" may be addressed on one occasion as though He appeared to be nearly fifty years old (John 8: 57). But I am to know, from that, only how He had borne sorrows and services for our blessing and the Father's glory. In such features I am to read Him whose "visage was so marred more than any man," because of His endurings for us, and the contradiction of sinners against Him; and not because of the decaying tendencies of natural old age in the smallest measure of them, as though such tendencies by any possibility could attach to Him.

The Jews are again and again charged with being His murderers (Acts 2: 36; Acts 3: 15; Acts 7: 52). Surely they are, and rightly so. We are all in the same condemnation. It is the guilt of murder that lies at our door. In a full judicial sense, they were His "betrayers and murderers." Strange it may seem to reason, but what we read touching this is perfect in the esteem of faith: "No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father" (John 10: 18). He was free, and yet under commandment. Strange all this, again I admit, to reasonings and unbelief, but perfect in the judgment of faith.

The Son of God died on the tree, where the wicked hand of man had nailed Him, and the eternal purpose and grace of God had appointed Him. There He died, and died because He was there. The Lamb was slain. Who would think of gainsaying such a thought? Wicked hands murdered Him, and God provided Him as His own Lamb for the altar. Who would touch for a moment so needed and precious a mystery? And yet the Lamb gave up His own life. No exhaustion under suffering, no pressure of the cross, led Him to the death; but His life He yielded of Himself. In token of being in full possession of that which He was rendering up, "He cried with a loud voice," and then "gave up the ghost." The history of the moment admits of no other thought; and, I will add, neither should the worshipping affections of the saints. Pilate marvelled that He was dead already; he would not believe it; he had to satisfy himself of it. No time had been passed on the cross sufficient to extort the life, so that the legs of the others had to be broken. But He was dead already, and Pilate must make inquiry, and call for the witness, ere he would believe it.

The thought we claim is thus the only interpreter of the strict, literal history of the fact. And our souls, had we grace, would bless God for such a picture of His slain Lamb, and of our crucified, dying, killed, and murdered Saviour. Do we blot out the record that He was the slain Lamb, or silence the song in heaven which celebrates that mystery, when we say, that His life the slain Lamb rendered up Himself? The history of Calvary, which the Holy Ghost has written, sustains this thought; and again we say, What we claim is the only interpreter of the strict history of the fact. He was free, and yet under commandment. Faith understands it all. And according to this mystery, when the hour had come, as we read, "He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost" (John 19: 30). He owned the commandment which He had received, and yet of Himself yielded up His life. He was obedient unto death, and yet laid down His life as of Himself.

Faith understands all this without difficulty; yea, understands that herein alone lies the true and perfect mystery. He died under covenant counsels, to the which He willingly yielded, being the "Fellow" of the Lord of hosts.

But, as we have already said to His praise, the Son of God on earth was ever hiding His glory, "the form of God," as we have been seeing, under "the form of a servant." His glory had been owned in all parts of the dominions of God. Devils owned it, the bodies and the souls of men owned it, death and the grave owned it, the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea owned it, winds and waves owned it, and so did the corn and the wine. I may say that He Himself was the only One who did not own or assume it; for His way was to veil it. He was "Lord of the harvest," but appeared as one of the labourers in the field; He was the God of the temple, and the Lord of the Sabbath, but submitted to the challenges of an unbelieving world (Matt. 9: 12).

Such was the veil or the cloud under which He thus again and again causes the glory to retire. And so, in entire fellowship with all this, as we have already said, did He carry Himself on those occasions when His life was threatened. Under despised forms, He hid His glory again. At times the favour of the common people shelters Him (Mark 11: 32; Mark 12: 12; Luke 20: 19); at times He withdraws Himself in either an ordinary or a more miraculous manner (Luke 4: 30; John 8: 59; John 10: 39); at times the enemy is restrained from laying hands on Him, because His hour was not come (John 7: 30; John 8: 20); and on one distinguished occasion, as we have seen, a flight into Egypt removes Him from the wrath of a king who sought His life to destroy it.

In all this I see the one thing from first to last — the Lord of glory hiding Himself, as One who had come in Another's name, and not His own. But He was "the Lord of glory," and "the Prince of life." He was a willing captive, as I have already observed, and so was He at the very last a willing victim. He gave His life a ransom for many"* (Matt. 20: 28 Titus 2: 14).

*The Son put Himself under the commandment of the Father, for the ends of God's glory in our salvation (John 10: 18; John 12: 49); and now the Father delivers a commandment to us, to give all divine honour to the Son, or, in other words, to walk in the truth of His person (John 5: 23; 1 John 3: 23: 2 John 4-6).

In other days the ark of the Lord was in the hands of the enemy; it had been taken captive by the Philistines at the battle of Ebenezer. Then God "delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hand;" but it was unassailable. It was apparently a weak thing, a thing of wood and gold. Its presence troubled the uncircumcised, their gods, their persons, their lands. It was all unaided and alone, and in the midst of enemies who were fresh in the heat and pride of victory. Why, then, did they not break it to pieces? Apparently, to dash it against a stone would have been to destroy it. It was constantly in their way, and appeared to be always at their mercy. Why, then, did they not rid themselves of it? They could not: that is the answer. The ark among the Philistines was another burning and unconsumed bush. It might appear to have been at the mercy of the uncircumcised, but it was unassailable. The Philistines may send it from Ashdod to Gath, and from Gath to Ekron; but no hand can touch it to destroy it (1 Sam. 4-6)

And so the True Ark, the Son of God in flesh, may be the sport of the uncircumcised for a little season: Pilate may send Him to Herod, and Annas to Caiaphas; the multitude may lead Him away to Pilate, and Pilate may give Him up again to the multitude; but His life is beyond their reach. He was the Son of God, and though manifested in flesh, still the Son as from eternity. Whatever sorrows He had gone through, whatever weariness He had endured, or hunger or thirst, all had been filling out "the form of a servant," which He had taken. But He was the Son who had "life in Himself," the unassailable Ark, the Bush, even in the midst of the raging flames of the world's full hatred, unconsumable.

Such was the mystery, I doubt not.

But while saying this — while going through the meditations of this paper with some desire of my soul, and, I trust, profit also — there is nothing I would more cherish than to feel as a true Israelite should have felt on the day when the ark of God returned home out of the land of the Philistines. He should then have rejoiced and worshipped; he should have been very careful to assure himself that this great event had indeed taken place, even though he were living at a distance from the scene. As an Israelite of any of the tribes, this thing deeply concerned him, that the ark had been rescued, and that the uncircumcised were not still handling it, or sending it hither and thither among their cities. But being satisfied of that. he had to be watchful that he himself did not touch it or inspect it, that he did not sin against it, like a Bethshemite, even after it had come from among the Philistines.

We are right, I am sure, in refusing those thoughts upon the mortal condition of the blessed Lord's body. All such words and speculations are as the handling of the ark with uncircumcised or Philistine hands. And we are to show the error of the thought itself, as well as its irreverence; that is, we are to be satisfied only with the full deliverance of the ark, and its return to us. But then, another duty becomes us: we are not to handle it, or inspect it, as though it were ordinary. Our words are to be few; for in "the multitude of words" on such a matter, "there wanteth not sin." Physical considerations of such a subject are not to be indulged, even though they may be sound and not to be gainsaid; for such considerations are not the way of the Spirit or of the wisdom of God. The Lord's body was a temple, and it is written, "Ye . . . shall reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord."

If one were to refuse to follow these speculations, and instead of answering them to rebuke them, I could say nothing. It might be with many a soul a holy, sensitive refusal to meddle beyond one's measure and the standard of Scripture with what must ever be beyond us. I remember the words, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." But these speculations on the person of the Son of God began in other quarters. The ark got into uncircumcised hands — and this word which I have taken on me to write is an endeavour to recover it thence; — and what I would indeed desire, is to take it down from "the new cart" with the reserve and holiness that become the soul in doing such service.

I will just add, that all this present question is made to profit the soul. A lion's carcase (forbidding as such an object must have been) of old time was forced to yield even honey, delicate as it is, and good for food. Paul had to do the forbidding work of vindicating the doctrine of resurrection in the very face of some among the saints at Corinth; but that was made fruitful, like the carcase of the lion. For not merely does a vindication of the doctrine itself come forth, but glory after glory, belonging to that mystery, passes before him. He is given, through the Spirit, to see resurrection in its order, or in its different seasons; the interval between such seasons, and the business to be done in each of them, according to divine dispensations; the scene which is to succeed the last of those seasons; and also the great era of the resurrection of the saints, in all its power and magnificence, with the shout of triumph which is to accompany it (1 Cor. 15). Here was honey, and honey again, I may say, out of a lion's carcase, for such is controversy among brethren.

But as it was once written, so is it, in the abounding grace of God, still existent: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."

"NOT UNTO US, O LORD, NOT UNTO US, BUT UNTO THY NAME GIVE GLORY, FOR THY MERCY, AND FOR THY TRUTH'S SAKE."

Chapter 3

"I will put My trust in Him" (Heb. 2: 13).

What a moment it must have been when the Lord stilled the wind on the Lake of Galilee! It must have been wondrous and beautiful to witness it; as it would be now, had we but hearts sensible of the glories of Christ, to think of it. People may talk of the necessary course of principles, of laws of nature, and of the course of things; but surely it is the first law of nature to obey its Creator. And here, in the twinkling of an eye, the Sea of Galilee felt the presence, and answered the word, of Him who at His pleasure transfigures the course of nature, or by a touch unhinges it all (Mark 4).

This was Jesus-Jehovah. This was the God whom Jordan and the Red Sea had, of old, obeyed: "What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams, and ye little hills, like lambs? Tremble thou earth, at the presence of the Lord." The answer lies there, whether we listen to the voice of the Red Sea in the days of Exodus, or to the Sea of Galilee in the times of the gospel. The presence of God tells the secret. "He spake, and it was done."

We read that when the sun and the moon stood still in the midst of heaven, the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man. Joshua spake to the Lord then;, and the Lord fought for Israel. And the occasion was full of wonder. The Holy Ghost, who records it, gives it that character. "Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it, or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man." But Jesus acts at once, and from Himself, and no wonder is made of it. All the amazement that is felt comes from the unprepared, unbelieving hearts of the disciples, who knew not the glory of the God of Israel. But under His teaching who takes of the things that are Christ's to show them to us, we, beloved, should the better understand it, discerning it alike, whether at the divided Red Sea, or at the Jordan that was "driven back," or on the stilled Lake of Galilee.

But there is more of Jesus at the Red Sea, than the dividing of its waters. The cloud which appeared to Israel as soon as they had been redeemed by the blood in Egypt, and which accompanied them through the wilderness, was the guide of the camp. But it was also the veil or the covering of the glory. In the midst of Israel such was that beautiful mystery. Commonly it was a hidden glory; at times manifested, but always there; the guide and companion of Israel, but their God also. He who dwelt between the cherubim, went along the desert before Ephraim, and Benjamin, and Manasseh (Ps. 80). The glory abode in the cloud for Israel's use, but was in the holy place also; and thus, while conducting the camp in its veiled or humbled form, it assumed the divine honours of the sanctuary.

And such was Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh," commonly veiled under "the form of a servant," always without robbery equal with God in the faith and worship of His saints, and at times shining forth in divine grace and authority.

Now, just as they were approaching the Red Sea, Israel had to be sheltered. The cloud does this mercy for them. It comes between the Egyptians and the camp, and is darkness to the one and light to the other, so that the one came not near the other all the night; and then, in the morning, the Lord looked to the host of Egypt through the pillar of cloud, and troubled the host of Egypt. And so, on an occasion kindred with this at the Red Sea, Jesus acts as the cloud and the glory. He comes between His disciples and their pursuers: "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way." He shelters them with His presence as of old. And He looks through the cloud, and again, as of old, troubles the host of the enemy. "Jesus saith unto them, I am He . . . As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground." He did but look out, and His arm was found not to be shortened. With like ease and authority, the God of Israel does His proper acts at the Red Sea, and Jesus the same in the garden of Gethsemane (Ex. 14; John 18). The gods of Egypt worshipped Him at the Red sea, the gods of Rome worshipped Him in Gethsemane, and when brought again the second time into the world, it shall be said, "Let all the angels of God worship Him."

But further. In the progress of their history, Israel had to be rebuked as well as to be sheltered; to be disciplined as well as to be redeemed. This we see, as we leave the Red Sea and enter the wilderness. But the same glory hid within the cloud will do this divine work for them, as it did the other. In the day of the manna, in the day of the spies, in the matter of Korah, at the water of Meribah, Israel provokes the holiness of the Lord, and the glory is seen in the cloud witnessing the divine resentment (Ex. 16; Num. 14, 16, 20).

And just so, Jesus again. When grieved — as the Glory in the cloud was — at the hardness of heart, or unbelief of the disciples, He gives some token, some expression, of His divine power, with words of rebuke. As on that occasion I have referred to, on the Lake of Tiberias; for there He said to the disciples, "Why are ye so fearful?" as well as to the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still." And so again and again, when the disciples betray ignorant and unbelieving thoughts of Him. As, for instance, to Philip, on one distinguished occasion, He says, in the grief and resentment of the Glory in the cloud, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? (John 14).

Surely here also was the same mystery. Was not the Lord here again shining through the veil for the confounding of the disobedience or unbelief of Israel? This was the glory seen in the cloud as in the day of the manna, or kindred cases already referred to. Very exact is the corresponding of these forms of divine power. The cloud was the ordinary thing; the glory within was now and again manifested, but was always there. The guide and companion of the camp was the Lord of the camp. And is not all this Jesus in a mystery? The glory was the God of Israel (Ezek. 43: 4; Ezek. 44: 2), and Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel, or the glory (Isa. 6: 1; John 12: 41). The Nazarene veiled a light, or manifested in flesh a glory, which, in its proper fulness, "no man can approach unto" (1 Tim. 6: 16).

Moses beautifully refused glory, but Jesus hid it. "Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter" (Heb. 11: 24). And a lovely victory over the world that was. We like to wear our honours, to make the most of what we are, and even to take more than we are entitled to, if men will make mistakes in our favour. But Moses humbled himself in the Egyptian palace; and that was a beautiful victory of faith over the course and spirit of the world. But Jesus did more. It is true, He had not servants and courtiers to teach, for He was a stranger to palaces. But the villagers of Nazareth adopted Him as "the carpenter's son," and He would have it so. The Glory of glories, the Lord of angels, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the God of heaven, was hid under that common report, and there He lay without an answer to it.

It is the gracious office of the Holy Ghost, in Heb. 2, to open the sources of this great mystery. The grace of God would fain exercise or indulge itself — precious as such a thought is — and the praise of Him "for whom are all things, and by whom are all things," demanded the mystery, so to speak (ver. 9, 10). These things are told us there. These are the rich fountains whence the great purpose and transaction flow; that transaction, that unspeakable mystery of redemption through the humiliation of the Son of God, which is to give its character to eternity. Divine grace sought to gratify itself, and divine glory would be displayed to perfection. All issues from such springs. Flesh and blood was taken up by the Sanctifier; death was undergone; like temptations with the brethren, apart from sin, were endured; relationships to God, experiences in Himself, and sympathies with the saints, were borne and known; the life of faith on earth, with its prayers and tears, to Him that was able to save from death; life of intercession in heaven; all fitness to be both a sacrifice and a priest accomplished; ability to succour, and worthiness to cleanse, as well as resurrection, ascension, present expectancy, and a coming Kingdom and glories — all these find their springs and sources there.

The Son of God took His place in connection with all this. He was dependent, obedient, believing, hopeful, sorrowful, suffering, despised, crucified, buried; everything which the great eternal plan made necessary to Him. He emptied Himself for all this, but all that He did was infinitely worthy of His person. The word at the beginning, "Let there be light: and there was light," was not more worthy of Him, than were the prayers and supplications "with strong crying and tears," in the days of His flesh. He could never have been allied with anything unworthy of Godhead, though found, abundantly and at all personal cost, in conditions and circumstances into which our guilt and His grace in putting it away brought Him.

The Person in the manger was the same as on the cross. It was "God manifest in the flesh." And in the full sense of that glory we can but speak of His humbling of Himself from the earliest to the latest moment of that wondrous journey. Led of God, the wise men of the East worshipped "the young Child" at Bethlehem. Simeon, I may say, worshipped Him at an earlier moment, in the temple; and strangely — which nothing can account for but the light of the Holy Ghost who then filled him — he blesses the mother, and not the Child. He had the Child in his arms, and naturally he would, on such an occasion, have given the Infant his blessing. But he does not. For he had that Child in his arms, not as a feeble infant whom he would commend to God's care, but as God's Salvation. In that glorious character, in the hour of nature's perfect feebleness, he held Him up, and gloried in Him. "The less is blessed of the better." It was not for Simeon to bless Jesus, though without wrong or robbery he would bless Mary.

Anna, the prophetess, receives Him in like spirit. And earlier still, while yet unborn, He was worshipped I may say, by the leaping of the child in the womb of Elizabeth, at the salutation of Mary. As also, ere He was conceived, the angel Gabriel owns Him as the God of Israel, before whose face the son of Zacharias was to go; and then, also, Zacharias in the Holy Ghost owns Him as the Lord whose people Israel were, and as "the Day-spring from on high."

Self-emptying obedience, subjection of a kind quite its own, is, therefore, to be seen in every stage and action of such a One. And what was that course of service in the esteem of Him to whom it was rendered? As the born One, the circumcised One, the baptized and anointed One, the serving, sorrowing, and crucified One, and then as the risen One, He has passed here on earth under the eye of God. In the secrecy of the Virgin's womb, in the solitudes of Nazareth, in the activities and services of all the cities and villages of Israel, in the deep self-sacrifice of the cross, and then in the new bloom of resurrection, has "this wondrous Man" been seen and delighted in of God  - perfect, untainted, recalling the divine delight in man more than when of old he was made in God's image, and more than annulling all the divine repentings of old, that man had been made on the earth.

His person lent a glory to all His course of service and obedience, which rendered it of unutterable value. Nor is it merely that His person made all that service and obedience voluntary. There is something far more than its being thus voluntary. There is that in it which the Person ("My Fellow, saith the Lord of hosts") imparts: and who can weigh or measure that? We know this full well among ourselves. I mean in kind. The higher in dignity, in personal dignity, the one who serves us is, the higher the value of the service rises in our thoughts. And justly so; because more has been engaged for us, more has been devoted to us, then when the servant was an inferior; more has the heart instinctively learnt, that our advantage was indeed sought, or our wishes and desires made an object. We do not forget the person in the service. We cannot. And so in this dear mystery we are meditating on. The service and obedience of Jesus were perfect; infinitely, unmixedly worthy of all acceptance.

But beyond that, beyond the quality of the fruit, there was the Person who yielded it; and this, as we said, imparted to it a value and a glory that are unutterable. The same value rested on the services of His life which afterwards gave character to His death. It was His person which gave all its virtues to His death or sacrifice; and it was His person which gave its peculiar glory to all He did in His course of self-humbling obedience. And the complacency of God in the one was as perfect as His judicial acceptance of the other. Some symbol (like that of the rent veil) is seen by faith uttering that complacency and full delight of God over every passing act in the life of Jesus.* Would that we had eyes to see, and ears to hear that, as we pass on through the ways of Jesus from the manger to the tree! But so it was, whether seen or not by us. Complacency of God beyond all thought to conceive, rested on all He did and all He was, throughout His life of obedience. As another has said, "Divine wisdom is the way of our recovery by Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh,' designed to glorify a state of obedience. He would render it incomparably more amiable, desirable, and excellent, than ever it could have appeared to have been in the obedience of all the angels in heaven, and men on the earth, had they continued therein, in that His own eternal Son entered into a state of obedience, and took upon Him the form or condition of a servant unto God."

*I speak of the rent veil as the symbol of divine acceptance. No living obedience of Christ could have rent it; only His death.

These are strengthening thoughts about the ways of Jesus. These ways of service and subjection to God are to get their own peculiar character, and in our sight. Obedience has been glorified in His person, and shown in all its ineffable beauty and desirableness; so that we are not merely to say, that the complacency of God in Him was ever maintained in its fulness, but that it passes beyond all created thought. "The form of a servant" was a reality, just as much as "the form of God" in Him; as truly an assumed reality, as the other was an essential, intrinsic reality. And being such, His ways were those of a servant; just as, being the Son, His glories and prerogatives were those of God. He prayed; He continued whole nights in prayer. He lived by faith, the perfect pattern of a believer, as we read of Him: "The Leader and Completer of faith." In sorrow He made God His refuge. In the presence of enemies He committed Himself to Him who judged righteously. He did not His own will, perfect as that will was, but the will of Him who sent Him. In these and in all kindred ways was "the form of a servant" found and proved and read and known to perfection. It is seen to have been a great and living reality. The life of this Servant was the life of faith from beginning to end.

In the epistle to the Hebrews we are taught to consider Jesus as "the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession"; and also as "the Leader and Completer of faith" (Heb. 3: 1; Heb. 12: 2, 3). As the one, He is set before us for the relief of our consciences and the succour of our times of temptation; as the other, for the encouragement of our hearts in the like life of faith. As "the Apostle and High-Priest of our profession," He is alone; as "the Leader and Completer of faith," He is connected with a great cloud of witnesses. As the one, He is for us; as the other, He is before us. But even when before us, as in the fight and life of faith, there is some distinctness; for the Holy Ghost calls on us to look at this "Leader and Completer of faith" in a way in which He does not speak touching any other. He speaks of our being compassed about with them but calls on us to be looking to Him.

And further: it was the "contradiction of sinners against Himself" that formed the life of trial and of faith in Jesus; and those are peculiar words. Others, like Him, in the fight of faith had cruel mockings and scourgings, the edge of the sword, the caves of the earth, tortures, bonds, and imprisonments; and all from the enmity of man. But their conflict in the midst of such things is not thus spoken of. It is not called the "contradiction of sinners against themselves." There is a force and elevation in such words that suit only the life of faith which Jesus led and contended in.

How perfect are these minuter paths of the Spirit's wisdom in the Word! Ps. 16 gives us Jesus in this life of faith. There the Son of God is One in whom "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," as in Heb. 12: 2, 3. He enjoys the present portion of a priestly man. He sets the Lord always before Him, and knows that as He is at His right hand, He shall not be moved. He looks also for the pleasures at the right hand, and for the joy of the presence of God, in other regions.

Ps. 116 is the end of His life of faith in  - resurrection, joy, and praise; and the apostle, in "the same spirit of faith," can look to share like resurrection-joy with his divine Lord and Fore-runner (2 Cor. 4: 13, 14).

"I will put My trust in Him" may be said to have been the language of the life of Jesus. But His faith was gold, pure gold, nothing but gold. When tried by the furnace, it comes out the same mass as it had gone in, for there was no dross. Saints have commonly to be set to rights by the furnace. Some impatience or selfishness or murmur has to be reduced or silenced, as in Ps. 73 and 77. Job was overcome: trouble touched him, and he fainted, though often he had strengthened the weak hands, and upheld by his word them that were falling. "The stoutest are struck off their legs," as an old writer says. Peter sleeps in the garden, and in the judgment-hall tells lies, and swears to them; but there has been One whom the furnace, heated seven times, proved to be precious beyond expression.

Read Luke 22; see this One in that great chapter; see Jesus there in the hour of the trial of faith. He is first in company with the sorrow that was awaiting Him, then with His disciples, then with the Father, and then with His enemies: and mark it all, beloved. How unutterably perfect all is! this faith in its unalloyed preciousness, when tried in the fire! But all the life of Jesus was the life and obedience of faith. In one light of it, it was most surely the life of the Son of God, in "the form of a servant," humbling Himself even unto death, though "in the form of God," and though He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God"; but in another, it was the life of faith: "I will put My trust in Him," "I have set the Lord always before Me: because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved." These are His breathings, and we celebrate Him, after our own way, in His life of faith, and sing together of Him

"Faithful amidst unfaithfulness,

'Mid darkness only light,

Thou didst Thy Father's name confess,

And in His will delight."

And all this precious life of faith was answered by the care and keeping of God. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." The faith of Him who was serving on earth was perfect, and the answer of Him who dwelt in the heavens was perfect (Ps. 91).

The care which watched over Him was unceasing from the womb to the grave. So had it been of old declared by His Spirit in the prophets: "I was cast upon Thee from the womb. Thou art My God from My mother's belly." "Thou didst make Me hope [or, Thou keptest Me in safety] when I was upon My mother's breasts." It was unwearied throughout. "Thou maintainest My lot." "My flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption" (Ps. 22, Ps. 16). This help, and care, and watchfulness, in one aspect of His history, was everything to Him. It watched over Him that very night in which the angel warned Joseph to flee into Egypt. It was the Father's unspeakable joy to exercise the diligence of that hour. He who kept that Israel could not slumber then.

But all this, instead of being inconsistent with the full divine rights of His person, gets its special character from them. The glory of this relationship, and of the joy and complacency which attended it, is gone, if the Person be not vindicated and honoured. Such was the Person, that His entrance into the relationship was an act of self-emptying. Instead of beginning a course of subjection, either at the flight into Egypt, or at the manger at Bethlehem, He had taken "the form of a servant" in counsel before the world began; and, as fruit thereof, He was "found in fashion as a man." And all His doings and services were the ways of this self-emptied One: all of them from the earliest to the last. For He was as truly "God manifest in the flesh" when on the journey to Egypt in His mother's arms, as when in Gethsemane, in the glory and power of His person, the enemy coming to eat up His flesh stumbled and fell. He was as simply Emmanuel as an Infant in Bethlehem, as He is now at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.* All was humbling of Himself, from the womb to the cross. I for, get His person or who He was, if I doubt that. But in another light of the glorious mystery, we are to see the relationship, and the tender, perfect care and help which, according to it, the Father was ever rendering Him. But these things are only like the various lights or characters in which the different evangelists present the Lord, as we are generally acquainted with. He was the Object of the Father's care, and yet Jehovah's Fellow; and we may look at His path in the chastened light with which that divine care and watchfulness invest it, as we may gaze at it in that brightest light and most excellent glory in which His rights and honours as the Son of God present it to us. If He had this relationship to the care of God, assumed as it was according to eternal counsels, so had all creatures, earthly and heavenly, angelic and human, throughout the universe, the same relationship to Him.

*I do not mean that on the occasion of the journey to Egypt "the young Child" exercised mind or will. That would be precision beyond the way of Scripture. But that act, like all from Bethlehem to Calvary, has the one character of self-humbling obedience in it.

By reason of such various truth as this, He could say, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;" and yet the Holy Ghost could say of Him, that the God of peace brought Him again from the dead (John 2: 19; Heb. 13: 20). His enemies who sought His life fell before Him at a word; and yet, so did His perfect faith acknowledge God's perfect care and guardianship, that He could say, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?" (John 18: 5, 6; Matt. 26: 53). He could, with a touch, heal the ear of the servant, nay, restore it when cut off, when just at the same time He would have His own brows bleed under the crown of thorns (Luke 22: 51; Mark 15: 17-19). In the perfection of His place, as the emptied One, He would ask for sympathy, and say, "Could ye not watch with Me one hour?" and shortly after, in a moment of still greater gloom, in one sense, He could be above the pity of the daughters of Jerusalem, and honour by the promise of Paradise the faith of a dying malefactor (Matt. 26: 40; Luke 23: 28, 42, 43). For in brightness He shines, even in the deepest moment of His humiliation: and let sinners know that it is not the compassion of men His cross seeks, but their faith; that it does not ask them in human kindliness to feel that hour, but in faith of their hearts and to the full peace of their consciences to be blessed by that hour; not to pity the cross, but to lean on it, and to know, that though accomplished in weakness, it is the very pillar which is to sustain the creation of God forever.

In such different, but consistent forms, we read the life of the Son of God in flesh. Is the one the less real because the other is true? The tears of Jesus over Jerusalem were as real as though there was nothing in His heart but the sorrow of an ill-requited Lord and Saviour over a rebellious, unbelieving people. And yet His joy in the full purpose of divine wisdom and grace was just the same unmixed, undivided reality. The "Woe unto thee, Chorazin!" and then the "I thank Thee, O Father," were equally living and true affections in the soul of Jesus (Matt. 11). There was no want of full reality in either; and so "the form of a servant," with all its perfect results, and "the form of God," in all its proper glories, were, in the like way, real and living mysteries in the one Person.

And may we not, at times, turn aside to gaze more intently at His person, while we are tracing either the acts of His life, or the secrets of His love and truth? It is a part of the obedience of faith to do so. "The fear of the Lord is clean;" but there is a fear that is not altogether clean, having some spirit of bondage and unbelief in it. The refusal to turn and look at such great sights as these may be such. I grant the "mystery," and that the mystery is "great." So was it a great and mysterious sight which Moses turned to look at; but with unshod feet he might still look and listen. Had he not done so, he would have gone away unblessed. But he listened, till he discovered that the "I AM" was in the bush; and, further, that "the God of Abraham" was there also. A strange spot for such glory to enshrine itself! But so it was. In a burning bramble-bush, the Lord God Almighty was found (Ex. 3).

And supposing I go to Calvary, and look there on the smitten "Shepherd," whom shall I discover, if I have an opened eye, but the Fellow of the Lord of hosts? (Zech. 13). And if I go into the midst of the rabble which surrounded Pilate's judgment-hall at Jerusalem, whom shall I find there, even in the One spit upon and buffeted and derided, but Him who of old dried up the Red Sea, and covered the Egyptian heavens with sackcloth? (Isa. 1: 3).

And I ask, When I have so looked, and by the light of the Spirit in the prophets made these discoveries, am I quickly to retire? If I had bowels, I might ask, Where can I go for richer refreshment of spirit? If my faith discover, in the grieved and insulted Jesus, amid the men of Herod and the officer of the Romans, the God who did His wonders of old in the land of Ham, am I not to linger on that mount of God, and Moses-like to turn aside and look and listen? I cannot treat the sight as too great for me. I do not believe such would be the mind of the Spirit. Liberty of thought, while I stay at the mount, shall be rebuked if it transgress; but to linger there is not transgression, but worship. I speak, the Lord knows, of principles, not of experiences. The exercises of the heart there are dull and cold indeed; and the sorrow is (if one may speak for others), not that we spend too much thought over the mystery of the person of the Son of God, but that we retire to other objects too quickly.

That Person will be "the eternal wonder and ornament of the creation of God." Some may own, in general, the manhood and the Godhead in that Person. But we are also to own the full, unsullied glory of each of these. Neither the soul or moral man, nor the temple of the body, is to be profaned. The whole man is to be vindicated and honoured.* And though the relationship in which Jesus stood to God, the care which that induced, and the obedience which that involved, may well be another great sight for us to turn aside to look at, still we shall fail to see it aright, and to eye it in its glory, if we forget in anywise the person of Him who sustained it.

*One of the martyrs in the days of Queen Mary wrote thus from his prison: "He hath made all, bought all, and dearly paid for all: with His own immaculate body hath He discharged your bodies from sin, death, and hell, and with His most precious blood paid your ransom and full price once for all and forever."

The divine reasoning in the epistle to the Hebrews, among other things, evinces this: that the efficacy of the priesthood of Christ depends entirely on His person. Read the first seven chapters: what a writing it is! In our Priest we must find a man; one capable of succouring the brethren, from having been tempted like them. So that we must see our High-Priest passing into the heavens from amid the sufferings and sorrows of the scene here. Most surely so. But in our Priest we must find the Son also, because in none other partaker of flesh and blood was there "the power of an endless life." And, accordingly, Melchisedec represents the person as well as the virtues, dignities, rights, and authorities of the true Priest of God; as we read of him: "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually" (Heb. 7: 1-3).

And what a sight does all this give us of "the High Priest of our profession"! He came down from heaven, in the full, personal glory of the Son; and in the due time He went up to heaven, bearing the virtue of His sacrifice for sin, and those compassions which succour saints. Faith acquaints itself with this whole path of Jesus. It owns in Him the Son while He tabernacled in the flesh among us; and when His course of humiliation and suffering had ended here, faith owns the once rejected and crucified Man glorified in the heavens — the one Person: God manifested in the flesh here, Man hid in the glory there. As we read of Him and of His blessed, wondrous path: "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (1 Tim. 3: 16).*

*He was, indeed, very Man and very God in one Person. All depends on this "great mystery." The death of the cross would be nothing without it, as all would be nothing without that death.

In "the form of God," He was God indeed; in "the form of a servant," He was a Servant indeed. He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God"; exercising all the divine rights, and using all the divine treasures and resources with full authority; and yet making Himself of no reputation, emptying Himself, and being obedient. This tells the secret. All that appears in the history is interpreted by the mystery. It is as the glory in the cloud again. The companion of the camp, in all its afflictions afflicted, was the Lord of the camp. The glory which traversed the desert in company with the wanderings of Israel, was the Glory which dwelt between the cherubim in the holy of holies.

But the further words of this scripture (Phil. 2: 5-11) invite me onward for a little still. "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him" (ver. 9). We are only in new wonders, when we read these words. For what, we may ask, could exalt Him? Ere He entered upon His course of sufferings and of glories, He was in Himself infinitely great and blessed. Nothing could personally exalt Him, being, as He was, "the Son." His glory was divine. It was unspeakable and infinite. No other honours could ever increase His personal glory. But still we see Him traversing a path which conducts Him to honour and glory still.

Strange and excellent mystery! And — still stranger, and more excellent, as we may say — these new and acquired glories are, in some sense, the dearest with Him. Scripture entitles us thus to speak; as it does to speak of many things of His grace, which the heart would never have conceived. And yet, with all this — to compare divine things with human, as is the way of the Spirit's instruction — what I now speak of is known among men. Let the highest by birth among us, let a prince, the son of a king, go forth and acquire dignities: his acquired dignities, though they cannot raise him personally, will be his dearest distinctions, and form the choicest materials of his history in the esteem of others. Such a thing as that is instinctively understood among us. And so is it (in the unspeakably precious mystery of Christ) with the Son of God. According to eternal counsels, He has gone forth to battle; and the honours He has acquired, the victories He has won, or is still to win, will be His joy for eternity. They are to form the light in which He will be known, and the characters in which He will be celebrated forever; though, personally, He dwells in a light which no man can approach unto. And this He prizes: "Jehovah-jireh," "Jehovah-rophi," "Jehovah-shalom," "Jehovah-tsidkenu," "Jehovah-nissi," are all acquired honours. And how are these chief with Him in the unspeakable ways of boundless grace! In Ex. 3, He communicates His personal name to Moses, saying out of the bush, "I AM THAT I AM." But then, He communicates His acquired name also, calling Himself "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"; and to this second, this acquired name, He adds, "This is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations:" words which deeply tell us how He prized that glory which He had acquired in His doings for sinners. As also in the tabernacle, or temple, where His name was recorded, it was His acquired and not His personal name, that was written and read there. The mysteries of that house did not speak of His essential omnipotence, omniscience, or eternity, or like glories, but of One in whom mercy rejoiced against judgment, and who had found out a way whereby to bring His banished ones home to Him.

Surely these are witnesses of what price in His sight is His name gained in service for us. But "God is love" may account for it all. There the secret is told. If the manifestations are excellent and marvellous, the hidden springs which are opened in Himself give us to know it all.

We are to know Him as "made under the law," as surely as we know Him in His personal glory, far above all law. All His life was the life of the obedient One. And so, though God over all, the Jehovah of Israel, and the Creator of the ends of the earth, He was the Man Christ Jesus. He was Jesus of Nazareth, anointed of the Holy Ghost, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with Him. In these lights we see Him, and in these lights we read His varied, wondrous history. He imparted the Holy Ghost, and yet was anointed with the Holy Ghost.

The Son came forth to take part of flesh and blood. So had the way and the grace of the eternal counsel run; so had our necessities required it. He was found "in fashion as a man." He was exercised in a life of entire dependence on God, and accomplished a death which (among other virtues) was in full subjection to Him. This was His covenant place, and in such place He acted and suffered to perfection; and thence came the services and the afflictions, the cries and the tears, the labours and the sorrows, of the Son of man on earth.

But still more: even now that He is in heaven, it is, in a great sense, the same life still. A promise awaited Him there, and that promise He received and lives on to this hour: "Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool," was said to Him as He ascended; and in the faith and hope of that word, He took His seat in heaven, "sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool" (Heb. 1, 10). Here was hope answering promise, and this found in the heart of Jesus as He ascended and sat down in heaven, just as He was the believing One, and the hoping One, and the obedient One, and the serving One, when on this earth of ours.

And further still: in His onward ways of glory, will He not continue to be subject? Every tongue is to confess Him Lord; but is not this to be "to the glory of God the Father"? And when the Kingdom is given up, is it not still written, "Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all"? And as subject thus to Him who puts all things under Him, so in the same regions of coming glory will it be His gracious delight to serve His saints; as we read: "He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." And again: "He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes" (1 Cor. 15; Luke 12; Rev. 7).

Chapter 4

"Received up into glory" (1 Tim. 3: 16).

In earlier days, the angels had desired to look into the things of Christ (1 Peter 1: 12). When these things themselves were manifested and accomplished, this desire was answered; for in the history, as we find it in the evangelists, the angels are set to be eyewitnesses of that which they had thus long desired to look into. They are privileged to find their place and their enjoyment in the history of Christ in "the mystery of godliness"; and to find it, just as of old they had found it, in the sanctuary of God. In that sanctuary, all, it is true, was for the use and blessing of sinners. The altars, and the laver and the mercy-seat, and all else, were provided for us. The action and the grace of the house of God were for sinners. But the cherubim gazed. They were set in that house to look at its deepest mysteries. And so, in the same condition shall we find them, in the day of the great originals, or of the heavenly things themselves, when "God was manifest in the flesh." For then, it is equally true, all was for the service and salvation of us sinners, or that God, so manifested, might be "preached unto the Gentiles," and "believed on in the world;" but still all was as surely for this end, that He might be "seen of angels."

Thus they took the same place in the sanctuary of old, and in the great mystery itself. They looked; they gazed; they were eyewitnesses. And further, the sight they took of the mystery was of the same intense and interested character as the cherubim had before expressed in the holy of holies. "And the cherubim spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy-seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy-seat-ward were the faces of the cherubim" (Ex. 37). And so, in the history of Christ, the True Ark, they will be thus again seen.

The angel of the Lord comes, in his commission and ministry from heaven, to announce to the shepherds of Bethlehem the birth of Jesus. But as soon as he had fulfilled his service, "suddenly there was with him a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2). And when the time came for another great event, and "God manifest in the flesh" was raised from the dead, soon to be "received up into glory," the angels are again present with the like intense and interested delight. At the sepulchre, as Mary Magdalene looked in, two of them were sitting, "one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain;" and at the crisis of the ascension itself, they are again present, instructing the men of Galilee in the further ways of Him who had just then gone up on high (John 20; Acts 1).

What hanging over the mercy-seat was all this! What cherubim-gaze again and again was this! This utterance of the heavenly host in the fields of Bethlehem was not part of their ministry to man, but an act of worship to God. They were not then instructing the shepherds, nor even formally addressing themselves to them; but breathing out the rapture in which their own spirits were held in thoughts of the One that had been then born. And so their attitude in the sepulchre. When Mary appears, they have, it is true, a word of sympathy for her; but there they were in the sepulchre before she had come, and there they would have been though she had never come. As the cherubim in the tabernacle had hung over the ark and mercy-seat, on either side one, so now in the sepulchre the angels hang over the place where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet.

What ways of seeing Jesus were these! As we read, "God was manifest in the flesh — seen of angels." Well may we, beloved, covet grace to have like utterances and like attitudes over Jesus. And well may we grieve over what in our hearts is short of this; great indeed as some of us know that to be. I believe that many of us need to be attracted more than we are wont to be by these things. Many of us have dwelt (if I may distinguish such things by such terms) more in the light of the knowledge of the divine dispensations, than in the warmth of such mysteries as Bethlehem, the garden, and the Mount of Olives, revealed to the enraptured angels. But in this we have been losers — losers in much of that communion which marked the path and the spirit of others in other days. My desire has been to turn to this "great sight," led that way by the condition of things around and among us. Glorious, I need not say, is the Object — the same Person, "God manifest in the flesh," followed by faith from the manger to the cross, from the cross through the grave up in resurrection, and thence to the present heavens, and eternal ages beyond them.

The Holy Ghost — in a way which we will now consider for a while — makes it His gracious business to aid this vision of faith, by carefully forming before us (so to express myself), the links between the parts or stages of this wondrous journey, "God was manifest in the flesh — received up into glory." By the apostle John, as our previous meditations may have led us to see, the Spirit very specially reveals or declares the link between "God" and "flesh" in the person of Jesus. We listen to this at the opening of his gospel and his epistle. I need not repeat it. But, of course, all the divine writings either assume or utter this truth, in their different ways, as well as John. But it is the other link, or that between "God was manifest in the flesh" and "glory" or the heavens, which is rather our present matter in the progress of these meditations; so that we will now pass on with evangelists and angels, from Bethlehem to the garden of the sepulchre, and to the Mount of Olives.

The Gospel by Matthew, in a general way, witnesses the resurrection. To be sure it does. The angels at the tomb declare it; the women on the road back to the city hold the feet of the risen Saviour; and the disciples meet Him on the mountain in Galilee.

Mark tells of several appearances of the Lord, after His resurrection, to His own whom He had chosen; as, to Mary Magdalene, to two of them as they walked into the country, and to the eleven as they sat at meat.

Luke, however, goes more carefully into the proofs which Jesus gave His disciples, that it was indeed He Himself, and none other, who was in the midst of them again. He eats before them. He shows them His hands and His side. He tells them that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as they saw He had. He shows them out of the Psalms, and out of the prophets, that thus it was to be.

John has his own peculiar style still, while dealing with this common testimony. In his gospel, we may say, all with the Lord is strength and victory; and so is it at the sepulchre, as well as everywhere else. When the disciples visit it, they see the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, that was about the Lord's head, wrapped together in a place by itself. There was no disturbance, no symptom of effort or of struggle, no sign as though something arduous had been accomplished there. All is as the trophy and witness of victory, rather than the heat and strife of battle. "Bless, bless the Conqueror slain," is the voice from the tomb, as it is opened before us by John. And if the place thus speak, so does the Lord Himself afterwards. It is not that He verifies His resurrection after the same manner as we find Him doing in Luke. He does not, so properly, give them sensible signs that He Himself was in the midst of them again. He does not eat and drink with them here, as He had done there. The broiled fish and the honeycomb are not called in to stand in evidence. But in other courts, so to speak, the truth of His resurrection is recorded. He makes it good to the hearts and to the consciences of His disciples. His voice on the ear of Mary tells her who He was, because her heart had been familiar with that name on those lips; and His pierced hands and side were shown, that they might speak peace to the conscience of the others, in the assurance of the accepted sacrifice; yea, even to the drawing out, from the depths and secrets of the soul of one of them, the cry of thorough conviction, "My Lord and my God! "

Thus do the evangelists lead us into the garden of the sepulchre. The Mount of Olives has its witnesses likewise — the ascension as well as the resurrection of Jesus. And again I would say, To be sure it has.

Neither Matthew nor John, however, declares it. The Lord is still on the mountain in Galilee when Matthew's Gospel closes. Neither does John take us to the Mount of Olives or to Bethany, the same thing. In a parabolic action, as I judge, after the disciples had dined in His presence on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He intimates His going up to the Father's house, and their following Him there; but it is not the ascension itself; it is not the scene at Bethany; it is not the actual translation of the Lord from earth to heaven (John 21).

Mark, however, asserts the fact: When the Lord had done speaking with His disciples, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. Here the fact, the very moment, of the ascension is declared. But, I may say, that is all. It is simply the ascension of One who had all rights and honours belonging to Him, and awaiting Him on high; but among the disciples there is no communion, in spirit, with that event. The story in Mark does not so much as tell us whether or not the disciples were eyewitnesses of it.

But Luke gives us something quite beyond this. In his Gospel, the ascension of the Lord is witnessed by eyes and hearts which had, and felt they had, their own immediate and personal interest in it: "And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God."

Thus, then, as the risen Man, from among a throng of witnesses that He was indeed the same Jesus, Jesus reaches the heavens. And though a cloud received Him out of their sight, He was thus known to be beyond it, in the highest, the same Jesus still. Jesus, who had eaten with them in the days of His sojourn with them, had now eaten with them in His risen days. Jesus, who had given them draughts of fishes in the days of His sojourn with them, had now given them draughts of fishes in His risen days. Jesus, who had blessed the meat and given it to them then, had done so in like manner now: and this was He who had now ascended in their sight. How are all the stages of this wondrous journey thus tracked distinctly, though variously, for us, by the same Spirit, in the evangelists! We hold the same blessed One in view at Bethlehem, in the garden of the resurrection, and at the mount of the ascension. Manifest in flesh, the Son journeyed from Bethlehem to Calvary. Risen from the dead, with His wounded hands and side, He ate and drank with His disciples during forty days; and then, with the same wounded hands and side, He ascended the heavens. He gave them counsel after He rose, as He had done before. He entrusted a commission and ministry to them then, as before. He knew them, and called them by name, just as before. And, at the last, when they looked after Him as though they had lost Him for ever, the angel appears to them to tell them that "this same Jesus" had other ways still to accomplish for them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? THIS SAME JESUS, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."

And this is the secret or the principle of all divine religion. It is "the mystery of godliness." Nothing recovers man to the knowledge and worship of God, but the understanding and faith of this, through the Spirit. This is the truth which forms and fills the, house of God: "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."

Do we, indeed, beloved, vividly and constantly hold this one Person in view from first to last? He journeyed through the fatigues and sorrows of life, died upon the cross, rose from the bowels of the earth, and ascended to the very highest place in heaven. The links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together the highest and the lowest. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He has formed them, and holds them in view at times with divine desire and delight. In such breathings as Psalms 23 and 24, how rapidly does He carry His prophet from the lowly life of faith, of dependence, and of hope, which Jesus passed here in the days of His flesh, onward to the day of His entrance as "the Lord mighty in battle," "the Lord of hosts," "the King of glory," into the "everlasting doors" of His millennial Jerusalem!

Are we, in spirit, on that road with Him also? And as a further question for our souls, which may well humble some of us afresh, Are we, in real, living power, with our Lord in the present stage of this mysterious journey? For He is still in this world, the rejected Christ. How far are we, in spirit, with Him as such? Are we considering "this poor man," or continuing with Jesus in His temptations? (Ps. 41: 1; Luke 22: 28.) "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" (James 4: 4) Jesus was no more any one in the world after His resurrection than He had been before it. The resurrection made no difference as to this. The world was no more to Him then than it had been in other days, when, as we know, He had not where to lay His head. He left it for heaven then, as He had left it for Calvary before. When He was born, the manger at Bethlehem received Him: now, when risen from the dead, heaven receives Him. As born, He had proposed Himself to the faith and acceptance of Israel; but it was to be refused by Israel. As risen, He published Himself through the apostles to Israel again; but it was to be refused by Israel again; and Jesus is still the Stranger here. The present time is still the age of His rejection. He was a lonely One on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, though then the Risen Man, as He had been before on the way from Bethlehem to Calvary. But, beloved, is it in such a character that you and I have joined Him on the road?

Many a thought would be too much for us, were we not trained for it after the method of the divine wisdom: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," says our divine Teacher to us; and in this way His "gentleness" makes us "great." We are prepared for enlarging communications from Him. Jesus can annihilate distances as He can control oppositions. On the Lake of Tiberias He trod the troubled waters outside, and then, when He entered the ship, immediately it was at the land whither they went (John 6: 18-21).

As the irradiations from the hidden glory that was there break through, after these manners, and enter the soul, how welcome they are! And what have we to do but to open all the avenues of the soul, and let Jesus enter? Faith listens. The Lord would have had the poor Samaritan at the well simply a listener from beginning to end. She may speak, and does speak; but what are her words but the witness of this: that understanding, conscience and heart were all opening to His words? And when the whole vessel was open, Jesus poured Himself in.

It is this listening attitude of faith we long more simply to occupy; and surely specially so, when tracing these profound and holy subjects.

The links between the parts of this great mystery, the transition-moments in the progress of the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have been now shortly considering with the evangelists. In other words, we have been with angels and with disciples at Bethlehem, in the garden of the sepulchre, and on the mount of Olives.

As we enter, immediately afterwards, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we shall be struck with this: that what fills the mind of the apostles, and forms the great burthen or thought of all their preaching, is that Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the Man denied and crucified here, was now in heaven. Peter makes it his first and constant business to link with the fact of the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth all the grace and power which were then (in that day of his testimony) ministered from heaven in the midst of the Jewish people. On the descent of the Holy Ghost, the prophecy of Joel becomes (properly and naturally, nay, necessarily) the text of Peter's sermon. But the manner in which he preaches from it is this: he finds Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, in it. He declares the man who had been lately approved of God in the midst of them by miracles and signs, to be now in heaven, and, as the God spoken of in that prophecy, to have now shed forth the promised Spirit; and moreover, that this same One was the Lord spoken of in that prophecy, whose name was for salvation now, but whose day would be for judgment by and by.

This is Peter's sermon and exhortation upon the text from Joel. It is the Man now in heaven whom he finds or declares in all the parts of that magnificent oracle. If John, I may here say, find in Jesus on earth full, unsullied glory; so Peter now finds in heaven, in the place there of all grace and salvation and power, the Son of man, the Nazarene, who had been despised and rejected here.

So, in the next chapter, it is Jesus of Nazareth, (the name of all slight and scorn among men) now glorified on high, of whom Peter speaks, and by whom he acts. The lame beggar at the Beautiful gate of the temple is healed by the faith of that name; and then the apostle further declares, that this same Jesus the heavens had received, and would retain, till the time when His restored presence should bring refreshing and restitution with it. And being challenged by the rulers, in the chapter that follows, on the ground of this miracle of healing, Peter publishes this same despised Jesus of Nazareth, as the Stone set at nought by the builders here, but made "the Head of the corner" in heaven.

This is the name, and this the testimony. Whether we gee the apostles in the face of the power of the world, or in the midst of the sorrows of the children of men, this is their only thought  -  here all their art is found, their virtue and their strength. And immediately after this, this same name of Jesus is all their plea and ground of confidence in the presence of God. The weak One, as men might say, the "Holy Child Jesus," whom Israel and the Gentiles, Herod and Pilate, the kings of the earth and the rulers, had stood against and refused, this One they hope in before God. They know Him in the sanctuary now, as they had known Him among men before. And mark their different style in using that name. Mark the assurance with which they pledge it to the needy, the boldness with which they contend for it before the world, and the tenderness ("Thy Holy Child Jesus") with which they plead it with God. The beggar at the gate of the temple had been healed by it; and the place where they had thus named that name before God is shaken, and they are filled with the Holy Ghost. All power is now owned in heaven as belonging to that name, as before all power had flowed out of it here. Yea, more; the world, or hell itself, is moved at it, for the high priest and the Sadducees are filled with indignation, and cast the witnesses of that name into the common prison.

With all this, Peter, in the fullest manner, sets forth the weakness and humiliation of the Jesus whom he was thus again and again testifying to be now exalted to the highest in the heavens. This is very striking in these early preachings of his. Jesus had been slain, Peter says, set at nought, delivered up, denied, taken, killed, hanged on a tree. He puts no restraint on language like this. And, in the same spirit, he seems to glory in the despised name of "Jesus of Nazareth." He has it on his lips again and again. All the forms of sorrow and of scorn which "the Prince of life," "the Holy One and the Just," wore or carried in His heart, His body, or His circumstances here among men, are remembered and rehearsed by him in his fine, vivid style, under the fresh anointing of the Holy Ghost. This is the One he glories in, all through these chapters of his earliest ministry to the Jews. (Acts 2, Acts 5) And yet this One who had been thus dealt with here he declares to be God's great Ordinance, "Lord and Christ." That a Man in heaven was David's Lord; that the Seed of Abraham was raised up for blessing; that the promised Prophet, like unto Moses, was ascended on high;  - this was the word that he spoke with boldness.

And as this anointing of the Holy Ghost thus leads Peter to testify of the Man in heaven, of Jesus of Nazareth, once denied here, but now exalted there, so rapture in the Holy Ghost, immediately afterwards, does the same for Stephen. If Peter speaks of Him in heaven, Stephen sees Him in heaven. The preacher declares Him without fear, and the martyr sees Him without a cloud: "But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." (Acts 7)

Thus, after this manner, the Spirit gives Jesus in heaven to the lips and the eyes of His different witnesses. But it is blessed to add, that Jesus in heaven was as great a reality to Peter as He was to Stephen, though Peter knew that mystery under an anointing only, while Stephen knew it under a rapture, in the Holy Ghost. May we, beloved, know it in our own souls in more of the like power. May we enjoy it in the light of the Spirit now, as we shall enjoy it in more than the vision of it for ever.

Such is the first preaching in the Acts, after the great link had been formed between "God" and "flesh," and between "God manifest in the flesh" and "heaven." But what a vast and wondrous scene is in this way kept within the view of faith; and all for our blessing and light and joy! We see the links between heaven and earth, God and sinners, the Father and the manger at Bethlehem, the cross of Calvary and the throne of the Majesty in the highest. Could human thought have ever reached or planned such a scene as that? But there it is before us, a great reality at this hour, and for eternity. "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things" (Eph. 4). The Spirit had revealed the God of glory in the Babe of Bethlehem: and now, when all power and grace is ministered from heaven, the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost, the healing of the sorrows of the children of men, the salvation of sinners, the promise of days of refreshing and restitution, — all this is found and declared to be in and from the Man glorified in heaven.

What divine mysteries are these, passing all conception of the heart! "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" was the inquiry of the Lord in the day of His humiliation; and the only right answer was this: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And now, in this season, when it is asked of the apostles in the day of their preaching, "By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?" the divine answer is this: "By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole."

This is the One, the same One, the only One. He has left His memorial in "the lower parts of the earth," and borne it with Him upward, "far above all heavens." He fills all things. God has been here; Man is there. That God was here on earth in full glory was told to faith in other days, the Son among the children of men; that Man was now in heaven, having passed in there from amid the slight and the scorn, the weakness and the humiliation of the scene here, was now told to faith, in like manner, in these days. And faith apprehends the mystery, that it is the One, the same One, the only One; that He who ascended is He also who had descended; that He who descended is the same also that ascended.

"His glorious meetness," to use very much the language of another, "for all the acts and duties of His mediatory office is resolved into the union of His two natures in the same Person. He who was conceived and born of the Virgin was Emmanuel; that is, "God was manifest in the flesh": "unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; . . . and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9). The One who spake to the Jews, and as a man was then only a little more than thirty years old, was "before Abraham" (John 8). The perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that He suffered, in all that He continueth to do, is the act and work of His whole person."

This is the mystery. Faith apprehends it in the full certainty of the soul. And faith apprehends more of the same mystery, and listens with intelligence and delight to this: "Justified in the Spirit, . . . preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world." God, though manifest in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit. All in Him was perfect moral glory; all was, to the divine mind, and for the divine acceptance, infinitely, ineffably right. We have need of a justification from without or through another.  - Nothing in us stands justified in itself: all in Him did so. Not a syllable, not a breath, not a motion, which was not an offering acceptable, well-pleasing to God, an odour of sweetest smell: "He was as spotless as Man as He was as God; as unsullied in the midst of the world's pollutions as when daily the Father's delight before the world began." Faith knows this, and knows it well, without a thought to cloud it. And, therefore, faith also knows that His history, the toils and sorrows, the death and resurrection of this blessed One, "God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit," was not for Himself, as though He needed it, but for sinners, that He and His precious history might be "preached unto the Gentiles," and "believed on in the world." In the sacrifice He accomplished, in the righteousness He wrought out and brought in, He is presented to sinners, even the most distant, be they who they may, far off or near, Gentile or Jew, that they may trust in Him, though still in this world, and be assured of their justification through Him.

Time would fail me to watch and follow, throughout, the Word of God upon this mystery; but I would add that among all the epistles, as they follow the book of the Acts, that to the Hebrews is pre-eminent in doing for our souls service connected with it. "Received up into glory" is a voice heard throughout that divine oracle from beginning to end. Would that the soul had in power what the mind has in enjoyment, when listening to such a voice! One cannot write but with the sense of this, and one would not write but with the confession of it.

Each chapter of this wondrous writing, or each stage or period in the argument of it, gives us a sight of the ascended Jesus. It opens directly and at once with this. It seems as though it were forcing this object upon us somewhat abruptly. (Heb. 1) Most welcome indeed all this is to the soul, but this is the style of it. The Son, the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person, is seen — after having by Himself purged our sins here — in His ascended place in heaven, inheriting there a name more excellent than that of angels, getting title to a throne which is to endure forever, and filling a seat in highest dignity and power, till His enemies be made His footstool.

The second chapter (Heb. 2) gives us another sight of the same object. The Sanctifier having descended to be the Kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and to do for them a kinsman's part, is then in His assumed manhood declared to have re-ascended the heavens, there to fulfil for us the services of a merciful and faithful High Priest. And this scripture, I may say, so abounds with this thought that this same chapter gives us this same object a second time. It shows us, as from Ps. 8, that "wondrous Man," made for a season lower than the angels, now crowned on high with glory and honour.

The next chapters (Heb. 3, 4) are but parenthetic, incidental to previous teaching; but still this sight of Christ is kept before us. He is declared to have been here on earth, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin; but now to have passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, to give us grace and help from the sanctuary there.

In the next subject, that of the priesthood (Heb. 5-7) we have the same ascended Lord still in view. The Son is declared to be made a Priest, "higher than the heavens." He had descended to come to the tribe of Judah, and to perfect Himself in the days of His flesh here; but was now ascended again, the Author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him.

And so, in the next great matter dealt with — the covenants (Heb. 8, 9). Immediately on their opening before us, we see Jesus in the tabernacle in the heavens; that tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man; and therefrom ministering "the better covenant."

So again, in the next chapter (Heb. 10) when the victim is the thought, as the priesthood and the covenants had been before, we have the same ascended Jesus in view. It is the One who could say, "Lo, I come! "that is, revealed as having sanctified sinners in the body prepared for Him on earth; but then to have gained the heavens; opening for us a way to tread with all boldness those highest, purest, brightest courts of God's presence.

Here the doctrine of the epistle formally closes; and, after this manner, we see, in various lights and characters, the same glorious and wondrous Person, the ascended Son of God. And, I may add, so rich is this epistle in this thought, so faithful is it to this its object, that after we formally leave the doctrine of it, we soon find that we have not left this great mystery — Christ in heaven. In the practical warnings that follow, we find it still. Jesus, as "the Leader and Completer of faith," is seen at the end of His life of faith in heaven: "Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12: 2). Thus is He seen in heaven in this new character: the life of faith leads Him thither; as all that He did and suffered for us in divine grace leads Him thither. And there He shines before the eye of faith: and had we but senses to discern it, and a heart to enjoy it, we should know it — that heaven itself is bright with beauty and glory unknown to it before, since Jesus in all these characters, won and acquired on earth, and for us sinners, has reached there.

And this is the mystery; the assumption of flesh and blood by the Son, so that He became the Kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and then the assumption of that wondrous Person into heaven: "God was manifest in the flesh — received up into glory." And blessed is the task of inspecting, as we have been seeking to do, these mysterious links. And these links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together what lay at distances beyond all created thought to reach. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He formed them for the divine delight and glory, according to divine, eternal counsels. "The Word made flesh" of John 1 is the "good thing" out of Nazareth (vers. 14, 46). The Emmanuel of Matthew was the Babe who lay in the manger at Bethlehem. In the midst of the throne, there has been seen a Lamb, as it had been slain (Rev. 5). In the Person of the One whose lips were telling of wisdom suited to the commonest traffic of human life, He was found who had been set up, in the secrecy of the Godhead-Persons, as the foundation of all the divine way (Prov. 8). In the bush of Horeb, there was the God of Abraham; in the cloud of the wilderness, the Glory; in the armed man of Jericho, the Captain of the Lord's host; in the stranger that visited Gideon in his threshing-floor, and Manoah in his field, the God to whom alone worship is due throughout the whole creation.

These are among the witnesses that (in unspeakable grace, and for the divine delight and glory) the highest and the lowest are linked together: "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3: 13).

How finely that thought of the apostle, which we get in the epistle to the Ephesians, rises upon the renewed mind: "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" (Eph. 4: 8). The dignities, the offices, the services, which the ascended One fills and renders, are of so eminent a character, that they tell us He must be He who had already descended, already been One in heaven "above all;" as it is written: "He that cometh from above is above all" (John 3: 31). The dignity of His person is involved in this mystery of His ascending and descending. That challenge in Ephesians 4: 8, 9 seems to intimate this; and the Epistle to the Hebrews opens the reasons of it more fully. For it tells us, that ere He ascended, He had accomplished the purging of our sins; that ere He ascended, He had destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered his captives; that ere He ascended, He had perfected Himself as the Author of eternal salvation to such as we are (Heb. 1, 2, 5). In these characters, and in such others, He went up: and when He had actually ascended, He filled the true sanctuary in the heavens, the tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, there to secure to us an eternal inheritance (Heb. 8, 9).

Who could have ascended in such glory and strength as this and far more than this — but One who had been already in heaven "above all"? "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first?" The offices He fills tell who He is. His sufferings, even in weakness and humiliation, bespeak His person in full divine glory.

But then again: "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." This follows, and this tells us the boundlessness of His sovereignty, as the other had revealed to us the dignity of His person. In His works, His journeys, His triumphs, the highest and the lowest regions are visited by Him. He has been on earth, in the lower parts of the earth. He has been in the grave, the territory of the power of death. He is now in the highest heavens, having passed by all principalities and powers. His realms and dominions are thus shown to the eye of faith. No pinnacle of the temple, no exceeding high mountain, could have afforded such a sight. But it is shown to faith: "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things."

This is the mystery. It is the same Jesus, Emmanuel, the Son, and yet the Kinsman of the seed of Abraham. And here I would say — for there is a call for it — I know we are not to confound the natures in this glorious and blessed One. I fully bow in faith to the truth that the Sanctifier took part of flesh and blood. I avow with my whole soul the true humanity in His person; but it was not an imperfect humanity, in the condition or under the results of sin, in any wise. But I ask, with that, Is there not some unsuspected and yet real unbelief touching the mystery of the Person in the minds of many? Is the undividedness of the Person throughout all the periods and transitions of this glorious, mysterious history kept in the view of the soul?

I would have grace to delight myself in the language of the Holy Ghost, and speak of "the Man Christ Jesus." The "Man" that is risen is declared to be the pledge of resurrection to us (1 Cor. 15: 21). The "Man" that is ascended is the great assurance to us that our interests are, every moment, before God in heaven (1 Tim. 2: 5). The "Man" to return from heaven by and by will he the security and joy of the coming kingdom (Ps. 8). The mystery of the "Man, "obedient, dead, raised, ascended, and returned, thus sustains, we may say, the whole counsel of God. But still, again I say, the Person in its undividedness is to be kept in the view of the soul. "The perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that He suffered, in all that He continueth to do, is the act and work of His whole person." Yea, indeed, and His whole Person was on the cross, as everywhere else. The Person was the sacrifice, and in that Person was the Son, "over all, God blessed forever." He "gave up the ghost," though He died under God's judgment against sin; and though He was by the hands of wicked men crucified and slain. And this is an infinite mercy.

It was Himself, beloved, from first to last. He trod the mysterious way Himself, though He trod it unaided and alone. None other than He, "God manifest in the flesh," could have been there. The Son became the Lamb for the altar here; and then the Lamb that was slain reached the place of glory, far above all heavens. It is the Person which gives efficacy to all. Services would be nothing; sorrows would be nothing; death, resurrection, and ascension, all would be nothing (could we conceive them), if Jesus were not the one He is. His person is the "Rock;" therefore "His work is perfect" (Deut. 32: 4). It is the mystery of mysteries. But He is not presented for our discussion, but for our apprehension, faith, confidence, love and worship.

God and man, heaven and earth, are together before the thoughts of faith in this great mystery. God has been here on earth; and that too in flesh; and Man glorified is there on high in heaven. It is the links between these great things that I have sought to look at particularly; fitted as this exercise is to make the things of heaven and eternity real and near to our souls. The moral distances are infinite; but the distances themselves are now nothing. Nature, beset with lusts and worldliness, makes it hard indeed for the soul to pass in; but the distance itself is nothing. Jesus, after He was in heaven, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, showed Himself to Stephen; and, in a like moment of time, shone across the path of Saul of Tarsus, as he travelled from Jerusalem to Damascus; and though we have not like visits from the glory, the nearness and reality of it are pledged afresh, and made good to our souls, by the sight of these great mysteries.

And is not the kingdom to be the exhibition of the results of these mysterious links? For heaven and earth, in their different ways, shall witness and celebrate them. "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad" (Ps. 96: 11). The Church, one with this exalted, glorified Man, will be on high, far above all principalities and powers. The ladder which Jacob saw, shall (in the mystery) be set up; the Son of man shall be the centre as well as the stay of all this predestinated system of glory and of government. The nations shall learn war no more. The stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim shall be one, and one King shall be to them both. "It shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel" (Hosea 2: 21, 22). And what is all this, but the happy fruit, to be gathered in the days of the coming kingdom, of these links which, as we have been seeing, have been already formed? The germs and principles of all these manifestations in heaven and on earth, among angels, and men, and all creatures, and the creation itself, are found, so to speak, at Bethlehem, in the garden of the sepulchre, and at the Mount of Olives.

May the heart and conscience learn the lesson. May we gaze on these mysterious links of which we have been speaking, more in company with the angels in the fields of Bethlehem, and in the tomb of Jesus, or, I might here add, more in the dear mind of the disciples on the Mount of Olives, as they gazed there on the glorious link which was then forming between Jesus and the heavens. See them in Luke 24: 44-52. They were then like Israel in Leviticus 23: 9-14, celebrating the waving of the sheaf of first-fruits. Jesus, the True First-fruits, had just then been gathered, and He had, as their divine Teacher, expounded to them the mystery of the gathered sheaf, that is, the meaning of His resurrection. They then watched that mysterious moment They looked as their risen Lord ascended, and they kept the feast as with a sacrifice of burnt-offering. "They worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."

Surely we may say, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."

He was received up gloriously, or in glory, as well as into glory. He entered the light of the highest heavens; but He entered it glorious Himself. and there He now is, a glorious body, the pattern of what ours is to be. The real manhood is there, in the highest heavens; but it is glorified. And though thus glorified, yet it is the real human nature still. "Jesus is in the same body in heaven wherein He conversed here on earth. This is that 'Holy Thing' which was framed immediately by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin. This is that 'Holy One' which, when He was in the grave, saw no corruption. This is that body' which was offered for us, and wherein He bare our sins on the tree. That individual nature wherein He suffered all sorts of reproaches, contempts, and miseries, is now unchangeably seated in incomprehensible glory. The body which was pierced is that which all eyes shall see, and no other. That tabernacle shall never be folded up. The person of Christ, and therein His human nature, shall be the eternal object of divine glory, praise, and worship."

Thus speaks one for our edification and comfort. And one of our own poets has thus sung of Him, looking after Him up to heaven:

"There the blest Man, my Saviour, sits,

The God, how bright He shines,

And scatters infinite delights

On all the happy minds.

"Seraphs, with elevated strains,

Circle the throne around,

And charm and fix the starry plains

With an immortal sound.

"Jesus the Lord their harps employs;

Jesus, my Lord, they sing;

Jesus, the name of both our joys,

Sounds sweet on every string."

"His present state is a state of the highest glory of exaltation above the whole creation of God, and above every name that is or can be named."

He was received up with the unspeakable love, and with the boundless, unmeasured acceptance of God the Father; as He had wrought out and accomplished the purpose of His grace in the redemption of sinners. He was received up in triumph, having led captivity captive, and spoiled principalities and powers; and there He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high, with all power given to Him in heaven and on earth. He was received up as the Head of His body, the Church, so that out of the fulness of the Godhead which dwelleth in Him bodily, it "increaseth with the increase of God," through the Holy Ghost given to us. He was received up as into a temple, there to appear in the presence of God for us, there to sit as the Minister of the true tabernacle, there to make continual intercession for us; and in this and in like ways of grace to serve in His body before the throne. He was received up as our Forerunner, as into the Father's house, there to prepare a place for the children, that where He is, there they may be also. And further: as He sat down in heaven, He sat down as an expectant; He waits to come forth to meet His saints in the air, that they may be with Him forever; He waits till He is sent to bring times of refreshing to the earth again by His own presence; and He waits till His enemies be made His footstool.

Cold is the affection, and small the energy; but in principle I know nothing at all worthy of such visions of faith, but that spirit of devotedness that can say with Paul, "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound," and that spirit of desire which looks after Him still, and says, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Beloved, our God has joined Himself thus by links which never can be broken, which His own delight and glory in them, as well as His counsel and strength, will secure forever. These links we have gazed at, mysterious and precious as they are. Himself has formed them, yea, Himself constitutes them, faith understands them; and on the Rock of Ages the believing sinner rests, and rests in peace and safety.

With my whole soul I say, May these meditations help to make these objects of faith a little nearer and more real to us! They will be worthless if they tend not to glorify Him in our thoughts, to give Him, with a fresh pressure, beloved, to our hearts.

"Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee."

May that be the breathing of our souls, till we see Him. Amen.

Chapter 5

"Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet"

(Heb. 2: 8).

In the opening of the Gospel of Luke one is struck by the deep and vivid expression of intimacy between heaven and earth which is found and felt to be there. It is man's necessity and weakness which open the heavenly door; but once open, it is thrown wide open.

Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless. They were of the priestly family, the seed of Aaron. But it was not their righteousness that opened heaven to them, but their need and infirmities. Elizabeth was barren, and they were both now well stricken in age; and their point of real blessing lay there, lay in their sorrow and weakness. For to the barren wife and the childless husband Gabriel comes with a word of promise from heaven. But, as we said, the door of heaven, being once opened, is flung wide open. Angels are all action and joy; and no matter whether it be the temple in the royal, holy city, or a distant village in despised Galilee, Gabriel with equal readiness visits either and both. The glory of God, as well as hosts of angels, fills also the fields of Bethlehem. The Holy Ghost, in His divine light and power, fills His elect vessels, and the Son Himself assumes flesh. Heaven and earth are very near each other. The action and the joy which had begun on high, are felt and answered from the scene here below. The shepherds, the favoured women, the aged priest, and the unborn child, share the holy enthusiasm of the moment, and waiting saints go forth from the place of expectation.

I know no scripture finer than Luke 1, 2 in this character. It was as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; but a blessed transition was accomplished -

"Heaven comes down our soul to greet."

Earth learns, and learns in the mouth of these wondrous witnesses, that the door of heaven was indeed thrown wide open to her. And the intimacy was deep, as the services and grace were precious. The angel calls Zacharias and Mary by their names, and speaks to them also of Elizabeth by name — a language or style which lets the heart know its meaning at once.

We might bless the Lord for this; and we should do so, did we a little more simply, a little more believingly, walk on in the sense of the nearness and reality of heaven.

Jacob and Stephen, in their day, and in like manner, had heaven opened to them, and were given also to know their own personal interest in it. A ladder was set up in the sight of Jacob, and as the top of it entered heaven, the foot of it rested just on the spot where he was lying. It was a mean, dishonoured place; the witness, too, of his wrong, as well as of his misery. But the ladder adopted it; and the voice of the Lord, who was in His glory above it, spoke to Jacob of blessing, of security, of guidance, and of inheritance.

Stephen, likewise, saw the heaven opened, and the glory there; but the Son of man was standing at the right hand of God. And this told the martyr, as the ladder had told the patriarch, that he and his circumstances at that very moment were the thought and object of heaven.

Thus was it, after these same ways, in these distant days of Jacob and Stephen — distant from each other as well as distant from us. But time makes no difference. Faith sees these same opened heavens now; and learns, too, like those of old, that they are ours. It learns that there are links between them and our circumstances. In the eye of faith there is a ladder., heaven stands open before it, and "the Man Christ Jesus" is seen there — the Mediator of the new covenant, the High-Priest, the Advocate with the Father, the One who sympathizes; the Forerunner, too, into those places of glory.

Jesus has ascended, and the present action in the heavens, where He is gone, is known by faith to be all "for us." Our need, as well as our sorrow, is in remembrance there. Jacob's sufferings were those of a penitent; Stephen's were a martyr's: but heaven was the heaven of Jacob as well as of Stephen.

But, though this is so, this is not all. Faith knows another secret or mystery in heaven. It knows that if the Lord took, as He surely did take, His seat there in these characters of grace for us, He took it likewise as the One whom man had despised and the world rejected. This is equally among the apprehensions which faith takes of the heavens where the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is now seated.

The Lord Jesus died under the hand of God; His soul was made an offering for sin. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him" (Isa. 53: 10). And He rose as the One who had thus died, His resurrection witnessing the acceptance of the sacrifice; and He ascended the heavens in the same character also, there to carry on the purpose of the grace of God in such a death and such a resurrection.

But the Lord Jesus died also under the hand of man; that is, man's wicked hand was in that death, as well and as surely as God's infinite grace. He was refused by the husbandmen, hated by the world, cast out, crucified, and slain. This is another character of His death. And His resurrection and ascension were in that character also, parts or stages in the history of One whom the world had rejected; His resurrection, consequently, pledging the judgment of the world (Acts 17: 31); and His ascension leading Him to the expectation of a day when His enemies are to be made His footstool (Heb. 10: 13).

These distinctions give us to understand the different sights which faith, in the light of the Word, gets of the ascended Jesus; seeing Him, as it does, in priestly grace there, making intercession for us, and, at the same time, awaiting, as in expectation, the judgment of His enemies.

The gospel publishes the first of these mysteries; that is, the death of the Lord Jesus under the hand of God for us, and His resurrection and ascension as in character with such a death. And this gospel is rightly gloried in as all our salvation.* But the second of these mysteries, the death of the Lord under the hand of man, may be somewhat forgotten, while the first of them is thus rightly gloried in. But this is a serious mistake in the soul of a saint, or in the calculations and testimony of the Church. For let this great fact, this second mystery, as we have called it, the death of the Lord Jesus under the hand of man, be forgotten, as it may be on earth, it is surely not forgotten in heaven. It is not, it is true, the occasion of present action there; it is the death of the Victim, and the intercessions of the Priest upon such death, which form the action that is there now. But as surely it will be the death of the divine Martyr, the death of the Son of God at the hand of man, that will give character to the action there by and by.

*In preaching the gospel, the sin of man in putting the Lord of glory to death will surely be declared; but it is the death of the Lord as the Lamb of God which is the ground of the grace published by the gospel; and that is what I mean here.

These distinctions are very clearly preserved in Scripture. Heaven, as it is opened to us in Rev. 4, is a very different heaven, differently minded, I mean, differently moved and occupied, from the heaven presented to us in the epistle to the Hebrews; just as different, I may say, as the death of the Lord Jesus looked at as under man's hand (that is, perpetrated by us), and as under God's hand; that is, accomplished for us. We may have the same objects or materials in each, but they will be seen in very different connections. We have, for instance, a throne and a temple in each of these heavens, the heaven of Hebrews and the heaven of the Apocalypse; but the contrasts between them are very solemnly preserved. In Hebrews, the throne is a throne of grace, and whatever our present time of need and sorrow may require is found there and obtained there. In the Apocalypse, the throne is one of judgment, and the instruments and agencies of wrath and of vengeance are seen to be lying before and around it. In Hebrews, the sanctuary, or temple, is occupied by the High-Priest of our profession, the Mediator of the better covenant, serving there in the virtue of His own most precious blood. In the Apocalypse, the temple gives fearful notes of preparation for judgment. Lightning and earthquake and voices attend the opening of it. It is as the temple seen by the prophet, filled with smoke, and the pillars of it shaking in token that the God to whom vengeance belongs was there in His glory (Isa. 6).

The sight we get of heaven in the Apocalypse is thus very solemn. It is the place of power furnishing itself with the instruments of judgment. Seals are opened, trumpets are blown, vials are emptied; but all this introducing some awful visitation of the earth. The altar that is there is not the altar of the epistle to the Hebrews, where the heavenly priesthood eat of the bread of life, but an altar that supplies penal fire for the earth. And there is also war there; and at the last it opens for Him whose name is called "The Word of God," whose vesture is dipped in blood, and who carries a sharp sword in His mouth, that with it He may smite the nations.

Surely this is heaven in a new character. And the contrast is very solemn. This is not the heaven which faith now apprehends, a sanctuary of peace filled with the provisions and witnesses of grace, but a heaven which tells us that though judgment is the Lord's strange work, yet that it is His work in due season. For heaven in its revolutions, is, as we may say, the place of the witness of grace, of judgment, and of glory. It is the heaven of grace now; it will become the heaven of judgment in the day of Rev. 4, and so continue throughout the action of the book of Apocalypse; and then at the close of that book, as we see in Rev. 21, 22, it becomes the heaven of glory.

The soul should he accustomed to this serious truth, that judgment precedes glory. I speak of these things in the progress of the history of the earth or the world. The believer has passed from death into life. There is no condemnation for him. He rises not to judgment but to life. But he ought to know, that in the progress of the divine history of the earth or the world judgment precedes glory. The kingdom will be seen in the sword or "rod of iron," ere it be seen in the sceptre. The Ancient of days sits in white garments on a throne of fiery flame with the books opened before Him, ere the Son of man comes to Him with the clouds of heaven to receive dominion (Ps. 2; Dan. 7).

These lessons are very clearly taught and marked in Scripture. In the day of Rev. 4 it is Christ rejected by man, and not Christ accepted of God for sinners, that has become its thought and object. And, accordingly, preparations are being made to avenge the wrongs of the Lord Jesus on the world, and to vindicate His rights in the earth: in other words, it is heaven beginning that action which is to seat Him in His Kingdom upon the judgment of His enemies.

But all this shows us again, according to my leading thought in these meditations on "the Son of God," how it is the same Person that is kept before us, and to be known by us, in each and all of the stages or periods of the same great mystery. We are still, at whatever point we may have arrived, in company with the same Jesus. For these distinctions, which I have been now noticing, tell us that He has been received up into heaven, and is now seated there, in the very characters in which He had been before known and manifested here on earth, For He had been here as the One who accomplished the grace of God toward us sinners to perfection, and as the One who endured the enmity of the world in its full measure; and it is in these two characters, as we have now seen, that He is seated in heaven.

He does not quickly take this second character, or appear actively in heaven as the One who had been despised and rejected on earth. He lingers ere He reaches the heaven of the Apocalypse. And in this feature of character, in this delaying of His approaches to judgment, and tarrying in the place of grace, we have a very sweet expression of the Jesus whom faith has already known. For, when He was here, as the God of judgment He approached Jerusalem with a very measured step. He said to her, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings," ere He said, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23: 37, 38). He lingered in the plains below, visiting every city and village of the land, in patient service of grace, ere He took His seat on the mount, to speak of judgment and of the desolations of Zion (Matt. 24: 3). And now of Him who, after this manner, trod softly the road which led Him to the Mount of Olives, the place of judgment, is it written, "The Lord . . . is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3: 10).*

*"Son of man" is the characteristic of His person when presented in His judicial glory, as also in His place of dominion in the earth (Ps. 8; John 5: 27; Matt. 19: 28).

How do we thus hold in view the same Person with like character attaching to Him, whether when He was here on earth, or as He is now in heaven, — the Person one, the moral one, though scenes and conditions change! "The grace that was in Christ in this world is the same with that which is in Him now in heaven." Comforting words! How truly should we know we speak truly when we say, We know Him! We have been considering Him from the beginning. He came down from heaven; He lay in the virgin's womb, and in the manger at Bethlehem; He traversed the earth in full, unsullied glory, though veiled; He died, and was buried; rose, and returned to heaven; and, as we have now been meditating, faith sees Him there, the One whom faith had known to be here, the very One, the Minister and Witness of the grace of God to man, the Bearer of man's full enmity against God, and yet the reluctant God of judgment.

But I must notice still more of this same Jesus, and something still more immediately in connection with my present meditation.

When the Lord Jesus Christ was here, He looked for His Kingdom. He offered Himself as her King, the Son of David, to the daughter of Zion. He took the form of the One who had been of old promised by the prophets, and entered the city "meek, and sitting upon an ass." In a still earlier day, His star, the star of the kingly Bethlehemite, had appeared in the eastern world, summoning the Gentiles to the Son of David, born in the city of David. But what He then looked for He found not: "His own received Him not." But He carried with Him to heaven this very same mind, this desire for His Kingdom! "A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom." He thinks of His Kingdom, though now on the throne of the Father, as He had thought of it and looked for it when here. And I may again say, How strictly, in this fine characteristic, are we kept in communion with the same Jesus still! Once on earth He was, and now in heaven He is; but we know Him, after these manners, as the same Lord, — in person one, in purpose and desire one, though places and conditions change. He was King of Israel when here, and with desire claimed His Kingdom; and being refused it at the hands of the citizens, He has received it in heaven, and in due time will return, in a day of the gladness of His heart, to administer it here, where at the first He sought it: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Dan. 7).

We are, after this manner, viewing the one Person, the same Jesus, and the heart prizes this when we think upon it. And there is one other feature of this identity, surpassing, yea, far surpassing, all that I have already noticed.

When He was here, He desired to be known by His disciples, to be discovered by them, sinners as they were, in some of His hidden glories. He rejoiced likewise in all the communications of His grace to faith. The faith which drew upon Him without reserve, the faith which used Him without ceremony, the faith which could outlive apparent neglect or repulse, was precious to Him. The sinner who would cling to Him in the face of the world's scorn, or would trust in Him all alone, without countenance or encouragement from others, was deeply welcome to Him. The soul that with freedom would ask for His presence, or seek communion with Him, seated at His feet or standing by His side, might get from Him what it would, or, like interceding Abraham, have Him as long as it pleased.

He desired oneness with His elect, full, personal, abiding oneness, ready as He was to share with them His name with the Father, the love in which He stood, and the glory of which He was Heir.

He sought for sympathy, He longed for companionship in both His joys and His sorrows. And we can by no means appreciate the disappointings of His heart, when this He sought, but found it not; deeper, at the least we may say, far deeper than when He claimed a kingdom, as we have already seen, and received it not. "Could ye not watch with Me one hour?" spoke a lonely heart.

And further still. He purposed, when He was here, that He would share His throne with His people. He would not abide alone. He would share His honours and His dominions with His elect, as He would that they, in sympathy, should understand and share His joys and sorrows with Him.

And now (excellent and wonderful as is the mystery which speaks it to us), all this is, or is to be, made good to Him in and by the Church. The Church is called to answer the desires of the Lord Jesus in all these things, to be all this to Him, either in the Holy Ghost now, or in the Kingdom by and by; to enter now, in spirit, into His thoughts and affections, His joys and His sorrows, and hereafter to shine in His glory, and to sit on His throne.

What a mystery! The Church, now endowed with the indwelling Spirit, and destined to sit, glorious herself, in the inheritance of His dominion, is the answer to these deepest desires of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the days of His flesh. And again I say, What a mystery! We may well admire those harmonies which tell us of the SAME Jesus, the ONE Person in these different parts of His wondrous ways. He sought and claimed a kingdom when He was here, and when He was here desired the sympathies of His saints. But His people were not prepared to own His royalty, His saints were not able to give Him this fellowship. A kingdom, however, He is receiving now in heaven, and He will return and administer it here. This fellowship He is beginning to find now through the Spirit indwelling His elect; and it will be in its fuller measure made good to Him in the day of their perfection. The Kingdom will be His glory and His joy. It is called "The joy of the Lord," for it will be said to them who share it with Him, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But this fellowship, in which the Church will stand with Him, will be still more to Him. It was His deepest desire here, and it will be His richest enjoyment by and by. Eve was more to Adam than all his possessions beside.

Have we, beloved, any power in our souls to rejoice in the thought of the heart of the Lord Jesus being thus satisfied? We may trace the forms of these joys which thus await Him as in the day of His espousals, the day of the gladness of His heart; but have we capacity, in spirit, to do more? It is humbling to put such inquiries to one's own soul, we may surely say, with all unfeignedness.

But these will be His, the Kingdom and the Church.

The Kingdom will be His by many titles. He will take it UNDER COVENANT, or, according to counsels which were taken in God before the foundation of the world. He will take it BY PERSONAL RIGHT; for He, the Son of man, never lost the image of God. Of course, He could not; because, though Son of man, He was Son of the Father. But He did not; and, having that image, dominion is His by personal title, according to the first great ordinances of power and rule: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Gen. 1). He will take it likewise by title Of OBEDIENCE; as we read of Him: "Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" (Phil. 2). He will take it, too, by title of DEATH; for we read again: "And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; . . . whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven" (Col. 1). And the cross, on which He accomplished that death, had written upon it, and kept there unblotted, uncancelled, in a single letter of it, by the strong prevailing hand of God Himself, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" (Matt. 27: 37).

Thus, dominion is the Son of man's by covenant, by personal title, by title of service or obedience, and by title of death or purchase: and, I may add, BY CONQUEST also; for the judgments which are to clear His way to the throne, and take out of the Kingdom all that offends, are, as we know, executed by His hand. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle" (Ps. 24).

What foundations are thus laid for the dominion of the Son of man! How does every title join in subscribing itself to His honoured and glorious name! As we see in Rev. 5, none in heaven or earth could take the Book but the Lamb that was slain, who was the Lion of Judah: but into His hand He that sits on the throne lets it pass at once; and then the Church in glory, angels, and all creatures in all parts of the great dominions, triumph in the Lamb's rights and title. And if the title is thus sure, sealed by a thousand witnesses, and wondrous too, so will be the power and kingdom which it sustains. In the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, "the Lord from heaven," as well as "the Son of man," all the great purpose of God in the rule of all things stands revived and established. We may say, As "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen," so all the destinies of man under God are alike in Him yea, and in Him amen.

There was dominion in Adam; government in Noah; fatherhood in Abraham; judgment in David; and royalty in Solomon. In Christ all these glories will meet and shine together. In Him, and under Him, will be "the restitution of all things." Many crowns He will wear, and many names He will bear. His name of "Lord" in Ps. 8, is not His name of "King" in Ps. 72. The form of glory in each is peculiar. The crowns are different, but both are His. And He is likewise "the Father of the everlasting age"; a King, and yet a Father — the Solomon and the Abraham of God. In Him all shall be blessed; and yet to Him all shall bow. The sword, too, is His; the "rod of iron," as well as the "sceptre of righteousness." He will judge with David, and rule with Solomon.

As Son of David, He takes power to exercise it in a given sphere of glory. As Son of man, He takes power, and exercises it in a wider sphere of glory. He comes likewise in His own glory, in the glory of the Father, and in the glory of the holy angels. And as the risen Man He takes power. This is shown us in 1 Cor. 15: 23-27. And in that character He has His peculiar sphere also. He puts death, the last enemy, under His feet. And this is so fitting, like everything else, perfect in its place and season, that as the risen Man He should put down death.

Scenes of various glory will surround Him, and characters of various glory will attach to Him. The very bearing of the Kingdom will be this: it will be full of the glories of Christ; varied, yet consistent and blending. The cross has already presented a sample of this perfect workmanship. "Mercy and truth" met together there. There God was "just," and yet a "Justifier." And it is to be after this same manner in coming days of strength, as it has been thus in past days of weakness. As mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, once met and embraced each other, so authority and service, blessing and yet rule, a name of all majesty and power, and yet such a name as shall come down like showers on the mown grass, shall be known and enjoyed together. There shall be the universal dominion of man in the whole range of the works of God; the honours of the Kingdom in holding all nations under rule, together with the presence of "the Father of the everlasting age" holding them all in blessing. "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9).

All is tending to this blessed and glorious lordship and headship of the Son of God, though it be through "seas of tribulation" to some, and through the full judgment of "this present evil world." God is leading this way, and man cannot hinder it, though he seek to fix the earth on its present foundations, refusing to learn that they are all out of course, that the earth and its inhabitants are dissolved, and that Christ alone bears up its pillars. "The bundle of life" (as she spoke who confessed to David's glory in the day of David's humiliation) is a firm bundle, well compacted and sure, because the Lord Himself is in it, as of old He was in the burning bush. But beyond the measure of that bundle (weak and despised in the thoughts of man, like a bramble-bush), all is tottering; and times are surely at hand, that will teach this in history to those who will not learn it, nor seek to learn it, watch and pray to learn it, in spirit.

The sword and the sceptre of this coming day of power are alone in their glories. There is no other sword, no other sceptre, that is or can be like them. The sword is to be "bathed in heaven" (Isa. 34: 5). What an expression! The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, the powers of heaven shall be shaken, darkness shall be under His feet, and thick clouds of the sky shall accompany Him, in the day when that sword is drawn for the slaughter. And the power of it is the treading of the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Everything that is high and lifted up, the principalities and powers that rule the darkness of this world, the beast and his prophet, kings, captains, and mighty men, as well as the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, are among the enemies which are made to feel it; "the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth." The sources, as well as the agencies, of evil, are searched out and visited by the light and strength of it.

Is not such a sword alone in its glory? Could Joshua's or David's have wrought such conquests as these? Would principalities of darkness have yielded to them? Would death and hell have submitted themselves? "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" But "He that made him can make His sword to approach unto him."

In whose hand, then, I ask, must that sword be, which can quell hosts like these? The very service in that day of power, like every other service of His, whether in weakness or in strength, tells us who He is. There is this beautiful and divine self-evidencing light and power to Him, and about Him, and around Him, let Him act as He may, yea, let Him suffer as He may, which we have been feebly tracing and admiring, but which we will still acknowledge, and worship. The victories of this God of battles, in other days, were of the same high character. For of old His warfare bespoke His person and glory, as it is still to do. Therefore is it written of Him, "The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name" (Ex. 15: 3). His warfare, in this utterance of the Spirit, is said to reveal His lordship, His glory, His name, His person. In Egypt the gods felt His hand, as they did afterwards among the Philistines, and again in Babylon. Dagon fell before the ark, Bel bowed down, Nebo stooped. These were days of the same hand.

And as is the sword, so is the sceptre. Solomon's was but a distant shadow of it, and Noah's government and Adam's dominion shall be thought of no more, in comparison with it.

All shall be the subject world then, the subject creation as well as the subject nations. "O sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His name: show forth His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people" (Ps. 96). Under the shadow of this sceptre, and in the light of this throne of glory, shall dwell from one end of the earth to the other the "willing" and the "righteous" nations. There shall be a covenant between men and the beasts of the field. The wilderness too shall rejoice. The lame shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. The sun of that Kingdom shall not go down, nor the moon withdraw herself, for the Lord shall be its everlasting light. Nothing shall hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Israel shall revive, the dry bones shall live. The stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim shall be one again. The city shall be called "The Lord is there." Of the land it shall be said, "This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden." And again, she shall be saluted in words that speak her holy dignities: "The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness" (Jer. 31: 23).

The Gentiles shall be brought to a right mind. Their reason will return to them. The senseless world, though "made by Him," yet "knew Him not." The kings of the earth, and the rulers, stood up against the Anointed. They kicked against the pricks, betraying their madness and folly. But their reason will return to them. The story of Nebuchadnezzar will be found to be a mystery as well as a history. The reason of that head of gold, that great head of Gentile power, returned to him after his term of judicial folly; and he knew and owned that the heavens did rule. And so the world by and by will no longer senselessly not know its Maker, but as deeply own Him as once it madly refused Him. For "kings shall shut their mouths at Him," in token of this deep and worshipping acknowledgement. The beast's heart shall be taken away from them, and a man's heart be given them. No longer shall they be rebuked as by the ox that knoweth his owner, and by the crane, the turtle, and the swallow, that observe the time of their coming, but they shall fly "as doves to their windows." "Behold, these shall come from far; and, to, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim (Isa. 49: 12).

The works of God's hand, as well as Israel and the Gentiles, shall rejoice in the same sceptre. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid" (Isa. 11: 6). The very soil shall own again the early and the latter rain, and the tillage as of a divine husbandman. "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: Thou preparest them corn, when Thou hast so provided for it" (Ps. 65: 9).

What a sceptre! Is not such a sceptre, as well as such a sword, alone in its glory? Was ever sceptre like it? Could power in any hand but one be such as this? What Adam lost in the earth; what Israel lost in the land of election and of promise; what Abraham lost in a degraded, disowned, and outcast seed; what the house of David lost in the throne; what the creation itself lost by reason of him who subjected it to bondage and corruption, — all shall be gathered up and held and presented in the presence and power of the days of the Son of man,

"The Son" alone could take such a kingdom. The virtue of the sacrifice already accomplished, as we have seen in earlier meditations on this blessed Object, rests on the person of the Victim; the acceptableness of the sanctuary now filled and served, rests, in like manner, on the person of the High-Priest and Mediator who is there; the glories and the virtues of the Kingdom that is to be, could be displayed and exercised and ministered only in and by the same Person. The Son of God serves in the lowest and in the highest  -  in poverty and in wealth; in honour and dishonour; as the Nazarene and as the Bethlehemite; in earth and in heaven; and in a world of millennial glories both earthly and heavenly: but all service, from beginning to end, in all stages and changes in the great mystery, tell who He is. He could no more have been what He was on the cross, were He not there the One He was, than He could now be sitting on the Father's throne were He not the same. Faith cares not where it sees Him, nor where it follows Him: it has the one bright, ineffably blessed Object before it, and resents the word that would presume to soil Him, even though ignorantly.

We must still, however, look at other glories of this coming Kingdom of His.

"The Second Man is the Lord from heaven," and a glory must attend on the rising of such a One, which the throne of Solomon could never have measured. Yea, in the presence of this "Lord from heaven," far brighter glories than that of Solomon will be outdone. "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients, gloriously" (Isa. 24: 23). There will be heavenly things in His Kingdom, as well as restored earthly things. Adam had the garden, and all its teeming beauty and fruitfulness. But beyond that, the Lord God walked there with him. Noah, Abraham, and others, in patriarchal days, had possession of flocks and herds, and in Noah we see power and lordship in the earth. But beyond all this, they had angel visits, yea, and visits and visions and audiences of the Lord of angels. The land of Canaan was a goodly land, a land of milk, and of oil, and of honey; but more than that, the glory was there, and the witness of the divine presence dwelt between the cherubim.

So will it be in the coming days of the power of the Son of God. Heaven will grace the scene with a new and peculiar glory, as surely as of old the Lord God walked in the garden of Eden, or as surely as angels passed up and down in the sight of the patriarch, or as surely as the divine presence was known in the sanctuary in Jerusalem in the land of promise. And not merely will there be this visitation of the earth again, and the glory from heaven again, but this will all be of a new and wondrous character. The earth will have the witness of this strange, surpassing mystery, that she herself, from her very dust and bonds, has supplied a family for the heavens, who, in their glories, shall revisit her, more welcome than angels, and, in their appointed authorities and powers, shall be over her in government and in blessing. "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" (Heb. 2: 5, 6).

What links between the highest and the lowest are these! "The Second Man is the Lord from heaven." The holy city will descend out of heaven, having the glory of God, and in the presence of it will the rule of the Kingdom or power over the earth be ministered. This shall be something outreaching Adam's sovereignty and Solomon's brightness.

In the scene on the holy hill in Matthew 17, and in that of the royal visitation of the holy city in Matthew 21, this day of the power of the Son of God, this "world to come," is entered (in a mystery) in both its heavenly and its earthly places. The heavenly glory shines on the holy hill. Jesus is transfigured. His face shines as the sun, and His raiment is white as the light; and Moses and Elias appear in glory with Him. So, on the occasion of the royal entrance into the holy city, the same lowly Jesus assumes a character of glory. He becomes the Lord of the earth and its fulness, and the accepted, triumphant Son of David. Here, on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, He is seen, for a mystic moment, in His rights and dignities in the earth; as, for another like moment He had appeared on the "high mountain apart," in His personal, heavenly glory. These solemn occasions were, each of them in its way, as I may say, a transfiguration; though the glory of the celestial was one, and the glory of the terrestrial was another. But equally on each occasion Jesus was glorified; borne away for a moment from His then lowly path, as the humbled, toiling, rejected Son of God. The two great regions of the millennial world spread themselves out before us, in vision or in mystery, then. Such sights were but passing, and quickly lost to us; but what they pledged and presented are to abide in their brightness and strength in the coming day of glory. For that bright day, that happy world, will be full of the glories of the Son of God. It is that fulness which will give it its bearing and its import, as we have said before. Head of the risen family, or Sun of the celestial glory, He will then be Lord of the earth and its fulness; and King of Israel and the nations, He will then be also. Strangely, mysteriously, in that system of glories, will all be linked together, — "the lower parts of the earth" and "far above all heavens." "God was manifest in the flesh — received up into glory." "The Second Man" is no less than "the Lord from heaven."*

*The happy, gladdening virtue of that millennial world is also strikingly witnessed. Peter, on the holy hill, speaks of the common joy which it imparted; so that he and his companions would have remained there for ever, if they might. But it was not he who spoke, but the power of the place which spoke in him. So on the king's highway from Jericho to Jerusalem: the owner of the ass bows with full readiness of heart to the claims of the Lord of the earth; and the multitudes of Israel triumph in the Son of David, their palm-branches and their garments, strewn in the way, bespeaking their homage and their joy, as in a feast of tabernacles. But here again, it was not so properly they who act and speak, as the power of the occasion acting and speaking in them.

What mysteries! what counsels of God touching the ends of creation, in the hidden ages before the beginnings of creation! Would that the affection and worship of the heart followed the meditations of the soul! The Son, who lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, lay in the Virgin's womb, assuming flesh and blood with the children; as Son of man, God in flesh, He journeyed along the rugged paths of human life, ending them in the death of the cross: He left the grave for the glory, the lowest parts of the earth for the highest places in heaven: and He will come again on the earth in dignities and praise, in rights, honours, and authorities, of ineffable, surpassing greatness and brightness, to make glad "the world to come."

But there is another mystery ere this scene of glories, "the world to come," can, in the way of God, be reached. The Church must be linked with the heavens, as her Lord has already been.

The path of the Church across the earth is that of an unnoticed stranger. "The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (1 John 3: 1). And as her path across the earth is thus untracked, so is her path from it to be. All about her is "the stranger here." And as the world around knows not the Church, nor will be a witness of the act of her translation, she herself knows not the time of such translation. But we know this link between us and the heavens will be formed ere the Kingdom, or "the world to come," be manifested; because the saints are to be the companions of the King of that Kingdom in the first acts of it; that is, when He bears the sword of judgment, which is to clear the scene for the sceptre of peace and righteousness; as He has promised: "He that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron" (Rev. 2: 26, 27).

"I will give him the morning star" (ver. 28).

Is there not something of a link, something of an intermediate, connecting action, intimated by this? The sun is that light in the heavens which connects itself with the earth, with the interests and the doings of the children of men. The sun rules the day, the moon and the stars the night. But "the morning star" receives no appointment in such a system. "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour, until the evening" (Ps. 104). The morning star has no place in such arrangement. The children of men have laid them down, and their sleep, in divine mercy, is still sweet to them, while the morning star is decking the face of the sky.

The season in which the sun shines is ours. I mean, the sun is the companion of man. But the morning star does not, in this way, recall man to his labour. It appears rather at an hour which is quite its own, neither day nor night. The child of the earlier morning, the one who is up before the sun, or the watchman who has gone through the night, sees it, but none else.

The sun, in the language or thought of Scripture, is for the Kingdom. As we read: "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God: and He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth" (2 Sam. 23: 3, 4. See also Matt. 13: 43; Matt. 17: 2-5).

I ask, then, Is there not to be expected by us a light before the light of the Kingdom? Are not these signs in the heavens set there for times and seasons? Are there not voices in such spheres? Is there not a mystery in the morning star, in the hour of its solitary shining, as well as in the sun when he rises in his strength upon the earth? Is not the morning star the sign in the heavens of One whose appearing is not for the world, but for a people who wait for an early, unearthly Lord? The hope of Israel, the earthly people, greets the "day-spring" (Luke 1: 78); but the Church welcomes "the morning star." "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come" (Rev. 22: 16, 17). All is ours; and among this glorious all, "the morning star" for our transfiguration to be like Jesus, and "the rising sun" for our day of power with Jesus.

How are the mysterious link thus formed, and the wondrous journeys thus tracked and followed, from first to last, from everlasting to everlasting! We never lose them, nor our interest in them, even in the most sacred, intimate moment.

We have now, in the progress of our meditations along this glorious pathway of the Son of God, watched a light in the heavens earlier than that of the day-spring, a light which Jesus, the Son of God, amid His other glories, claims to be, and to share with His saints: "I will give him the morning star."

And after the morning star has shone for its brief hour, the sun in his appointed season will rise: "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13: 43). And it shall be "a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth (Ps. 96).

"Scenes surpassing fable, and yet true."

One has said, "Faith has a world of its own." Surely we may say, after tracking these ascendings and descendings of the Son of God, linking all together, the highest and the lowest, and introducing all into the brightness of such a Kingdom, This is so: faith has indeed "a world of its own." Oh for that power in the soul to walk there! and that power lies in the earnestness and fervour of faith, which is but the simplicity and reality of faith.

David and Abigail walked in the world which was faith's world, when they met in the wilderness of Paran. To all appearance, or in the reckoning of men, David at that time was but the sport of the wicked, and wandering in caves and dens of the earth: he would have been debtor, if it might be so, to a rich neighbour for a loaf of bread. But faith discovered another in David; and in the eyes of Abigail, all was new. In that favoured though unnoticed hour, when the saints of God thus met in the desert, the Kingdom, in spirit, was entered. The wilderness of Paran was the Kingdom in the communion of the saints. The needy, hunted, persecuted fugitive was, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of Abigail, the lord of the coming Kingdom, and the "anointed of the God of Jacob." Abigail bowed before him as her king, and he, in the grace of a king, "accepted her person." The provisions she brought in her hand, her bread, and her wine, her clusters of raisins, and cakes of figs, were not her bountifulness to the needy David, but the tribute of a willing subject to the royal David. She deemed herself too happy and too honoured if she might but minister to his servants. It was after this manner, that by faith she entered another world on this fine and beautiful occasion, as I may call it; witnessing to us that faith has indeed "a world of its own." And that world was far more important to Abigail's heart than all the advantages of her wealthy husband's house. The wilderness was more to her than the fields and flocks of Mount Carmel. For there her spirit drank of those pleasures  - which faith had discovered in the pure though distant regions of glory.

Blessed, beloved, when we have like power to enter and dwell in our own world! Had not Noah such a world when he built a ship apparently for the land, and not for the water? Had not Abraham such a world when he left country and kindred and father's house? Had not Paul such a world when he could say, "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body"? Have we not all our own world at this moment, when by faith our souls have access "into this grace wherein we stand"? This grace is the present, peaceful, happy dwelling-place of the conscience sprinkled and purified, and the bright dwelling-place of hope, whence it looks out for "the glory of God" (Rom. 5: 1, 2). It is but poorly known, if one may speak for others; but it is ours. And amid all this conscious infirmity, our faith has but to glorify the Son of God; for deeper enjoyment of Him is the diviner progress.

In closing this meditation, in which we have looked (according to our measure), at "the world to come," I would say, that few lessons lie more on the heart at the present day, than the rejection of Christ. I might naturally say so in this place; for if He shall be thus glorious, as we have seen, in "the world to come," so surely is He rejected in "this present evil world."

But this is easily forgotten; and the god of this world would have it so. There is large and increasing accommodation and refinement abroad; social, intellectual, moral, and religious improvement; and all helping to keep an unworldly Christ out of sight. But faith eyes a rejected Jesus and a judged world. Faith knows that though the house be swept, and emptied, and garnished, it has not changed its master or owner, but is only made the more fit for the ends and purposes of its master.

Solemn mistake, beloved, to think of refining and cultivating "this present world" for the Son of God? If David, on one occasion, were careless about the mind of God as to the carriage of the ark, so was he, on another occasion, ignorant of the mind of God as to the building for the ark a house of cedars. He sought to give the Lord an abiding habitation in an uncleansed, uncircumcised land. He therefore did greatly err, not knowing the purity of the glory of the Lord; and so with those who link the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with the earth as it is now, or with the kingdoms of "this present world." With whatever right desire of the heart this may be, as with David, again we say (and how surely, in our own convictions), They do greatly err, not knowing the purity of the glory of the Lord. This is a lesson we need to learn with increasing power. The Son of God is still a Stranger on the earth; and He is not seeking it, but seeking a people out of it, to be strangers for a while longer with Him, on the face of it, and amid all the vanities and ambitions which constitute the history of its every hour.

"Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations. And I appoint unto you a Kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me" (Luke 22: 28, 29).

"Through the dark path of sorrow which Jesus has trod,

Thy feeble ones wander, our Father, our God!

And the thick clouds that gather but turn us away

From the waste, howling desert where He could not stay."

Chapter 6

"Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him" (1 Cor. 15: 28).

It is happy and establishing to the soul to bear in lively faith and recollection that it is the very same Jesus who was here on earth that is now in heaven, and whom we are to know "through His own eternity." When we keep this in memory, every passage of His life here will be introduced afresh to us, and we shall feel and own that we have in the evangelists a more wonderful page to meditate, yea, and in some sense a much happier one too, than we once counted upon.

In the days of His sojourn among us, everything was a reality to Him; all was living and personal. He did more than touch the surface. When He healed a wound or removed a sorrow, He in a way felt it. "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." His spirit drank of the springs, as of the stream; for not only were His joys real, His sorrows real, His fears and disappointments, and the like, real, but He entered into every occasion in all its character. He knew the unuttered language of that needy soul that touched Him in the crowd, and felt that touch in all its meaning. He was filled with delight at the faith of that Gentile who pierced the thick cloud of His humiliation, and reached the divine glory which shone in His person beneath it; and He alike feasted on the bold — but not too bold — faith of that sinner of the city who pierced the dark cloud of her own sin and shame, and reached the divine grace which could heal it all (Luke 7). He understood the hasty step of Zacchaeus as he climbed the sycamore-tree, and the thoughtfulness of Nathanael as he sat under the fig-tree. He heard the strife of the disciples by the way as they went up to Jerusalem; heard it in the tumult of the lusts within, ere it broke out in wars and fightings. And He knew the love as well as the self-confidence which drew Peter from the ship to the water.

Surely, then, it is for us, as we read "the wondrous story" in the recollection of this, to feel after Himself, as we mark the hand that did the deed, or track the foot that was treading the path. Every act and word would be felt with something of a new impression; and if so, what more blessed advance could we be making? Would it not be edifying in a high sense indeed, if we could be thus acquainting ourselves more really with a living, personal Jesus? At this time of ours, beloved, there may be a tendency to forget His Person or Himself, in the common testimony that is now borne so extensively to His work. The region of doctrine may be surveyed as with a measuring line and a level, instead of being eyed, with an admiring, worshipping heart, as the place of the glories of the Son of God. And yet it is this He prizes in us. He has made us personally His objects; and He looks for it that we make Him ours.

And I ask myself, Is not this, in a sense, the very topmost stone? Is not this personal desire of Christ toward us chief in the ways of His grace? Election, predestination, pardon, adoption, glory, and the Kingdom, — are they not only crowned by this desire of Christ toward us, this making of us an object to Himself? Surely it crowns all; surely it is the topmost stone; lying above and beyond all; fuller and richer and higher than any. Adoption and glory, welcome into the family and participation in the Kingdom, would be defective, were there not also this mystery — the Son of God has found in us an object of desire. It assumes all the other works and counsels in the history of grace. and is thus beyond them all.

The Spirit delights to tell of the work of Christ, and to bear it in its preciousness and sufficiency to the heart and conscience. Nothing could stand us for a moment, had not the work been just what it was, and so counselled and ordered of God. But still the work of the Lord Jesus Christ may be the great subject, where He Himself is but a faint object; and the soul will thus be a great loser.

But these meditations on the Son of God, which I have been following now, I may say, to their close, suggest to me another thought just at this time.

When considering the deeper and more distant parts of God's ways, we sometimes feel as though they were too much for us; and we seek relief from the weight of them by going back to earlier and simpler truths. This, however, need not be. If we rightly entertained these further mysteries, we should know that we need not retire from them for relief; because they are really only other and deeper expressions of the same grace and love which we were learning at the very beginning. They are but a more abundant flow, or a wider channel, of the same river, just because they lie somewhat more distant from the source.

Till this assurance be laid up in the soul, we are ill prepared to think of them. If we have a fear, that when we are looking at glories, we have left the place of affections, we wrong the truth and our own souls. It is not so by any means. The more fully the glories unfold themselves, the more are the riches of grace revealed. The rising of a river at its birthplace, where we take in the whole object at once, without effort or amazement, possesses, as we know, its own peculiar charm; but when it becomes, under our eye, a mighty stream, with its diversified banks and currents, we only the rather learn why it ever began to flow. It is the same water still; and we may pass up and down from its source, and along its channels, with various but still constant pleasure. We need seek no relief by turning to its source, as we survey it in its course, along and through the ages and dispensations. When, in spirit (as now in the way of these meditations), we reach the "new heaven" and the "new earth," we are only in company with the same glorious Person, and in fellowship with the same boundless grace, whom we knew, and which we learnt, at the very beginning.

The same One made real to the soul, and brought near, is what I would desire, in God's grace, to be the fruit of these meditations: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." He is so both in His own glory and to us.

In earlier days there were manifestations of Him, the Son of God, sometimes in veiled, sometimes in unveiled glory. To Abraham at the tent door, to Jacob at Peniel, to Joshua under the walls of Jericho, to Gideon, and to Manoah, the manifestations were veiled, and faith, in more or less vigour, through the Spirit, removed the covering, and reached the glory that was underneath. To Isaiah, to Ezekiel, and to Daniel, the Son of God appeared in unveiled glory; and He had, by a certain gracious process, to make the brightness of the glory tolerable to them (Isa. 6; Ezek. 1; Dan. 10).

The Person, however, was one and the same, whether veiled or unveiled. So, in the days when He had really (and not as in those earlier days), assumed flesh and blood, the glory was veiled, and faith was set to discover it, as in the time of Abraham or of Joshua; and after He had ascended, He appeared to John in such brightness of unveiled glory, that something had to be done by Him in grace, as in the case of Isaiah or of Daniel, ere His presence could be sustained (Rev. 1).

Times and seasons in this respect made no difference. Of course, till the fulness of time came, the Son was not "made of a woman." Then it was that "the Sanctifier," as we read, "took part of the same" flesh and blood with the children (Heb. 2: 11, 14). For flesh and blood indeed He took then, and not till then; very Kinsman of the seed of Abraham He then indeed became. "It behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren" (ver. 17). And all this waited for its due season, "the fulness of the time," the days of the Virgin of Nazareth. But those manifestations of the Son of God in earlier days were pledges of this great mystery, that in due time God would send forth His Son, "made of a woman." They were, if I may so express it, the shadows of the forthcoming substance. And what I have been observing has this in it — which is of interest to our souls — that those foreshadowings were beautifully exact. They forecast, in forms both of glory and of grace, the ways of Him who afterwards travelled and sojourned here on earth in humble, serving, sympathizing love, and is now set as glorified in heaven, the Son of man, the Virgin's Seed, forever.

It is delightful to the soul to trace these exact resemblances and forecastings. If we have a veiled glory at the threshing-floor at Ophrah, so have we at the well of Sychar. If we have the brightness of the unveiled glory by the side of the Hiddekel, so have we the same in the Isle of Patmos. The Son of God was as a travelling man in the sight of Abraham in the heat of the day, and so was He to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as the day was fast spending itself. He ate of Abraham's calf, "tender and good," as He did of "a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb," in the midst of the disciples at Jerusalem. In His risen days, He assumed different forms, to suit, in divine grace, the need or demand of the moment; as He had done of old, whether as a stranger or a visitor, whether as simply a "man of God" to Manoah and his wife in the field, or as an armed soldier to Joshua at Jericho.

And it is this, I think I can say again, which I specially value in following these meditations upon Him — to see Jesus one throughout; and that, too, near and real to us. We need (if one may speak for others), the purged eye that is practised to see, and delight in, such a heaven as the heaven of Jesus must be. Will it be nothing, we may ask our hearts, will it be nothing to spend eternity with Him who looked up, and caught the eye of Zacchaeus in the sycamore-tree, and then, to the thrilling joy of his soul, let his name fall on his ear from His own lips? With Him who, without one upbraiding word, filled the convicted, quickened heart of a poor sinner of Samaria with joy, and a spirit of liberty that far more than abounded? Surely we want nothing but the child-like, simple, believing mind. For we are not straitened in Him, and there is nothing to Him like this believing mind. It glorifies Him beyond even the services of eternity.

Nature, it is indeed true, is not equal to this. It must come from the inworking and witness of the Holy Ghost. Nature finds itself overwhelmed. It always betrays itself as that which, as the apostle speaks, comes "short of the glory of God." When Isaiah, on the occasion already referred to, was called into the presence of that glory, he could not endure it. He remembered his uncleanness, and cried out that he was undone. All that he apprehended was the glory; and all that he felt and knew in himself was his unfitness to stand before it. This was nature. This was the action of the conscience which, as in Adam in the garden, seeks relief from the presence of God. Nature in the prophet did not discover the altar which, equally with the glory, lay in the scene before him. He did not perceive that which was fully equal to give him perfect ease and assurance, to link him (though still a sinner in himself) with the presence of the glory in all its brightness. Nature could not make this discovery. But the messenger of the Lord of hosts not only discovers but applies it; and the prophet is at ease in the possession of a cleanness or a holiness that can measure the very "holy of holies" itself, and the brightness of the throne of the Lord of hosts.

The Spirit acts above nature, yea, in contradiction of nature. Nature in Isaiah — in us all — stands apart, and is abashed, unable to look up: the Spirit draws us right inward and upward in liberty. When Simeon is led by the Spirit into the presence of the glory, he goes up at once in all confidence and joy. He takes the Child Jesus in his arms. He makes no request of the mother to suffer it to be so; he feels no debt to any one for the blessed privilege of embracing "the Salvation of God," which his eyes then saw. He through the Spirit had discovered the altar; and the glory, therefore, was not beyond him (Isa. 6; Luke 12).

And true still, as true as ever, as true as in the days of Isaiah and of Simeon, are these things now. The Spirit leads in a path which nature never treads. Nature stands apart, and is afraid; yea, will rebuke where faith is full of liberty. And these diverse ways of nature and of faith we may well remember for our comfort and strengthening, as me still look at the Son of God, and meditate on mysteries and counsels of God connected with Him.

Our meditations have waited on the Lord from the eternity of the Father's bosom to the coming days of the millennial kingdom. We have watched His ascendings and descendings in the intermediate dispensations, and marked the links between the successive parts in this great mystery, or the transition-moments in the stages of these wondrous journeys. We have but little liberty from

Scripture (our only chart and compass) to follow Him farther. The Psalms and the prophets open the door into the coming Kingdom, and open it widely. But they scarcely carry us beyond it. At least, if they lead us to know that there are regions still in the farther distance, that is almost all they do. They never give us to survey them.

This coming Kingdom they again and again speak of as everlasting. Rightly so, as I need not say; but rightly so in this sense : that it is not to give place to any other kingdom. As Daniel says of it, "The Kingdom shall not be left to other people" (Dan. 2: 44). It is to be as untransferable as the priesthood of the same Christ, the Son of God. It is to be as enduring as royalty, as long continued as power "ordained of God" is to be; for it shall not cease while He "to whom power belonged" has anything to do by means of power. But still, it will, in season, have discharged its office and service, and then cease.

Of this mystery, this ceasing or delivering up of the Kingdom, we have a verbal or literal intimation in Ps. 8. That psalm celebrates the lordship of the Son of man, in the day of His power, over the works of God's hands. But it contains an intimation (as we find from an inspired commentary upon it in 1 Cor. 15: 27, 28) that that day of power shall yield to another order of things,

We have also moral intimations of the same mystery. For instance, the age or dispensation we are now contemplating is, as we see, to be a kingdom, the time of a sceptre; and, as such (may I not say?) it must have an end. Could a sceptre be a symbol of the divine eternity, the eternity of God's presence? A sceptre may exercise its prerogative power for its season; but Scripture would lead us to say that it could not be a symbol of our eternity in the blessed presence of God. Even Adam can scarcely be said to have had a sceptre. He had dominion; but was it exactly that of a king? His was lordship and inheritance, more properly, not a kingdom. It was not royal rule, though there was the fullest subjection to him, and the most perfect order. A kingdom was not developed, in the progress of the divine way and wisdom, for a long time. And all this suggests, that when the time of a kingdom, or the rule of a sceptre, or the exercise of royal power, comes, such a form of things will not be final or eternal. It cannot, I judge, give rest to the thoughts which are spiritually or scripturally exercised toward God and His ways. A sceptre of righteousness is not so high nor so eternal a thought as a dwelling-place of righteousness; and that is what Scripture confirms (2 Peter 3: 13).

And, further, as another moral intimation of this same truth, the coming Kingdom will be but an imperfect condition of things. We need not determine how far there may be the need of it, or the demand for its exercise. still, power will be present to put itself forth. The prophets, as we said, widely survey this Kingdom, in its strength, its extent, its duration, its glory, its peace and blessedness, and the like; but withal, the presence of evil and of sorrow is contemplated, though with authority to control, and resources to relieve.

Is not this, then, I ask, a further intimation of a moral character, that such an order of things is to yield to a better? Surely it is. But there is more than even this: the Kingdom is a delegated thing, a stewardship; and being such, we may say, in divine or scriptural reasoning, it must give an account of itself, and be delivered up. But here, beloved, meditations on Jesus Himself, the Son of God, afresh invite the soul.

In this character of it, to which I have now referred, His Kingdom is like His past time of humiliation on earth, and His present time of priesthood in heaven. All, in a great sense, was, or is, or will be, stewardship. He came here to this earth of ours to do God's will, and when He had accomplished it, He rendered it up as in sacrifice; His present seat in heaven is a stewardship. As a High-priest there, He is faithful, "faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His house" (Heb. 3: 2; Num. 12: 7). And after these patterns will be His coming Kingdom and power. It will be, like the rest, a stewardship, though of something new, something which had not been committed to Him or put into His hands before; something, too, very glorious and excellent: still, it will be a stewardship. And, being such, it will have, in due season, to be accounted for, and delivered up. And such a mystery is full of blessedness, had we but faith and bowels to enjoy it. For, after this wondrous manner, subjection and obedience to God — which man, a creature of the dust, cast off and refused, — from the unutterable glory of the person of Him who owns it and renders it, receives such value as all creatures, from the highest to the lowest, though they had all continued in unintermitting and full service, could never have imparted to it.

And this is a precious truth, which the soul loses just so far as the enemy robs it of the sense and apprehension of the person of the Son.

The Son Himself delights to be all this — the Steward or Servant of the will of God, whether in grace or in glory, in humiliation or in power. And when we, in the spirit of worship, consider or recollect who He is throughout all changes and conditions, we can and will say, that changes and conditions, whether the highest or the lowest, are as nothing. What, in one sense, can raise such a One? Can glory and a kingdom elevate Him? Faith finds it easy indeed to see such a One a Steward of power and dominion and royal honours, when He comes to sit on a throne, just as He was a Steward when He traversed in weakness and humiliation the path of life. Such distances, in one sense, are nothing to such a One as "the Son." In another sense, the distance, we surely know, is immense; for He entered into sorrow in its season, and will enter into joy in its season. All was, and is, and will be, real to Him, as we said before; and, therefore, in another sense, the distance is immense. The "Man of sorrows" will take "the cup of salvation." Will that be nothing? To Him who was despised and rejected, insulted and scorned, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. But the Person is the same throughout, God and man in one Christ; and faith, therefore, receives it, that, having been the Steward of the Father's will and grace in days of humiliation, He may still be Steward of the Father's Kingdom in days of exaltation and strength.

And so it will be, as scripture after scripture tells us. "When I shall receive the congregation," says Christ, anticipating the Kingdom, "I will judge uprightly" (Ps. 75: 2); thus owning that He is under commission, or in stewardship, when in the Kingdom. So, to the like intent, He owns that the time of His receiving the Kingdom, and the distribution of the rewards and honours of the Kingdom, are not in His hands, but in the Father's (Mark 13: 32; Matt. 20: 23). Every tongue in that day, it is most sure, shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; but then, this is to be "to the glory of God the Father." The Lord Himself again and again calls it the Father's Kingdom. And further, He will be anointed for the ministry of it, just as He was anointed for the ministry of the days of His flesh (Isa. 11: 1-3; Isa. 61: 1, 2). And further still (may I say?), He will be a Dependent on God during His day of strength, as He has already been, or as He once was, in His day of sorrow and weakness. Therefore we read, "Prayer shall be made for Him continually"; as Solomon, the typical king, by a public act of intercession, put under the care of the God of Israel the kingdom which he had received (Ps. 72; 2 Chr. 6).

All this is moral intimation that there must be a delivering up of the Kingdom; for all this shows us that the Kingdom is a delegated thing, a stewardship; and, as we said, this moral intimation is affirmed by the divine reasoning in 1 Cor. 15 and Ps. 8. All is subjection: the kingly days of power, the self-emptying days of sorrow, the heavenly days of priestly ministry; all is alike subjection and service. As Christ did not glorify Himself to be made a High-Priest, but He who said unto Him, "Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee"; so, we may say, neither did He glorify Himself to be made a King, but He which said unto Him, "Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom" (Ps. 2: 7; Ps. 110: 1; Dan. 7: 13, 14).

This is the institution of the coming Kingdom of Christ. And thus it is a delegated thing, taken from the hands of Another, in its time to be delivered back. The Son, most surely, will be faithful, where all others have been found wanting. Of them it is written, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty: He judgeth among the gods," but of the Son it is written, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy Kingdom: Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows" (Ps. 45; Ps. 82; Heb. 1).

But all this still tells us that He holds the Kingdom as a stewardship. Whether it be the sword or the sceptre of the Kingdom, whether He act as the David or as the Solomon, He will be alike faithful. When He goes forth to the judgment, or to fight the battles of the Lord, this will be so; as it is said of Him, "The Lord at Thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath" (Ps. 110: 5). And again, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth" (Ps. 46: 8). When He sits on the throne, or ministers the Kingdom in peace, this will be so. "I will walk within My house," says Christ the King, "with a perfect heart" (Ps. 101: 2). And it is said of Him to Jehovah, "He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment" (Ps. 72: 2). But, again I say, all this intimates delegated power, though in a peculiar hand. His Kingdom shall perfect that which concerneth it, as did His death once and forever, and as His heavenly priesthood is now doing day by day. And then His sceptre shall be laid aside, the Kingdom shall cease. As it is written, "He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father." And again, "Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

"That God may be all in all." Yes, God, by the Son, made the worlds or the ages. And when the worlds or the ages have run their course, and discharged their trust; when dispensations have manifested the counsels and the works and the glories appointed them; the Son, as the One in whom they were laid, and by whom they were ordered, may well be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

It is the subjection of office, the subjection of Him who had all things put under Him to Him who did put all things under Him. That is the character of this subjection. As to the Person, unlike the office, it is eternal. The Son is of the glory of the Godhead, as is the Father, and as is the Holy Ghost.

"Thou art the everlasting Word.

The Father's only Son;

God manifest, God seen and heard,

The Heaven's beloved One.

"In Thee. most perfectly expressed,

The Father's self doth shine;

Fulness of Godhead, too; the Blest,

Eternally divine.

"Image of th' Infinite Unseen,

Whose being none can know;

Brightness of light no eye hath seen.

God's love revealed below.

"The higher mysteries of Thy fame.

The creature's grasp transcend:

The Father only Thy blest name

Of Son can comprehend;

Worthy, O Lamb of God. art Thou,

That every knee to Thee should bow."

It is the mystery of mysteries, the Person, we are here looking at. When we think rightly of Him, even all the brightness of the coming Kingdom will be seen but as a veil. Can the splendour of the throne display Him? Would not the honours of Solomon, yea, of the kingdoms of the world, be a veil over the glory of the Son, as really as the scorn of Pilate's judgment-hall, or the thorns of Calvary? Is the Bethlehemite the measure of His personal worth a single title more than the Nazarene? Therefore, to faith it is easy to see the Servant still, in days of exaltation as in days of sorrow. He served as a Servant, He serves as a Priest, He will serve as a King.

It is the link of links, this mystery we are here contemplating; and in the faith of it, all distances and intervals vanish. Heaven and earth, God and man, the Sanctifier and the sanctified, the highest and the lowest, are introduced to each other in ways of unutterable glory to God and blessing to us.

What links, indeed, what mysteries, what harmonies, what counsels about the ends of creation, in the hidden ages of divine, eternal wisdom before creation! "Vast as is the course which Scripture has traced, it has been a circle still; and in that most perfect form comes back to the point from which it started. The heaven which had disappeared since the third chapter of Genesis, reappears in the latest chapters of the Revelation. The tree of life again stands by the river of the water of life, and again there is no more curse."

"Even the very differences of the forms under which the heavenly Kingdom reappears are deeply characteristic, marking, as they do, not merely that all is won back, but won back in a more glorious shape than that in which it was lost, because won back in the Son. It is no longer Paradise, but the New Jerusalem; no longer the Garden, but the City of God; no longer the Garden, free, spontaneous, and unlaboured, as man's blessedness in the estate of a first innocence would have been, but the City, costlier indeed, more stately and more glorious, but at the same time the result of toil and pains, reared into a nobler and more abiding habitation, yet with stones which (after the pattern of 'the elect cornerstone'), were, each in its time, laboriously hewn and painfully squared for the places which they fill."

We may join in these thoughts, but having reached the delivering up of the Kingdom, we are on the borders of the "new heaven" and the "new earth." The heavens and the earth which are now will have been the scene of the Son's exercised energies, and the Witness of His perfections in grace and in glory, in humiliation and in power, in the services of the Servant, the Priest, and the King, in the life of faith and in the lordship of all things. And when the Son has been thus displayed, as in weakness and in strength, as on earth and in heaven, from the manger to the throne, as the Nazarene and the Bethlehemite, the Lamb of God and the anointed Lord of all, according to predestination of eternal counsels, these heavens and earth which now are will have done all they had to do; when they have continued unto this display of the Son, they have continued long enough. They may give place; and the soul that has surveyed them as having accomplished such a service may be prepared to hear this from the. prophet of God, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth.. for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away" (Rev. 21).

But, as I said before, we have but little liberty from Scripture (our only chart and compass) to follow the Lord farther than the Kingdom. There are, however, characteristics of the "new heaven" and the "new earth," given to us in the passing or occasional notices of the Spirit.

Isaiah speaks of the former heaven and earth not being remembered when the new creation comes; thereby intimating the abounding excellence of the latter. And, again, he says, "The new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me," thereby suggesting that it is the eternal state (Isaiah 65, 66).

Paul says, that after the delivery of the kingdom, God shall be "all in all; by that intimating, I judge, that all delegated power, all stewardship, of which I have spoken, even in the hand of the Son, is over, as having completed its purpose.

Peter speaks of the "new heavens" and the "new earth" as being the dwelling-place of righteousness; by such a thought carrying our minds beyond the time of the sceptre of righteousness.

But John, in the Apocalypse, is more full: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." And, again, John says of the same new heaven and new earth, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Rev. 21).

This is blessed: "The former things are passed away." Tears are gone; death is gone; sorrow and pain and crying are gone. No trace remains of the former things of sin and death. The millennial earth will not be a witness of so high an order as that.

"The former things are passed away." Not that we lose anything which has been given or communicated in His counsels of grace and glory, in the services of the Son, and in the operations of the Spirit. Nothing will be lost to us, which we have gathered in the progress of the divine dispensations. That could not be. Even the passing refreshments of the Spirit, which the inworking of corruption spoils us of for many and many a season, are not lost to us. They are the witness of that which is eternal in its very essence. And in like manner, all the unfolded wisdom of God must be enjoyed forever in its bright result. It is itself essentially eternal, and cannot be lost to us. These manifestations of God in His wisdom and power, and grace and glory, have come forth and shown themselves in the progress of the ages, and they have found a struggle in an injured, ruined, degraded scene of action, like this world of ours; but in the "new heavens" and the "new earth" all this struggle in every form of it is over, and these manifestations will be known in their full, triumphant, and glorious result.

Before Him that sits on the white horse, the apostate powers of "this present evil world," in the hour of their fullest pride and daring, are smitten. and the Lord and His saints take righteous rule in the earth for the appointed millennial age. Before Him that sits on the white throne, the present heaven and earth pass away, and there is found no place for them; and He that sits on the throne says, "Behold, I make all things new." Surely these are distinctions —  distinctions, too, full of meaning, and as significant of advance and development in divine counsels and ways, as any earlier moment.

It will not be the sceptre of righteousness, but its dwelling-.place; and accordingly it will not be the throne of the Son, but "the tabernacle of God." It is not divine authority over the scene, but the home of God in the scene.

It will no longer be the earth that was once stained with the blood of Christ, and has been the grave of a thousand generations, but "a new earth;" no longer the heavens that have been clothed in sackcloth, and where thunders and wind and deluge have done the work of judgment, and borne witness of righteous wrath, but "new heavens."

He that is athirst shall drink of the fountain of the water of life; he that overcometh shall inherit all things (Rev. 21: 6, 7). Blessed characters of the saint! How little realized in the souls of some of us! But still blessed, when we can but read of them or think of them; to be longing after the living God, and conquering the course of this evil world.

I would, however, say but little more. We must not speculate where we cannot teach; we must not listen where we cannot learn from Him. His Written Word is the standard of the thoughts of all His saints, while some have that Word more largely made the possession of their souls, through the Spirit, than others. We are to know the common standard, and also our personal measure in the Spirit. I would, therefore, pause here; just adding one thought which has been happy to myself: that though we see not those distant regions, we may trust them — trust Him, rather, who is the Lord of them. We may assure our hearts in His presence, that they will be just what we would have them to be, just what our new conditions would ask for.

Heaven has always been what the earth needed. At the beginning, the sun was there to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to govern the night. Those ordinances were set in heaven then, for they measured the earth's need then. But there was no rainbow in the sky, for the earth needed not a token that God would debate with judgment. Judgment was not known. But when conscience had been quickened, and judgment was understood and feared, when God was known (in the doings He had accomplished) to be righteous, and earth needed a pledge that in wrath He would remember mercy, heaven wore the token of that mercy, and hung it out as on its very forehead.

After this manner, heaven has already changed itself, or arrayed itself anew, with the changing need of the earth; and the past pledges the future, though "a new heaven and a new earth" be to be revealed. Yea, I may add, the millennial earth, in its day, will know the same fidelity of heaven to it. For the habitation of the glory shall be seen to be there then (as the sanctuary of peace is known by faith to be there now), and the heavenly city of that age will descend in that very character which the nations of the earth, their kings, their glory, and their honour, will both need and delight in. The God of heaven and earth, in boundless and unwearied goodness, will, after this old, and constant, and undeviated way, be ever and alike true to the blessing of His creatures. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1: 17). And the "new heaven" and the "new earth" will but take up the same tale of various but exhaustless goodness.

We need only the happy faith which realizes it all to the soul.

"Our Father's house! no more our souls

"At fearful distance bow;

We enter in by Jesus' blood,

With happy boldness now.

"Our Father! thought had never dreamed

That love like Thine could be -

Mysterious love which brings us thus

So very near to Thee."

May these meditations help our souls to know this nearness and this reality of the blessed things of faith. Amen.

THE END

Notes from meditations on Luke

Notes from meditations on Luke.

J. G. Bellett.

(Attributed to Present Testimony, Part 65, August, 1866.)

Luke 1 and Luke 2

It is impossible to read chapters 1 and 2 of this Gospel without feeling that heaven is opened, and opened very widely too, to the view of earth. Do you enjoy the thought of heaven bringing itself near to you? God is an intrusion to the heart that does not enjoy Him. We ought to read all Scripture with personal application. There was a very beautiful opening of heaven at Jacob's ladder. Again, it was opened to Stephen when he looked up and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So in the beginning of Luke, we get the opened heaven communicating with earth, and we ought to have a welcome for such a sight.

Things have been going on in a very homely kind of way since the prophets. Then heaven opened with a witness So it will be by-and-by, though there may be a pause now. Zacharias had been serving the Lord in the temple, as others, and the angel's visit was a surprise to him. He was not quite prepared for it. Listen to the angel's language: "Fear not." Does the thought of nearness to God awaken alarm in your soul? Very right that it should, in one sense. We are all revolted creatures, but how blessed to see God quieting such alarms! The angel speaks the mind of God "Fear not." Can your heart let in the comfort of that? Do you know what it is to have alarm as a sinner, and then to have your alarm quieted? We must acquaint ourselves with the personal application of these things.

Zacharias is not quite prepared, and he confesses it, and the angel rebukes him. There is comfort in this let us examine it. Would it be happy to you if a person did not show confidence in you? Just so it is with the blessed God. So the angel expresses resentment: "I am Gabriel," he says, "that stand in the presence of God." And why, beloved, why is your faith, too, challenged? Have you read the Romans with care? Why does God challenge your faith there? Would it be comfortable to you if God did not care for your confidence? It would not be so between friends. We do not read Scripture with sufficient intimacy of heart. We read it as if we were acquainting ourselves with words and sentences. If, by Scripture, I do not get into nearness to God in heart and conscience, I have not learned the lesson it would teach me.

In the sixth month the angel goes up to a distant village of Galilee, to Mary God still communicates with earth. Mary has a more simple faith than Zacharias. How often we see a poor unlettered soul that knows more of the simplicity of the truth of God than many who can talk much of the Bible. Again the angel's words, "Fear not." Do not pass that. What consolation in the fact that a visitor from heaven had such words upon his lips! He then speaks largely of what God is about to do. And Mary answered, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." Is that the echo of our hearts? What is the proper answer to grace? Faith. If a person shows you a kindness, you accept it. It is the only return you can tender. The grace of God shines out, bringing salvation, and the sinner's duty is to accept it. The eunuch accepted it and went on his way rejoicing. The joy of faith is responsive to the communication of grace. No element is more responsive to the gospel than joy. I have mistaken the glad tidings if they have not made me happy. If I have so listened to the gospel as to find it glad tidings, my answer is joy. So it was with Mary.

Now we get Elizabeth and Mary coming together. I do not know that we find in Scripture a more beautiful sample of communion in the Holy Ghost than here. Elizabeth was the wife of the high priest; Mary, the betrothed of a carpenter. Perhaps they would never have come together but for this. Now they meet not merely in the flesh, but in the spirit. Now Elizabeth bows to Mary as the more highly honoured "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Communion arises when people forget the flesh and act only in the spirit. There was no grudging on the part of Elizabeth, no pride on the part of Mary; Elizabeth holds herself meekly, Mary holds herself humbly. There is plenty of intercourse nowadays, but too little communion, even among the people of God. Communion is according to relationship in Christ.

Now we see a beautiful thing in Zacharias's mouth being opened. Unbelief had shut it faith opened it. God does not afflict willingly, but personally with an end in view. It was very right that he should be put into silence for a time, but as soon as possible his mouth was opened, wider than ever he counted on.

It was but a little bit of the world that heaven had opened upon. The great world lay, as we read in the Luke 2, in the hands of Caesar. We will leave the big world for a moment and come to the fields of Bethlehem. There is something here exceeding what we get in Luke 1. We see the glory coming out of the opened heaven, and not one angel, but a host of them. When the poor shepherds tremble at the sight, we hear that word unchanged on the lips of heaven, "Fear not." Again, and again, and again, heaven echoes its own words in speaking to trembling sinners. Do not pass them by as commonplace, unnecessary words, but drink them in. What title had the poor shepherds to them that you and I have not? They were poor sinners. Faith entitled them to it. And the angel said, "Unto you is born . . . a Saviour." Not a judge nor a lawgiver. The grace of God, as the Apostle tells us, brings salvation. The angels talked of salvation. From beginning to end of the book from the woman's seed down to "Whosoever will" let him come, salvation is the burden. So here "And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Though very easy to us, it cost Christ everything. It brought the Son from the Father to be made flesh; and the beginning of the story of His sorrows is here. The poor weak infant. lying in a manger! The moment He touched the flesh, the story of what His days were to be, began to tell itself out.

Suppose I showed you a person, it might be only his back, and say, He did you a kindness once; you could not but look after him with interest. The Lord Jesus has done you a kindness, in the three hours of darkness, and if by faith you entertain the thought, you cannot but be interested in Him. It is a simple, believing mind we want, to bring our minds into contact with the Person of Jesus.

The moment the glad tidings are announced, the hosts raise their acclamations. Now the word of the Apostle begins to be accomplished: "God was manifest in the flesh . . . seen of angels." 1 Tim. 3: 16. The angels are deeply interested. In the Old Testament we get the cherubic figures hanging over the ark to express their desire to look into the things of Christ. That is the Old Testament form of the New Testament truth. The moment He is manifested, they begin to take up their attitude. The angels come to watch the path of the Son of man. They are interested, and they have less interest in it than you have.

The next person that is introduced to us is Simeon in the temple. We find him rehearsing his joy, as the angels and Elizabeth and Mary rehearsed theirs. The Holy Ghost gave him warning who the Child was; and at once, without asking leave of any, he took Him in his arms for salvation. Have you ever acted the part of Simeon and taken Christ in your arms for salvation? We are not indebted to Mary, to the Church, or to the brethren. Faith refuses to be debtor to a fellow creature. A brother may help us; a friend may comfort and cheer our spirits; but as to the question of the soul and eternity, we know nothing but Jesus. What a wretched piece of sophistry it is that sets up Mary for our souls! When it comes to a question of salvation, Mary must stand by, and all the saints in the calendar. Then poor Simeon is ready to depart. "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." The moment the soul is introduced to the blood, it is made meet for the glory. It is very blessed to grow in knowledge, but the moment that by faith I have stepped into the kingdom of God's dear Son, that moment I am made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Are attainments to be my title? Attainments are very right, but the blood is my title. Would Christian watchfulness allow one carnal thought? No; but still, all that is not my title. The dying thief caught hold of the fountain, and his next step was paradise. So with Simeon salvation in his arms, the crown upon his brow.

Next we come to Anna the widow-hearted Anna. Her widowhood is over, exchanged for nuptial beauty and joy. She talks of Him to all. If we were more familiar with these chapters, it would enable us to live much in heaven. Here "Heaven comes down our souls to greet." Is there cloud, sorrow, defilement there? Look at the angels with joy and shining garments. There is joy and strength in His presence. Under the law, no priest had any more right there in sorrow than in pollution. If heaven is the place of unspotted holiness, it is the place of unchecked joy.

At the close of the chapter, we get a little bit ashamed of Mary. She is the only one that leaves a blot on these chapters. Zacharias did, but it was more than compensated by his returning faith. And this Mary is the one in whom men boast! O the subtlety of Satan! He will place anything between the heart and Christ. Ah, none but Jesus! Commit your souls to none but Christ. Even when a gift exercises itself before me, I am to judge it; but where the committal of your soul is concerned, "I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace." There is a thing abroad in Christendom that tells me to commit my soul to the Church. Will I? By God's help never. May God acquaint our consciences with Jesus for sufficiency, and our hearts with Him for satisfaction. Amen.

Luke 3, Luke 4, and Luke 5

We looked at chapters 1 and 2 of this Gospel in our last meditation. Let us now look at chapter 3. There is a great interval between the time of Luke 1 and Luke 2, and that of Luke 3. We get the Lord there in infancy and boyhood. Now He has travelled on to the age of 30 years. I ask, What sense are we to have of the Lord during that period of 18 years? What apprehension of Him is my soul to take? The answer is intimated in the closing verses of chapter 2; and the intimation is full of meaning. He was all that time under the law, growing up as an untainted sheaf, and the only untainted sheaf of human fruit "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." This was the proper fruit of fulfilling the law. By-and-by He provoked much enmity. But suppose I fulfilled the law, and loved my neighbour as myself; should not I grow in favour with all men? So with the Lord. There is nothing more interesting than this, and I invite you to consider it. One act of complacency waited on Him from the manger to the cross  perfect complacency in the mind of God. The complacency might change its character, but not its quantity. There was not a single flaw in it from first till last. It is delightful to know that one such person has passed before the mind of God. He was equally perfect growing up in subjection to His parents as when the veil was rent.

Eighteen years have passed, and now we find Him introduced to His present ministry. He has magnified God under the law, and now He comes forth to walk among men as the witness of grace a vessel about to display the grace of God to a ruined world. We must be prepared for tracking His path in its varied glory. Now we see Him as the perfect one under the gospel. He was introduced by John. John preached the baptism of repentance. "Bring forth . . . fruits worthy of repentance." Moses had prescribed a law, and they failed to keep it. John prescribed repentance, and they failed in that too. Then the Lord comes and dispenses grace. Supposing I had offended you, you would be disposed to give me space for repentance. This is just the ministry of John. The way of God is so simple that a wayfaring man will not err as he tracks it. Man broke the law, but before God gave him up, He gave him space to repent. He failed in that, so we see that whether he was tried by law, or by ability to repent, he failed under all. We must each one conclude that this poor self is a ruined thing. I have destroyed myself, but in God is my help.

The Lord comes to John, but He is not kept under John's ministry for a single hour. Ere He left the water, the Holy Ghost descended as a dove, and ordained Him for His ministry. Why was this? For a most simple and beautiful reason. There could be no fruit of repentance demanded from one who had never broken the law. You would not ask a person who had never erred, to repent. He would fulfil all righteousness. This was the divine appointment, and He would pass under it; but He could not stay under it for a moment. The moral beauty of this is perfect. We see the Lord fulfilling all the demands of Moses for thirty years; and though He passes under John's baptism, He does not stay under it for a moment. Now He goes forth to do His own work. Now we see a minister, not coming with demands upon you and me, but bringing something to you and to me. Moses and John came in the way of righteousness. The difference is this: The law exposes yourself in all your failure; the gospel reveals God in the plenitude and riches of His grace, for salvation.

Now we enter Luke 4, and it is beautiful. Now that the Lord has been ordained, what is the first thing He ought to do? What is the first thing any man ought to do before he speaks to another? Speak to himself. Do not speak to another and carry a careless heart yourself. "Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" Rom. 2: 21. Now, before the Lord goes to assail Satan, He must withstand Satan. He lets him see that he has nothing in Him. If I take part in evil, I cannot rebuke it. So now He lets the devil see that there was not one single principle or touch of the power of darkness in Himself. The Holy Ghost leads Him up as the champion of holiness as the champion of light to contend with darkness, and His victory was complete. Satan may come in every form. He tries to get into the Lord what he got into Adam, but he utterly failed here, as he entirely succeeded before. In Genesis 3 you get the defeat of man; here you get the victory of man. Did you ever study with interest the Lord's being tempted? It is our stupidity that does not make every scene, jot and tittle of His journey interesting to us. The Lord lets us know that "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." John 14: 30.

Now He returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. Under the power of the Spirit, He goes into the synagogue and teaches: and, as He teaches, He opens the book of the prophet Esaias. He does not find it open, but finds the place Himself. I pray you mark that. Why does He turn it over till He comes to Isa. 61. Because chapter 61 is the deep, earnest, precious expression of the ministry He was entering upon the ministry of grace. It was the very language that expressed the infinite varied grace that was about to mark His ministry. Do you believe that you and I are entitled to listen to such a voice? It makes no demands on me, as did Moses and John. I am called to listen to One that is doing everything for me. How do you find secret communion of heart with God? as a judge or as a Saviour? Nature puts you before Him in the character of a judge; the gospel puts you before Him in the character of a Saviour. While you are figuring God to yourself as making demands upon you, you are under law. If you are listening with ravished attention to grace, you are under the gospel. Oh, happy soul that knows what it is to listen to Jesus! It will do more for the purifying of the soul than can Moses and John. "The joy of the LORD is your strength." Neh. 8: 10. If I drink it in, it will make my heart too glad for it to serve my pride and vanity. Then He closed the book as much as to tell them, That is everything. Do I believe, when I have listened, that there is my rest forever? Happy the poor sinner that takes up that attitude that closes his heart where Jesus closed the book. The people marvelled at His gracious words. At the close they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" What principle in human nature dictated that? It was their pride that could not brook the thought that the carpenter's son should be their teacher. They wanted a teacher from the college fresh from the hand of man. The Lord finds out the two currents in their hearts. Supposing a mere sentiment awakens in your mind; is there any moral power in it? There was sentiment here, but pride got the mastery. Nothing will do but faith that principle that lays hold on Jesus. Their fine admiration is gone; they are a defeated people. Their sentiment has been obliged to yield to a stronger current of pride, and they would have cast Him over the brow of the hill. He that trusts his heart is a fool. There is much excitement abroad now, and I welcome it, but I do not trust it. There must be a hold on Christ to secure victory. The lusts of the heart are too powerful to yield to excitement

Then we find Him teaching in the synagogue, and they were amazed at His word; and, at the setting of the sun, He healed all that were sick.

And now I will introduce you to Luke 5, just to show how and where it is that the link is to be formed between Him and you. Admiration, as we have seen, will not form it, nor the healing of the body, of the ten lepers, but one returned to give glory. Nothing but a work in the conscience will do. You must learn your need learn that a poor sinner cannot do without Him. Then the link is formed for eternity. We get this in Peter. How blessed to see this simplicity! The world is full of its wisdom, its religion, and its speculations. The gospel makes short work of it. It lets me know that I need a Saviour, and then shows me that I have a Saviour. If any soul cannot comfortably say, I have Him, I just ask, Do you want Him? If so, you are welcome to Him.

"He stood by the lake of Gennesaret," and He entered into a boat. It was Peter's. Peter was a good-hearted man, and would lend Him a boat. It is simply told. So He taught the people, and when that was done, He said, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught." Well, said Peter, We will, but we have toiled all night and caught nothing. It was the reply of a good-natured man, willing to lend his boat to a stranger, and do a little thing the stranger asked him. But when Peter saw the multitude of fishes, the Spirit was forming a link that never was to be broken; he cried, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." What had taught him that? The draught of fishes was the expression, to his conscience, of divine glory. The veil had dropped off from the face of the Nazarene, and the glory of God shone out. Who but God could have commanded the wealth of the lake into Peter's net? So Peter's conscience, coming in contact with the glory, found out that he was a sinner. How do you know you are a sinner? Because if God broke the blue heavens and came down, you could no more stand before Him than did Adam. You would call on the rocks to cover you. There was the happiest intercourse between God and Adam in Genesis 2. In Genesis 3, Adam flies from Him and hides himself behind the trees of the garden. This is just the difference between innocence and sin. Peter says, "Depart from me," and what is the Lord's answer? If you have found out, poor sinner, that you want Me, you shall have Me. Fear not. Has that intercourse ever gone on between you and Christ? Have you found out that you are a poor sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is your all in all? You may spend your admiration, scholarship, sentiment, on the Book. It will not do. Your conscience must have to do with Him. How simple it is! How worthy of God to be so simple! "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. 4: 6. He who said, "Let there be light," said also, "Believe and be saved."

We have pursued our meditation down to the middle of Luke 5, and have seen the Lord introduced to His ministry. If we scan with attention the characteristics of His ministry, we shall find out the mind of God. What the Lord was, God is. He tells us Himself, not by the lengthened descriptions of others, but by acting and speaking Himself. Would not we much rather learn Him from His own activities, than let another describe Him to us? We do not spend our time describing ourselves to others; we let our actions speak for us. We ought not to pass such a thought without blessing Him! The Son has come into our midst, not merely personally by incarnation, but He has brought Himself into the history of everyday transactions, and can say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Shall we sit down to mark the characteristics of His ministry with increased desire? It is a highway cast up, to lead us to the bosom of the Father. We discern God Himself in the activities of the Lord's speaking and doing. The heavens declare His glory, and the firmament shows His handiwork; but the firmament has no glory, by reason of that which excels. Does anyone who has seen Him in the face of Jesus need to go up to the heavens to seek Him? Could the heart be satisfied there? If I have discovered the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, His glories in the heavens and in the flowers cannot satisfy me. It is like sending a man back to the alphabet after he has read some of the precious treasures of a language. Christ is your lesson as well as your teacher. I could not do with Him exactly as a teacher only. What would He teach me?

But when He sits before me as a lesson, I have but to read my lesson. We find out in His ministry the moral glory that characterizes Himself, and he that has seen Him has seen the Father.

In the opening of Luke 5 we see the link formed between Christ and Peter. In Luke 4 we saw how admiration failed to form that link. What admiration formed went to pieces under the assault of the pride of life. So also the healing of the body formed no permanent link. Those who were healed could come and go, but the moment conscience forges the link, it is not coming and going, but coming and staying. Yes, and until this hour it is the same thing. If we are not conscious that there is a link between the conscience and Christ, there is no link that will abide. To be sure, it is right to admire, but if we merely admire, the link may be shattered by the first blow of pride; but if you cry out, I want Thee, and cannot let Thee go, that is Peter's place; and he and Christ were joined for eternity. Nothing can be simpler. I would not have anything but my necessity bind me to Christ, and when that link is formed, it is so blessed that I would not exchange it for anything. Adam outside the garden knew more of God than when inside. It was no condescension for God to make the heavens, but He must have emptied Himself to make a coat for a poor naked sinner.

Genesis 3 might well prepare me for John 13. I am not surprised to see the Lord washing the disciples' feet. God delights in the work of grace. Adam might have walked through the flowers of Eden for eternity, and never have found out God in that character. Do you think he would have exchanged his pardoned for his innocent state? his clothed for his naked state? He had found out God in a richer way than ever he would have done as an untainted man. So in Ephesians 3 we find the angels have to learn through the Church the manifold wisdom of God the tale of divine goodness through pardoned sinners.

Now let us look at some of the characteristics of the Lord's ministry. First we come to the poor leper. What does he say? "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." Do you believe in the reality of the varied ministerial glories of Christ? Then delight in it. Is the first thing I have to do to imitate Him? My soul deeply says that the duty that attaches to the first look at Christ, is delight to be "lost in wonder, love, and praise." Then, if such an object pass before me, I say I will appropriate it. I say, That is for me. This is the duty of faith the obedient attitude of faith. When I can trust myself to Him, that is the most blessed obedience I can render.

The leper comes with a half heart "Lord, if Thou wilt." It was a shabby thought. We should be ashamed to come to one another and say, You have a hand if you have a heart. I say it was a shabby thought, but the Lord bore with it. "I will," He says, "be thou clean." Can you trust the heart of Christ? Faith says it can trust the heart of Christ better than any other heart. Here is comfort. I may be very conscious that I have approached Him feebly. Fallen human nature is a legalist an arrant unbeliever. But I am encouraged here to know that though my approach may be feeble, the answer will be blessedly full.

Next we have a poor palsied man, let down through the tiling into the midst before Jesus. How does He treat him? The moment He looked at him He said, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." How magnificent! The same condescension that comes down to a weak faith, delights in a bold faith. When Jacob said to the Lord, in Genesis, "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me," how did the Lord entertain the thought? Just as He did here. He allowed Himself to be overcome. If He condescends to a feeble faith, He allows Himself to be overcome by a bold faith. When the blind beggar met Him, what happened? His bold faith commanded Christ. "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" He commanded all His resources. Does not such a picture of Jesus suit you? It is It worthy of Him, but it suits you. If you approach Him with a bold, unclouded faith, He will delight in it. Mark now, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?" He intimates here, that as the poor palsied man got up and glorified God, so you, coming to Him as a sinner, should rise up and go out glorifying God. He who could say, "Rise up and walk," could say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." The Lord is His own commentator and He tells you that even though you cannot bring your diseased body to Him to be healed, you can bring your sins. He is the text and the commentator, so that He may give the lesson and then comment upon it, till He lays it down at your own door. The act happened almost 2000 years ago, but by the comment of the Lord, I have the pardon of my sins laid down at my own door today.

We are still pursuing the discovery of Christ, and at verse 27 Levi is called. The Lord simply said, "Follow Me," but Matthew felt His power. He brought in the hidden operative power of the Holy Ghost. How was Lydia's heart opened? Who saw the operation? "The wind bloweth where it listeth." The Lord was opening the heart while Paul was addressing the ear. So here, the Lord was addressing Levi while the Spirit of the Lord was opening his heart. Suppose you are happy in Christ; will you attribute it to nature? No; learn in simplicity to trace it to Christ. What virtue was there in the words, "Follow Me"? None; and yet in spite of himself, he rose up and followed Jesus. It was the wind blowing where it listed. What carried Zaccheus through the crowd and up into the tree? It was the drawings of the Father in the hidden energy of the Holy Ghost that threw the bands and cords round him to draw him to Jesus. What mighty power was detaching Levi from everything he had in the world? It was the voice of the Lord that breaks the cedars. Do you know such a moment? We should never have been at the feet of Jesus if the Lord had not drawn us. Levi rose at His bidding. And he made Him a feast and, with blessed beautiful intelligence, what company is it he brings? The very company that the Lord came to seek and to save. This was power clothing itself in light strength accompanied by intelligence. The moment he is in company with the Lord, he knows the atmosphere he is in. What spreads a feast for Christ? knowledge of Himself. That is what spread the feast here.

The poor prodigal spread a feast for Him, and the Lord found delight at the table. He quickly transfigures Himself from the guest into the host, as He did at another time, with the disciples going to Emmaus. He makes Levi's feast His own He answers the Pharisees, Do not complain; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. I came, I spread the feast, not Levi. Levi had spread the feast, but he spread it in deep-hearted sympathy with the mind of His Master. Have you ever in your house a table of which the Lord could say that He spread it, and not you? that He could appropriate it? How blessed to get into such personal intimacy with Him! Oh, let the Pharisees to this day break their heads over this! What villainous Pharisaism lurks about you and me! What should we do if Christ had not come to spread a table for poor sinners? Joy in Christ is what you and I want. If we had more of that, we should have more victory over the world.

The Lord then puts an interesting figure before their thoughts. It is the bustle of the bride-chamber we are in now. We are on the way to the marriage. It is a happy bustle the foreshadowings of a blissful day. Is your spirit breathing that atmosphere? Do you know the activities that suit the children of the bride-chamber? Oh, if I knew the atmosphere that suits the place preparing for the joys of Christ, the old wine would have little power over me!

Luke 6 and Luke 7

We are meditating on this Gospel with the purpose of discovering the ministerial glories of Christ. Every jot and tittle ought to have an interest with us, because if we discover the ministry of Christ, we discover Himself. It is the complexion of all that He was. It is not so with us. We are all more or less deceitful in our ways.

Then we travel from that up to God Himself. Man by wisdom knows Him not, but in the face of Jesus Christ we do know Him; and the more we discover the lineaments of His face, the more we know of the Father. We should acquaint ourselves with Him as reflected in the ways of Jesus. We can track our way back to His presence only through Jesus. His precious death is my title to put my foot on the road, and all that He is and was is my light on the road.

"The second sabbath after the first," is generally supposed to be some one sabbath between the Passover and Pentecost. On this occasion, as they were passing through the cornfields, His disciples plucked the ears of corn. The Pharisees objected, and this brings out a beautiful commentary on the temple (Luke 6: 3, 4). What was the Lord doing after creation? Resting. And has He not had creation rest disturbed? To be sure He has, as John 5: 17 declares distinctly, when the Pharisees complain of His breaking the sabbath. The moment His rest was disturbed, He became a workman afresh, and prepared a coat for Adam. When sin turned Him out of creation rest, He entered upon the work of redemption. In the opening of Genesis, He comes forth as the Creator, and on the seventh day He rests. Man intrudes and disturbs His rest; and the Creator sets to work again. He is not overcome of evil, but overcomes evil with good. He sets to work for the very creature that had disturbed His rest. He quickens one poor sinner after another, till we shall see the sabbath of redemption the rest which is called glory. Creation rest depended on the fidelity of Adam; it was lost. Redemption rests on the blood of Christ, and can never be lost. If their ox or their ass fell into a pit, they would trespass on the sabbath. So God trespasses on it. The rest of the Redeemer was intruded on the rest of the Creator. We are debtors to Him for our eternity. He quotes Hosea (Matt. 12: 7), "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." He is not looking for you to bring something to Him, but He brings something to you. If only we were happy in Him, we would work much better for Him. It is joy in Christ that gives victory over the world. Why are we all in subjection to the world? Just because we have not found in Christ all the joy we ought to find. If I rightly use the grace of God, it will purify me. As Titus says, "The grace of God... hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" God links my redemption with my purification.

Next we get the choosing of the twelve. In Matthew we have only the choosing of the twelve; here the seventy are also chosen, because the Lord shows Himself in a larger character. There He is rather as the Son of David; here He is the Son of man. Therefore the seventy are sent out, to show how illimitable is the grace of God that surveyed the whole family of man. Salvation is to all the world. The twelve were confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Contrast that with Paul's wide-spread ministry in The Acts; and "that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." The Apostle of the Gentiles was standing as the representative of the present ministry of God. That ministry stretches to the ends of the earth.

After the choosing of the twelve, He came down into the plain; and great multitudes came to Him, and He healed all their diseases. He was a divine visitor to this world a heavenly stranger among men a divine visitor to men. He had not where to lay His head while He was visiting their necessities with all the resources of God. This is the ideal of a saint of God to be independent of all that the world can give, while, with open heart and lavish hand, bestowing upon it all the benefits and blessings of God. If he is a mere heavenly stranger, he may be an ascetic, if a visitor only to the world, he may get involved in its corruptions.

In this chapter there is an epitomized presentation of the sermon on the mount. It begins with the poor, the hungry, the mourner, and tells them that they are "blessed." Now, would that have been the voice of God when He had accomplished His creation? In Genesis 2 He put Adam among the fruits and Rowers of Eden an obedient creation. Enjoyment was the duty then, but patience now. God has not put me here to enjoy myself, as He did Adam. Sin has cast out the Lord of glory, the Prince of life, and my proper place is patience. It is not, blessed are they that walk amidst the fruit and Bowers, but, blessed are they that suffer, they that mourn, they that are persecuted. We have seen the Lord in infancy and then as a healer. Now we have Him as a teacher, and the burden of His teaching is, I call you not to enjoyment, but to patience. Was Adam in the garden to be poor? There was no end of his wealth. But there is a new kind of blessedness now, because He who became poor has been in the world. God is a stranger now in a defiled world, and are you and I to settle down in a world where Christ has been crucified? We will not go through these verses, but that is the burden of them. In patience possess your souls; do not count upon enjoyment.

In Luke 7 we find the Lord in company with the centurion. Two needy ones crossed the path of our Lord here the widow of Nain and the centurion. The centurion took his place at once, and he pleads through the Jews. This is a beautiful instance of the intelligence of faith. He took his place as a Gentile, having no right to approach immediately to the Lord, but comes through His own nation. There is great beauty in the intelligence of an understanding illuminated by the mind of Christ. He approached by the right door got at the Lord by the elders of the Jews. And the Lord says, I will go. Then, at the due time, he began to be busy when Jesus was on the road. He did not begin by going to Him, but the moment He was on the way to the house, it was time for the centurion to begin to stir himself. We want these fine touches of the mind of Christ, for we are not only cold and narrow, but awkward and clumsy. By a Spirit- led soul we get all this beauty. Now, he says, Lord, I am not worthy, but speak the word only, and it is enough. Servants are at my bidding, he says, but diseases are at Yours now.

I pity the soul that cannot enjoy such a specimen of the workmanship of the Spirit. That is communion, when we can sit together and enjoy one another as the workmanship of the Spirit. The Lord marvelled. It was the marvel of deep and rich enjoyment. Nothing in this world refreshed Christ but the traces of His own hand. The joy of the woman at the well of Sychar did not come up to her Saviour's joy. So here, He was overwhelmed for the moment. To speak after the manner of men, He did not know what to do with it. Christ found no water in this world, but when the Holy Ghost knocked a poor rocky heart to pieces, then there was water for Jesus.

Now we have the widow of Nain. The Spirit presents, in a few words, the deep loneliness of her condition. The dead man was "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." The heart of Jesus was arrested, and then He arrested the bier of the dead young man. His compassions always went before His mercies. It is commonly said that the heart moves the hand. Do you not prize a blessing that comes to you in that way? Salvation came gushing forth from the heart of Christ. To say that the cross of Christ is the source of our blessedness, would be slandering the heart of God. God loved the world, and sent His Son; Christ's heart went before His hand. A blessing from Christ is given, as Jeremiah says, with His whole heart and His whole soul. "He came and touched the bier." He was undefilable, or He must have gone to the priest to cleanse Himself after touching it. Did Christ ever need the washings of the sanctuary? He might have restored the young man without touching him, but He has God's relationship to iniquity. He not only stood apart from the actuality of sin, but from the possibility of it. "And He delivered him to his mother." Let me be bold and say, The Lord does not save you that you may serve Him. To suggest the thought would be to qualify the beauty of grace. He did not say, I give you life that you may spend it for Me. Let His love constrain you to spend and be spent for Him, but He never stands before your heart and says, Now I will forgive you if you will serve Me. Surely, He had purchased him; yet He gave him back to his mother. Yet you and I go back to the world, and seek to make ourselves happy and important in it. Ah, throw the cords of love around your heart, and keep it fast by Jesus! Amen.

We have now reached the well-known mission of John the Baptist to the Lord. We were observing that the Lord's ministry is the discovery of Himself, because everything about Him was infinitely truthful. So also it is a highway cast up before us by which to reach the blessed God. If man seeks by wisdom to reach Him, His answer is, I dwell in this darkness; but when we follow Him through Jesus, we get Him in His full glory

Now John sends his messengers to inquire, "Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another?" There is such a thing as faith, and the patience of faith. Abraham illustrated both of these. He was called out to listen to the promise in the starlit night, and he believed God; that was simple faith. Afterward, he was called to give up all he hoped in; that was the patience of faith. That is where John failed. He believed, and pointed out the Lamb of God, but the prison was too much for him. He was a choice servant, but he failed in this, and did not like being passed by when others were being attended to. He was offended. Therefore he sends this unbelieving and rather a little insulting message. It was very faulty, but the Lord bore with it. He stood as the champion of God's rights in the world, but He passed by every insult to Himself. This was part of His moral perfection. He does not resent John's insulting style, but sends a word home to him that none but he could understand. "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." He couched His rebuke in such terms that none could decipher it but the conscience of John. If I find a fault in anyone, nature disposes me to go and whisper it in the ear of a neighbour. The blessed Lord did exactly the contrary. He saw that John was not quite prepared for what the service of Christ brought upon him. If another trespasses against you, you ought to rebuke him, but take care to tell him his fault between him and you alone. It is as if the Lord had written an admonishing letter in a language that none but John could understand.

It is equally beautiful when He turns to the multitude. He paints two or three dark grounds to set off John to them. The first is a reed, and by that He shews out John; then, king's courts; then all that are born of women. He is presenting these things that John might shine out in relief. How perfect the Lord's path is! He sends a message of rebuke to John's conscience, and then turns round and sets him out in every way He can. Now what is meant by, "He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he"? Did you ever look upon John as greater than Moses or David? No. It is not the person the Lord speaks of here, but this secret that God's ways are always advancing, as from the prophetic to the evangelic. In this way John was greater than all that were born of women. He was not personally above Moses, but he stood in an advanced stage of God's dispensational purposes. So now, every saint, however feeble or strong, is in a higher dispensational condition than John, Moses, or David. The light of His unfolding purposes shines brighter and brighter. You stand in the resurrection and in the risen glories of Christ; and will anyone tell me that it is not a higher place than Moses had?

In verse 31 He looks at the generation and says, Now what are you like? How He delights to hang over His servant John! He has got John before Him here, and He puts him in company with Himself. In substance He says, "We have come to you, children of the market-place, both piping and lamenting, and you have neither danced nor wept." The hand of God is very skilful in touching the instrument, but He can get, no, not one note of music in return. That is you and me, beloved; for the Lord is delineating our common nature, and He says God's finger has touched the instrument in every possible way, and He can get no answer. "In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing."

Let us pause for a little at verse 36. Did you ever consult the occasions on which the Lord is seen at different tables? We see Him at the Pharisee's, at Levi's, at Zaccheus's, with the two disciples going to Emmaus, and at the table at Bethany. What an interesting theme for meditation, to see the Lord sitting and forming one of a family scene in this social world of ours! He occupies each table in a different manner. In Luke 7 and Luke 14, He sits at the tables of two Pharisees in the character He had earned outside. He goes there, not to sanction the scene, but because He is invited. One Pharisee may have a better apprehension of Him than the other, but He goes in on the credit of the man He was when outside. He continues to be the teacher in the chapter before us. He has a right to be a teacher or a rebuker, because it was in that character He was invited when outside. Then we see Him at the house of Levi. Levi had been called, and left all and followed Him, and was so impregnated with the mind of the One he had invited, that he puts publicans and sinners at the table with Him. The Lord sits there, not as a teacher, but as a Saviour. How beautifully He can thus morally transfigure Himself! Then, when the Pharisees complain, He pleads for Levi and the poor publicans with him: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Zaccheus had just been moved by a desire to see Him, and He calls him by his name, "Zaccheus, make haste, and come down." He went in as one that had been desired, and would gratify that desire. He said, as it were, You have looked for a passing sight at Me, and I will abide all day with you. Do you look around in the gospel for these glittering rays of His moral glory? He does not violate His character in any of these. He goes to Zaccheus as one who would cherish and nourish an infant's desire.

Now we come to look at the disciples journeying to Emmaus. Here we get two, I will not call them backsliders, but two who had got under the power of unbelief. "O fools, and slow of heart," He calls them, but He does not leave them till He leaves them with kindled hearts. It was a kindled heart that said, "Abide with us," and He stays till He could have them, in spite of the nightfall, go back to Jerusalem and tell that they had seen the Lord.

Last, we see Him at Bethany, not here as a teacher or a Saviour, but as a familiar friend, one who adopts completely the sweet and gracious truth of the Christian homestead; and He would have left the family scene as He found it, if Martha had not stepped out of her place. She might have been a housekeeper still, but the moment she leaves her place and becomes a teacher, He will rebuke her.

In the case before us, in the Pharisee's house, we have two persons. This is the most complete expression we get in the gospels of a consciously accepted sinner. She came, knowing that her sins were forgiven, and bringing everything she had with her, her heart, her person, and her wealth. This is a beautiful witness of what we would be if the sense of salvation were simple with us. The Lord entered into Simon's reasonings, but they were lost on the woman. One loves the soul that is resting peacefully in the conclusion, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." If the reasonings of a doubtful mind are lost on you, happy are you! So happily have thousands reached this conclusion, that they cannot understand the reasonings of others. She is occupied with her joy.

Another thing: When the Lord speaks to Simon about her, it is of what she has done; when He speaks to her ear, it is, "Thy faith hath saved thee." It was not her love, but her faith that saved her. Was that a cold word? Do you ever suspect the Lord of treating you coldly? She might have thought it a cold word, but go behind her back and hear His words: Simon, do you see her? Was that a cold heart? So if in His direct immediate providence He seems to deal coldly with you, just go behind what is behind your own back, so to speak. Do not judge Him by His providence to your face, but by the love that never, no, never forsakes you, but has recorded in His book every cup of cold water given in His name. Let us pray that He will keep us near Him. We want, inside, to be as near to Christ as ever we can get, and outside, to go on from victory to victory in His name.

Luke 8

This chapter is the beginning of a series Luke 8, Luke 9, and Luke 10. Chapter 8 is the Lord's own ministry, chapter 9 is the ministry of the twelve, and chapter 10 is the ministry of the seventy. The very fact that we have the ministry of the seventy is symptomatic of Luke's Gospel. Very properly, we do not get it in Matthew. The Lord is there in contact with the Jew, and the ministry sent forth is accommodated to the Jew. Here He was more on moral ground, and human ground, and therefore He sends forth a ministry characterizing the gospel sent forth largely to the whole human family. Did you ever think it a strange thing that the kingdom of God had to be preached in this world? It is a witness against the world that God has to publish His claims in it. The Lord has not only to announce that which meets the necessity of sinners, but God's rights in the world. We find that God lays His claim to me, as well as makes provision for me. I cannot accept salvation without bowing to His claims. The Creator has to publish His rights in His own creation. What a thought! Earth in mad rebellion against its Creator! We get both these thoughts in what is called preaching the gospel, and preaching the kingdom of God. God is proposing His rights to man, as well as revealing His provision for man.

When the Lord went forth, how was He attended? By the twelve by men that had been attracted to Him, and women out of whom He had cast devils. That is His suited train quite a different train from that of Him who comes upon the white horse in judgment. That is a suited train too. "The armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses"; but this is a degraded company, and the more largely you sum up the account of their degradation, the more you magnify the grace of Him who led them on. It will not be so when He comes in judgment.

The chapter begins with the parable of the sower. Do you think you have found the secret of that parable? It is to expose man. The seed was one and the same, but the dropping of the seed here and there was to expose the character of the soil. The seed makes manifest the soil. There is not a heart that is not seen in one or the other of these soils. The first character is the highway; that is where the devil prevails. The second is the rock; that is where nature prevails. The third is the thorny ground; that is where the world prevails. The fourth is the good ground; that is where the Holy Ghost prevails. If you examine your heart, day by day, you will find that one of these has its pleasure with you. The business of the parable is to expose you to yourself, and to make manifest the four secret influences under the power of which we are all morally moving every hour. Take the joy of the stony ground hearer. It is well to rejoice, but, if when I listen to the claims of God my conscience is not reached, that is a bad symptom. It is the levity and sensibility of nature. How wretchedly we are treating God if we do not deal with Him in conscience! If I have revolted from such a one, am I to return to Him without conviction of conscience? It would be an insult to Him. Supposing I had insulted you, would it be well for me to come and talk to you about some light matter? We have all insulted God, and are we to come to Him with a little animal-like joy?

The thorny ground hearers are a grave-hearted people that weigh everything in anxious balances. They carry the balances in their pocket, and try the importance of everything; but the mischief is that, as they weigh, they make the world as heavy as Christ. Are we not often conscious of that calculating spirit prevailing? In contrast with the others, we get the good ground. We are not told what has made it good, but suppose we have the devil, nature, and the world (in the first three parables), what is the only remaining influence? There is nothing but the Holy Ghost. It is very needful nowadays to testify that the plow must come before the seed basket. What makes the heart good? He that has gone forth to plow the fallow ground and sow the seed.

God could never get a blade of grass from our hearts if He did not work Himself. The heart can never have anything for God that has not gone through the process of the plow. Be it with the light measure of the eunuch, or the deeper strength of the jailer, the plow must go through the fallow ground. Those of the thorny ground talk of their farm, their business, their merchandise. Those by the highway say, Oh, let us think of it tomorrow. Then too, there is a sensibility that can rejoice under a sermon. It is happy for me that my conscience has to do with God, for when my conscience has to do with Him, then everything has to do with Him. We should try to get our hearts into the ministerial glories of Christ. Then we have Himself, because everything that passed from Him had the mark of deep truthfulness. Then, if we reach Himself, we reach God. It is the way we are introduced to God in this world. The world is full of its speculations about God, and the issue of them all is thick darkness which the wisdom of man finds impenetrable; but in Christ we find nothing less than the full glory of God. Let me take the happy path of studying Jesus. By that blessed happy path I can study the Father.

Now we come to a little passage in His life. "On a certain day... He went into a ship," and He fell asleep. "So He giveth His beloved sleep." Now if the disciples had been wise, what would they have done? With what intent and worshipping gaze would they have looked at their sleeping Master! The musing of their hearts would have been, Let winds and waves arise; He has said, Let us go to the other side, and that is the pledge of safety. They might have gone to sleep with their Master but, instead, they look at the rising waves, and cry, "Master, we perish."

Are you often, in providence, called into company with a sleeping Jesus? He does not always manifest Himself at your side; nevertheless, He has said, "Let us go over unto the other side." His thought is on the end of the journey yours and mine on the path. He never would have slept if He had not pledged them the end of the journey. Then, when the Lord makes good all that He had promised, they reap astonishment where they should have reaped worshipping admiration. Have you not often found it so? How often He comes down to your level when you cannot reach His elevation! The result is a poor experience instead of a bright and sunny experience. If He cannot take you up on the wings of faith to His elevation, He will come down and save you to the end, though He will show you what you have lost.

Now we get three cases together: Jesus in Gadara, in the crowd, and at the bedside. It is a series of victories. First we see Him in Gadara. Here is the strength of Satan displayed. He did not wait on faith here. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and would destroy them. In the case of the poor woman in the crowd, He waits for and upon faith. We have often marked the traces of His grace and the pathway of His glory. Nothing could meet this poor captive of Satan. Human power left him as it found him. The Lord delivers him, and deliverance in His hand is as perfect as captivity in Satan's. Yes, and something more. His restoration is more than mere restoration. Restoration would never describe the ways of God. With Him it is a bringing forth of fresh glories from ruins. Not only was Legion cast out, but the man was impregnated with this principle, that he would be with Jesus for eternity; yet, at His bidding, would go to the ends of the earth. Is that merely restoration? What would not one give for such a mind as that! To have found a home in His presence; yet, if it be His blessed will, to go to the ends of the earth in drudging service!

Now, as He passed on, a poor woman touched Him in the crowd. He was touched by thousands, but the virtue that was in Him waited on faith. The moment faith commanded, virtue went forth. Now, have you more in Christ than a healer? This poor woman had. She did not know when she came up that she had a title to Himself. So she modestly retreated as a debtor. Very right that a debtor should carry herself with humility; but oh, Christ is more to you and me than that. The healer puts Himself into relationship. When He inquired after her she began to tremble. Her faith had measured her title to touch Him, but she was not prepared when He called her face to face to look at Him, till He said, "Daughter, be of good comfort." There is no spirit of liberty in our souls if we do not know relationship. Nature cannot trust God, but the blessed way of God is to show me that I have an interest in Himself, as well as in the saving virtue that is in Him. We have relationship now it does not wait for glory. In spirit I walk in the family mansion now, as soon I shall personally in the glory. The woman left Him, not only with a healed body, but with a calm and satisfied spirit. Is any book so worthy of reading as the book that we call Jesus?

Now we get to the house of Jairus, and the Lord meets the power of death in its fresh victory. The poor damsel is delivered from the bands of death, as the man was delivered from the bands of Satan, and the poor woman from the bands of corruption. Oh, let us acquaint ourselves with Him, and say, "Christ for me, Christ for me!"

Luke 9

A very important thing is suggested at the opening of this chapter. We were observing the three distinct ministries of chapters 8, 9, and 10, and that the largeness of the ministry set forth bespeaks the character of this Gospel. The Lord did not, it is true, step over Jewish limits, but He is looking at man in the Jew, and not, as in Matthew, at the Jew in the Jew. Now observe, in sending out the twelve, He told them to heal the sick and to preach the kingdom of God. They were to cure diseases and to challenge the claims of God in the face of the world. Do you think that God has come into the world, bringing salvation, to surrender His own rights to your necessities? He could not do it; and you, if in a right mind, could not wish it. The glory of the gospel is, that He is glorified while you are saved. Could you enjoy a robbery? It would be a robbery if you could get a blessing which took glory from God. You get this in the cross if you read it aright. It is the glory of the gospel that God could be just and yet the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. We get a sample of that here. He tells them, then, to take with them neither scrip, nor money, nor bread. He says, as it were, You are going forth-with My message; lean on Me. No man goeth a warfare at his own charges. I will take care of your necessities, and do you let your moderation be known unto all. He says, "Whosoever will not receive you,... shake off the very dust from your feet." While there is a graciousness attaching to such ministry, there is a solemnity too.

Now let us look at Herod for a moment. Tell me, do you think you have done with sin, when you have committed it? One thing is certain: It has not done with you. The charm of sin is gone the moment it is perpetrated. That is your way of disposing of sin, but conscience which makes cowards of us all, lets you know that it has not done with you. Herod had beheaded John long before, but now it was said of some that John was risen from the dead, and he is perplexed. Here the worm that never dies was doing its business. I am not of course determining its eternity, but the Lord in such cases lifts the veil from hell and shows us the worm at its work. Herod could not rest. How could he? the murderer of the greatest witness of God in the world at that moment!

Now the apostles return and tell what they have done, and we have the scene of feeding the multitude. Here we get the largeness of the heart of Christ, in contrast with every human heart. Could you get a sample of the human heart more easy to love than Peter's? He was an open-hearted, good-natured man that you could easily have loved; but look at it in contrast with the heart of Christ! They said, "Send the multitude away." No, said He, Give ye them to eat. And they said, What! are we to go and buy. It was said in a sulky mood of mind, but the Lord did not refuse to go on with His sulky disciples. He met with vanity, ignorance, heartlessness, bad temper. It is a very interesting study to see how He always overcame evil with good. If my bad temper puts you into a bad temper, you have been overcome of evil. God never gives place to evil. This is a beautiful instance of it. The disciples said, Send them away. "Make them sit down," said Jesus; then, being the master of the feast, He must supply the guests.

Now, mark something of the moral beauty of Jesus' feast. He sits at the head of the table in the glory of God, and as the perfect Man. As God He puts forth creative powers, and was acting without robbery. He not only was God, but there was no form of divine glory that He would not assume no act of divine power that He would not put forth. But He took His place also as the perfect Man. He was an entire contradiction to Adam. What was Adam's offence? He did not give thanks, but assumed to be master of all. It was a man refusing to be thankful. The Lord gives thanks. I see Him taking His place at the head of the table in the wilderness, as perfect God and perfect Man. The worship that God got in the Person of Jesus was richer incense to Him than if Adam had lived forever as a thankful man. He came to erect out of the ruins a temple for the glory of God that the creation in integrity would never have yielded.

Now the blessed God would have us know that at His table there is always more than enough. We know what it is to sit comfortably at a plentiful board. When I see very God making the feast, and very Man giving thanks, then leaving cart-loads, so to speak, of fragments, what can I do but be thankful! We may, each one and all, be full and go away thankful that there is plenty for others.

Now we get a very important part in the gospel story. The Lord was in prayer, and when He arose, He asked His disciples, "Whom say the people that I am?" Let me say, there is a great deal to be found out in the style of the moment in Scripture. The very style in which an event comes out, gives it a character. That question draws out the proof that the world was rejecting Him. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." You are now in the vestibule of the mountain of transfiguration. He has ascended into heaven as the earth-rejected Son of man. If you ask, Were not all things known to God from the creation of the world? surely they were; but these things came out in great moral glory. Man would not give Him place here, so God took Him up to heaven. "Whom say the people that I am?" And they answered, "Some say, . . . Elias; and others, . . . one of the old prophets." What! is that the best thought that Israel has of Me? "But whom say ye that I am?" "The world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." Let us search out the undercurrent of the spirit of Scripture, not merely track the words   Now the Lord says to the disciples, Do not you be loving your life. Come away up to the hill with Me, and there I will show the glory. And now I will ask you, What suits the man on his way to heavenly glory? Is it money and power, and such like, he should be seeking? Judge in yourselves, Is it consistent in a man to load himself with clay on his way to a place where there is to be no clay? The Lord shows you the path, and shows you the end of the path. It is only our love of present things that makes such a lesson difficult. My whole soul seals it; would that my whole heart adopted it.

After this the Lord comes down and meets His disciples in their inability to cast out a demon. Now, on no occasion does the Lord express disappointment of heart more vividly than here. "O faithless and perverse generation." All human development in Christ was perfectly natural. I ask you, When you have been particularly happy on the mount with Christ, would not the pollutions of the earth, and the poverty and degradation of the Church, pain your spirit more, in contrast with the joy and liberty you have been tasting? The Lord had been tasting the joys of His own land, and He comes down to find faithlessness and defilement. He does not look for glory here, but He does look for the labouring and energy of faith; and when He finds Himself unhelped by the disciples, He says, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you?"

Now when they came down they were amazed at His glory, and while they wondered, He said, "Let these sayings sink down into your ears." In verse 51, He had sent His disciples to prepare His way, and the villagers would not receive Him. The disciples would have commanded fire to come down and consume them, but He rebuked them. Now, why do I put these two things together? I see, in the developments and expression of the Lord's human beauty, a man who knew both how to be abased and how to abound. It is a beautiful virtue in human nature. Paul may have learned it by severe moral culture, but Jesus learned it by the perfection of His own human nature. How willing and ready our wretched and corrupt nature is to take advantage of a flattering moment! Jesus had not become an object of wonder and amazement, and at once He hides Himself behind a veil of deep degradation. While the rays of glory were shining still about His countenance, He says, Let this be your understanding of Me. And afterward, when they would have brought down fire upon the Samaritan villagers, He said, No. He knew how to be abased. In these ways His moral beauties shine out.

At the close, one comes and says, "I will follow Thee"; and He says, Do not you see how the villagers have treated Me? If you will follow Me, you must take part with One who has not where to lay His head. Now, mark another thing. Another comes and says, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father." The sense of the dignity of His ministry was with Him wonderfully. He answers, One fellow creature may do the office of the dying to the dying, but go you and do the office of a living Saviour in the world. He carried with Him a sense of His ministerial glory. Paul had it in the vessel going to Rome, and before Agrippa. There he was, a prisoner in chains and degradation, and he stands and says, I would you were like me. What consciousness of secret dignity in the midst of public degradation! "Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God" go and do My business, the business of life, and not of death, in a sin-stricken world. Now tell me, whom do you admire in this world? Do you speak well of those who do well to themselves? Do you hate the practice that speaks of men according to their standing in society? Accustom your selves to see true glory. It shone in the carpenter's Son, in the captive at Rome, and it shines in the poor in this world, rich in faith. May the Lord open our eyes to see God's objects in God's light! Amen.

Luke 10

We have reached chapter 10 in our meditations on this Gospel. "The entrance of Thy words giveth light."

We were observing in the progress of this ministry that we get in chapter 8 the Lord's own ministry; in chapter 9, the ministry of the twelve; and now here in chapter 10, we have the ministry of the seventy. Observe, here it is added, "Whither He Himself would come." The thing that principally strikes us in this is, that the Lord was giving emphasis and every advantage and opportunity to this His closing ministry. He would send forth precursors and follow in their track, that the cities and villages might be without excuse. He was both the Labourer in the field, and the Lord of the harvest. He may have intimated that here, in sending precursors, as great men are wont to do. He carried the sense of the dignity of the Lord of the harvest, as well as of being an earnest-hearted labourer.

Now look for a little at the commission of the seventy. He gave them full notice of what they were to expect. Nothing provokes the world like testimony. Goodness will not suffer here. "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" But if you stand in the way of righteousness against the tide of moral evil and, still more, if you testify for Christ, you may count upon martyrdom. The reason we suffer so little is that we stand so little in testimony. They were not merely to witness of courteous civility between man and man, but of the serious things existing between God and sinners. Then, though they are in the midst of wolves, let their business be that of peacemakers. In verse 7, "In the same house remain." We had this in the mission of the twelve Do not be looking out for better fare. What a defiling thing, to see the followers of Christ seeking to make themselves comfortable here! Let the restraining, yielding principle mark your ways. Verse 9 presents again that combination which we were looking at some time ago. Christ stands out severely for the rights of God, and He does graciously for the necessities of sinners.

They were to say, "The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you," as well as to heal the sick. What a terrible verdict against this world, that God has to publish His kingdom in it! A well-regulated family would be insulted if you told the children to be in subjection to their parents, but that the world has to be told to be in subjection to God, only shows its true condition. "Go your ways" here is something more than courtesy. "Shake off the dust of your feet" an insulting kind of thing to do. Ah, this is the seriousness of the message. Let them learn, if they receive it not, in the most awful terms you can convey, how they have jeopardized themselves. In verse 17, they return and tell Him that the devils are subject to them. The moment they say this, He gets into the book of Revelation, where not only is there power to cast out devils from this body and that, but He penetrates to where, in the majesty of His authority, Satan shall be cast down. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning." In this the Lord shows Himself to be God.

Let us step aside for a moment, and ask, Have you been accustomed to think of Satan as being in heaven? We find him there in Job, in Kings, here, and in Ephesians; and in the Revelation we see him cast down from heaven. He has possession of the earth, and he is seeking to get possession of that which rules the earth. Now, the disciples come with a sample of power which is to be fully illustrated in Revelation.

Which is dearer to your hearts this moment your relationships or your circumstances? The Lord puts these balances into the hands of the disciples: You may have power on earth, but it ought not to be so dear to you as your family place in heaven. Did it open Adam's mouth when he was made lord of all around him? No. It was not opened by a sense of property or power; it was opened when he got relationship when he got Eve. Property ought to be nothing compared with affection.

How beautifully the Lord delineates what the heart ought to be! In the day of his coronation, Adam might have rejoiced, but in the day of his espousals, his mouth was opened; his heart had its property, and he was satisfied. "Rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." See how the Lord falls into the current of their joy for a moment. We ought to drop into the current of one another's joy. Then the Lord looks up to heaven and rejoices there. If you look at this utterance, and the same in Matthew 17, you will find a beautiful contrast. There it is the utterance of a heart relieved of its burden here, the utterance of a heart joyful with what had spread before it. Then He goes on with the joy as He turns to His disciples and says, in substance, Happy are ye (vv. 23, 24). I do not know that the Lord was ever happier than here, save yes, let us tell it for our comfort save when a poor, believing heart gave Him meat to eat that others knew not of. Angels may have joy over the repentant sinner, but they do not originate it; it is in their presence. It is beautiful to see God leading the joy of His creation. God leads the joy; the angels only echo it.

The Lord here gave Himself to the disciples. They returned with joy, and He entered into their joy and swelled it out. This is intruded upon in verse 25, and we see that, while the Lord can drop down to a gracious current, He knows how to meet a contrary current. You do not like to have your currents forced from their course, but the Lord puts up with it. The lawyer's intrusion is the worse for what it spoils. The Lord was rejoicing in grace, and the lawyer comes to trespass on every bit of it. The Lord turns to the intrusion at once. Now let me draw a contrast. The disciples, in John 4, beautifully took knowledge of His spirit, and stood back, holding themselves in silence. That is communion. The deepest and richest communion is often in silence. No one said, Why talkest Thou with her? Now this rude scribe knew nothing of the Master's spirit. A blessed thing to be disciples of the spirit of Christ to know something of His mind! This man comes, and the Lord turns in divine meekness and answers at once, "This do, and thou shalt live." If the law be consulted on a question of acquiring life, the Lord shows what it will say. But the lawyer was willing to justify himself, because, the moment we are put in a legal atmosphere, an effort must be made to reduce the demands of the law. We know little of the mind of God even in legislation, so we do all we can to reduce the law to our own capacity. So the lawyer put another question, little thinking the answer he would get. The Lord indites a parable, and He sketches, what? What was He forced to sketch? He was forced to sketch His own life and death, because His own life and death was the only illustration of neighbourly love which He could get. He could not escape an illustration that exhibited Himself; I speak it to His praise. We never touch the borders of neighbourly love but in the perfect life of Jesus.

"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead." Leaving him half dead there was our condition. He was ruined, but still his life was in him well for us our life was in us when we met Jesus. And by chance there passed by that way a priest and a Levite. We may take this up in two aspects. It is a striking characteristic of the impotency of the law to take up our condition; but the Lord shows too, here, that the representatives of the law did not keep what they taught. I learn here, to the eternal confusion of all lawyers, priests, and Levites, that they have never kept what they set forth. Were they authorized to pass by on the other side? The law will never do for me a sinner, or make its abettors and assertors the thing it would have them to be.

Why is the blessed Lord of glory called a Samaritan? Because He was a stranger. A stranger from heaven has come down to show neighbourly love on earth. He has come to exhibit to earth, what earth never could exhibit to itself. How did He do it? First, "He . . . came where he was." Who could unfold that duly! Did not the Lord do so with you? "And when he saw him, he had compassion." What is the source of all the salvation found in Him? Was there anything in you to draw it out or provoke it? No. Something in Him suggested it. The poor waylaid man was silent from first to last. Was not the poor prodigal silent when that clothed him with the best robe, and Joshua, while they "clothed him with garments," in Zechariah? There is no more blessed answer to the grace of God than the stillness of faith. Joshua, be silent while they clothe you from head to foot, and set a fair mitre on your head; poor waylaid man, let Him do to you as He will. The Lord acts from Himself at the suggestion of His own compassion. And he poured in oil and wine. He happened to have with him the very wealth that was suited to the man that lay in the road. The Lord Jesus came freighted with the very fullness that was fitted to your condition. "And set him on his own beast." He exchanged places with us. He was rich, and we were poor. He became poor that we might be rich.

Next, he had charged himself with the man, and he would look after him. That is the gospel, and that is neighbourly love. Again, I say, the blessed Lord was forced on a picture of Himself when He was asked, "Who is my neighbour?" And now, how are we to act the part of the Samaritan? We must begin by being debtors to Jesus, before we can follow Him in the neighbourly love be the waylaid man before we can be the Samaritan. How simply He unfolds the story of our necessity and His fullness.

Now we pass on to the house of Martha and Mary. We see the Lord in a social scene and, as we were observing before, this is the richest table at which we have seen Him; it is the richest exhibition of the Christ of the social scene that the evangelist presents. He was here not as a rebuker or a Saviour, as we have seen Him in other places, but as an intimate family friend; and by this scene He has sanctified a Christian household. The presence of Jesus to this day will take hospitality at such a place, in the person of His poor members. The Lord lifts up a picture for our admiration, and we shall have it by-and-by, for heaven itself is but an extended scene of family affection. May the Lord grant you and me to dwell in desire of it. Amen.

Luke 11

We will now meditate on chapter 11. We are tracing certain characteristics in the Lord's ministry. Here we find the minds of the disciples in what we may call a very interesting moment. They were learning the necessity of taking the new creation place. The law never taught them that. Prayer is the expression of dependence-the law taught them independence. The soul was insensibly learning its necessities, though not formally, or dispensationally, till after Christ's death. John went beyond Moses; his disciples wanted to be taught to pray. So it is here, with the disciples of the Lord. Then, as the perfect minister of their souls, He sets Himself to teach them, and you find a form of prayer. He suits His words to their then condition. Prayer is the expression of the heart in its present condition.

Then He speaks of man going to a friend at midnight and asking for three loaves. "And he from within"; these are pregnant words! Are you "within"? It is a dangerous condition in this world. What I mean by that is, losing your sympathies with the joys and sorrows around you. So the Lord shows out God's grace on the dark ground of that man's selfishness. You have not to "ask" and "seek" and "knock"; that is importunity. But "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." See the divine readiness in answer to human necessities. Never say importunity is needed to move God. At your leisure read Daniel 10. For "three full weeks" Daniel was chastening his heart before God, and no answer was given At the end of that time the answer came; and how? The angel told him that as soon as ever he began to pray, he was heard; but a certain transaction that was going on in heaven, hindered the answer. He went on in importunity for three weeks, but as soon as ever he had prayed, he was heard. So you may have been praying for a long time, and getting no answer, but be sure the interval has been well employed; if not in heaven, in the chastening of your spirit. This beautifully illustrates what we get here. There is no reluctancy in God not that selfishness to be overcome that there was in the man at midnight but there may be reasons to delay the answer, and when it does come, it may be in a way you are little prepared for. Paul prayed three times, and the thorn was not taken away; but the answer came at last, and in a way he had not expected. The thorn was left until the day of his death, but he was given grace by which he could triumph in it.

When the Lord has thus commented on prayer, he enters (v. 14) on a solemn scene. Two antagonist thoughts come up to Christ. The Lord was constantly enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself. The one set of people came to charge Him with casting out devils by Beelzebub; the other, tempting Him, sought of Him a sign from heaven; the first of these represents perverted religion; the second represents infidelity. We will look at these for a little. We have the same thing to meet to this hour. The Lord takes up the first of these. He begins to address those who say He cast out devils by the prince of the devils. Mark, here is exquisite beauty. "If Satan . . . be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?" He begins by the gentler argument. I wish you and I copied Him in the beauty of His style and in the truth of His substance His style was inimitable as His substance was perfect. In answering this contradiction, He begins by showing them the folly of their thought. Would Satan be so foolish? Why are you so senseless?

Now, His argument is addressed to themselves: Let us go back to your favourite, David, when he tuned his harp and delivered Saul from the evil spirit. The carnal mind is not enmity to David, but to God. How He presses in on their consciences! "By whom do your sons cast them out?" Now, He is approaching the serious part of the matter No doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you; therefore, take care what you are about. The very style in which He conducts the argument has a beauty and an order. He begins by the gentler argument and then goes on to the stronger, and He says, Take care; you are on dangerous ground. Then He indites the parable of the strong man to show that it was by the finger of God He cast them out. The strong man only gets his house rifled by a stronger than himself. God alone is stronger than Satan. We have already been conquered and made slaves by the devil, so that when we get him bound in this world, God alone has done it, for no child of man could. If I see anyone stronger than Satan in this world, I have a witness that God is here. He shows that what Satan is doing, he is doing in collision with God that his bruiser has appeared. That is what He taught Satan in the wilderness. Satan is not afraid of us, but he has more than his match in the Son of God. He is bold as a lion when he comes to you and me, but he trembles in the presence of Christ.

Now, in verse 23, He draws a very solemn conclusion. The battle is proclaimed, and there is no neutrality. God has made the world the scene of the conflict in which the question between Himself and Satan is to be decided, the fruit of which is to occupy eternity. The voice goes forth: "He that is not with Me is against Me." Then when the Lord had thus solemnly sounded the voice of the trumpet across the field the blast of the silver trumpet, proclaiming war, in verse 24 He sketches a very solemn sight, where we may linger a little. It is a most pregnant, awful picture. It was illustrated in Israel, and I believe will be in Christendom. The besom of Babylon may have swept the house of Israel, and to this day they may abominate idols, but a clean house may be just as fit for Satan as an unclean one; reformation will not do. So it is with Christendom. I trust there is not a single heart here that trusts in reformation. We are all thankful for that which gives us the privilege of sitting here together in peace; mere Protestantism will not do. The Lord teaches us that the swept and garnished house may be worse than before. What has taken the place of idols in reformed Christendom? Is it knowledge of Jesus? Yes, in His own elect; but human vanities have conducted man in Christendom by the same path as the Jew. It is only hurrying on to a matured form of apostate iniquity.

Then He turns to those who were requiring a sign, and says, "There shall no sign be given." Now, why was it ever said to Christ? Show us a sign from heaven? Worldliness dictated it. They wanted a Christ that would astonish the world. The Lord would not and could not answer that. If you and I could not accept our Jesus in rejection, we shall never have Him in glory. Shall I think to see my Lord glorified in a defiled world, in the midst of such moral elements as fill it? He will give no sign here. If He is accepted, it must be under the sign of the prophet Jonas not with a crown on His head, but buffeted and spit upon. Instead of giving a sign from heaven, He gives one from the bowels of the earth, in death and humiliation.

Next He gives the beautiful instance of the Queen of Sheba. Her conscience and affections were stirred when she heard that Solomon had the knowledge of God. ' When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD" (1 Kings 10: 1), she took the long journey from the South to Jerusalem, just to find out God. What suited the conscience of the men of Nineveh? Jonah's words. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Then the king clothed himself with sackcloth. What a ridiculous thing to put horses and sheep in sackcloth! Who can measure the throes and compunctions of an awakened conscience! You may sit and analyze and criticize, but it will give no account to you. It is blessed to see, as in the stricken cases nowadays, that the convicted conscience cannot stand upon measure. Send us a sign, they said. No, says the Lord, You must believe on Me with your conscience.

While the Lord was about to answer the second of these questions, there was a woman in the company whose affection was stirred. Now tell me, do you not often find human affections stirred under the cross? The daughters of Jerusalem took their places apart from the prosecutors. Now I am not to trust this excitement of nature, but I am not to treat it as vile. There may have been a crop for Jesus in it a blessing in the cluster. You may be prepared for a variety of moral activities nowadays. The Lord says to this poor woman, There is a mistake in your judgment; rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. Connection with Christ is to be spiritual and not fleshly, divine and not human. Do you not delight to know that nothing less than your necessity as sinners is to form the link between you and Jesus? Anything else would snap asunder like the withes that bound Samson.

Luke 12

At the close of chapter 11 we see the Lord at the house of a Pharisee again. He does not sit in the house of Bethany in the same character as He does here. Such is the multiform beauty of the Lord. We see Him at the houses of three different Pharisees, in Luke 7, Luke 11, and Luke 14. And here is one beauty of the mind of Christ He was ever set upon distinguishing things that differ. In that way He illustrated one of the divine properties, as we read in Hannah's song "The LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." The Lord was a God of knowledge, always weighing actions; but He never weighed an action in its relation to Himself, but in its relation to God and the person acting. He would pass by an affront offered to Himself (as in the Samaritan villagers), but He would stand firmly against an affront offered to God, as when He made a whip of small cords and drove out the moneychangers from the house of God. We are all prone to judge of actions in relationship to ourselves. That is not Christ, but ruined nature. The Lord might be flattered, and He would not be perverted. It is just as easy for human nature to be perverted by flattery, as to be made angry by an affront. There is scarcely a single person who is not tempted to value or misappreciate actions by the way in which they affect himself. You and I soon become the captives of a little flattery. If Peter had said to you in kindly humanity, That be far from thee, would you have said, Get thee behind me? I will answer for you, No. But Peter's softness was not enough to provoke easiness in Christ.

If you examine at your leisure these three Pharisees, in their moral condition, you will find that the Lord had the balances in His hand in each case. All Pharisees were not the same. Some were amiable, some besotted; some led, and some leading; but Christ distinguished between them all. The Pharisee of this chapter, of course, was courteous like the others, and the Lord accepted it, for He was the social Son of man, and came eating and drinking; but He was judging all the time. The Pharisee wondered that He had not "first washed before dinner," and the Lord answered him, and went on with earnest-hearted rebuke, verse after verse, to the end. I should have wondered to read such rebukes after such a simple remark, but wait a little. No rough word or providence will ever cross your path that He will not be able to vindicate The last verses are His vindication here. He discerned what was underneath the flattery a hypocritical enmity to Christ, and here it comes out in the end. They were "laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him." You will not find that He treats Simon, in Luke 7, in the same manner. He knew there was a different pulse in him, and there was not the peremptory stern rebuke, but, "Come now, and let us reason together." "Simon, I have some what to say unto thee." Do not go clumsily through society. Carry the balances of God with you. So did the Lord.

Luke 12 is the appendix to the scene in the Pharisee's house. He speaks to the multitude and warns them against hypocrisy. He had just been the victim of it, and the Lord always takes a natural text. He did so in John 4. There the water was His text, and here His text is naturally the scene in the Pharisee's house. In verses 2 and 3 He shows the folly of it. If you and I walked in the light of eternity, everything that had not reality would be arrant folly to us. What a fine style the Lord can use when He chooses! For the soft whispered slander in the ear, the day shall come when the angel of the Lord shall proclaim it on the housetop. There is the answer to the insinuations that go abroad in well-conducted society.

The next subject is that of fear the fear of man and see how beautifully the Lord discusses it. The words of Jesus would give you a well-regulated mind, but your mind must first own its relationship to God as its great paramount circumstance. Now He tells you, if fear finds a place in your mind, not to fear man but God. Then He goes on to show how, if you fear God, you need not fear as a slave, but as a son; not servilely, but with confiding reverence. Take Him up in this blessed way; there is not a single hair of your head that He has not numbered. Would you stand in fear before a friend who has numbered your hairs that you might not lose one That is the way to extract fear. Then He goes on to say, in verses 8 and 9, Now you who confess Me, do not fear the Pharisees. Confess Me, for a day is coming when I will confess you. Could any reasoning be more perfect to extract fear from the heart? If you confess Me before perishing men, I will confess you before the indestructible glory of God. Then He goes on, "Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." You and I are the vessels of the Holy Ghost. A personal insult to the Son of man might be forgiven, but refusal of that which the Church carries is without remedy.

Now having disposed of fear, He takes up the subject of worldliness. "One of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me," and the Lord answers, Do you not understand Me? Is it Me business to make a man richer in this world? The Lord has promised deep peace to His people, but never honour or wealth. This man mistook His mission, so He now preached a sermon on covetousness, and He gives a striking parable. Now, is the plentiful bringing forth of the ground evil? No. There is nothing evil in a good harvest. Plentifulness is a mercy, but I will tell you what is in it not evil, but danger. And so it proved with the man in the parable; for he began to turn it to the account of his earthly mind, instead of to the account of the Lord paramount of the soil; and if people are in a thriving way of life, very right, I say, to employ their hands and skill, and it is a mercy if the crop be plentiful, but there is danger in it.

Then from verse 22, He goes on in that exquisite discourse of which, if one did not speak a word on it, the very reading is edification. I am sure of this, that the life of faith and hope is the only deliverance from worldliness. In the keen, discerning, vivid mind of Christ, that is what He shows us in this discourse. A man may be blameless and harmless, and yet he is a worldly man if he is not nourishing the life of faith and hope. Go and get lessons from the ravens and lilies. "Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not." Do you welcome such a lesson as that? Do you love to have the subtilty of a worldly mind shown to you? The love of present things rests itself most sweetly in the heart of man. If I am not trusting in God and waiting for glory, I am exposed by the Lord here as having a worldly mind. If in the Book there is a chapter of moral power, it is this. Get the girdle around your loins, the lamp of hope in your hand, and you will be delivered from worldliness not waiting for bigger barns, but for the Lord. Does not this beautiful style extricate us for a moment? Ah, if it were kept fresh in our affections all the day long, I will answer for it, our wretched hearts would not be worldly.

Now, He shows that if thus waited for, when He comes, He will change places. You wait on Him now; He will wait on you when He comes. No longer wonder at the certain Samaritan. The travelling Samaritan changes places, and here the girded Lord serves. Love could do nothing more than that. This is love to a neighbour indeed. He will practice it in glory as He did in degradation. These words are easily read, but I ask you one thing: Could they be exceeded? Do you think it hard to gird your loins in waiting for such a master? He will not find it a hard matter to gird Himself and to wait on your joy. Thus speaking, Peter interrupts Him. In this Gospel He is constantly interrupted, because the Lord is here drawing out the human mind to give the passions of the heart their answer. He lets man expose himself. So Peter says, "Speakest Thou this parable unto us?" and the Lord answers, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household?" Again He changes places. If I only wait for Him in heart, He will gird Himself; but if I go forth and serve Him in hand and foot, He will make me ruler. Do you not call Him "Lord" as well as "Saviour"? Then He will make you lord.

Next He distinguishes about the many and few stripes. He was carrying the moral balances here not judicial. He did not come to judge, but by-and-by the day will come when He will hold the balances of righteousness and be as accurate there as He was here. If He did not confound the Pharisees, He will not confound His servants. It is a great relief to the heart to know that a day of retributive justice is coming. There is not a single moral action you ought not to judge; but retributive judgment awaits another day.

In verse 54 He turns again to glance at the request, Show us a sign. "Ye hypocrites," you are asking a sign; now do you not discern the west wind laid up as a forerunner of heat? Now, where are you to get your forerunner? In Scripture, of course, where they ought to have got theirs, like the wind and cloud, to tell them what was coming. Look at Me, He says, in poverty and fullness, and witness that God has come among you.

In the last two verses, He glances back at the man who asked Him to be a divider. You have been dragging your brother to a magistrate. Another is dragging you, and I would advise you to make terms with him Moses, the law of God. Make all diligence, for I tell you, if once you get there, you will not get away till you answer the demands of the throne of God. Could anyone here do it? If you cannot stand before the throne of God, you are not saved.

So, while that beautiful chapter morally addresses itself to saints, it closes by a word addressed to the conscience of man.

Oh, how one longs to feel the girdle a little tighter, and to walk in the light of the lamp of expectation, and "abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."

Luke 13

I believe that in this chapter the Lord's thoughts from beginning to end are in company with Israel and Jerusalem. Many things filled the Lord's eye the world, and the land of Israel, and, in the land, the city. So it will be, no doubt in the Millennium the nations, with Israel as the metropolitan part of the earth, with Jerusalem in their midst. In this rich, varied scenery, the Church holds a special part in peculiar relationship to Christ.

Are you not charmed when thoughts flow naturally? We do not like anything artificial. The Lord here had a piece of the news of the day brought to Him. He hears it, as it may be, and at once tells how to make use of it. The style is homely; you do not want to be in a foreign land with Christ. At once He turns and says, Do you think that those were sinners above all? No; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish. Now, this is not exactly the doom of sinners. It is true, if we do not believe, we have no life; but here the Lord had the nation in His mind, and if they did not repent, they would perish. The blood of the Galileans, shed by a Roman soldier, stood out as representing the judgment coming on the nation generally.

Then there is exceeding prophetic beauty in the tower of Siloam. The judgment of Israel was the judgment of the descending stone. Upon whomsoever that stone should fall, it should grind him to powder. There is exquisite beauty in this, and perfect prophetic truthfulness. I grant you, sinners will perish, but the Lord's mind is more perfect than yours. He is looking at Jerusalem's condition as ripe for the judgment of God.

Having said this, He indites the parable of the fig tree. This is just a beautiful parabolic picture of what the Lord had been doing with Israel. He was travelling through the land for three years in long-suffering. Did you ever mark the departing glory in Ezekiel? how it lingers, passing from cherubim to cherubim, loath to leave its ancient place? So loath is the divine favour to leave an object that has engaged it. And will you not allow the Lord to be reluctant in withdrawing Himself from a nation that has so much engaged Him? The whole ministry of Jesus was the lingering of the love of God over unrepentant Israel. Suppose He had executed judgment when the Bethlehemite was refused; Israel would have perished. But He lingered for three years. Righteousness from the throne said, "Cut it down"; grace in the vinedresser said, "Let it alone." The three years spent themselves, and then, after that, He cut it down.

The tower of Siloam fell-the sword of the Roman came in and did the work of judgment. Now there comes the woman with the spirit of infirmity, and the ruler; and here comes out the secret of all the terrible judgment the Lord had been anticipating. Judgment is His strange work. He is provoked to judgment grace is from Himself. The stone that fell was provoked by the unfruitful disappointment of the fig tree He had dressed year after year. Judgment is provoked; grace springs naturally. Why did salvation ever visit us? Did our good works provoke it? God's nature was the provocation of salvation; sin provoked judgment. It is blessed to see how God stands vindicated before all our thoughts.

The ruler is indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day. Here was the representative of the need of Israel, standing out in the poor woman, and the representative or the moral condition of Israel standing out in the ruler that talked about healing for six days. You know what John Newton says: "If the most patient man that ever lived had the ruling of the earth, he could not stand it for a single hour." What do you do with your ass on the Sabbath day? says the Lord. How He exposes the man to himself, that he positively valued his ass more than his fellow creature! Then, having looked at this terrible apostasy, He goes on in the parable following to keep apostasy in view. It is the story of the kingdom of God, as well as the kingdom of Israel. We are in that story and not a whit better than Israel. It is a leavened thing a thing that lodges the unclean birds. Can you rest yourself in Christendom? The birds of the air have found a home there. Can you? Or are you walking as a stranger there? Too often strangership is overborne by citizenship; but the mind of Christ can never rest in such a world. The Lord's eye passes on, that you and I may be rebuked, as well as Israel.

In verse 22 He is pursuing His way to Jerusalem. Did you ever observe in the structure of Luke's Gospel that the great bulk of it is made up of the Lord's doings and teachings on the journey to Jerusalem? You see Him in chapters 9, 13, and 18 on His way; but He is looking at the distant city, in different places, in different lights. In chapter 9, it is as the place that was to witness His ascension; here, as the place about to fill up the measure of its sin by crucifying Him; and in chapter 18, as the place where He was to finish His journey as the Lamb of God. The mind of Christ is a beautiful thing, dealing with everything variously, yet accurately. Do you not long for such a fruitful mind?

Now as He is thus addressing Himself to the journey, one says to Him, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" No doubt the man saw something in His eye that awakened the question. No doubt those that marked His bearing often saw something significant in it, as when the disciples held back in chapter 4 of John. So here, as He went on, one said, "Are there few that be saved?" Does He say "few" or "many"? Does He answer categorically? No. There is a style among ourselves that is often painful. You hear people say, Is he a Christian Is he a Christian? We are not to confound light and darkness, but we ought not to answer such naked questions so serious in their : import. He does not say "many" or "few," but, You seek to get in. He looks at the inquirer, not the inquiry.

Are the striving and seeking in verse 24 merely different measures of the same thing? No. They are not different measures of intensity, but different actions. The man that seeks does so after the master of the house is risen up at the last moment but see that you begin beforehand. Do not let the rising up put you in that attitude of a seeker. Take the ground of Christ now, not the terror of a seeker then. The Lord's ministry dealt with three persons God, Satan, and man. For a little moment let me present a few qualities of His ministry as addressed to man. He was ever exposing, relieving, and exercising him. He was letting him see himself to be a poor worthless thing, and then relieving him. Is it not blessed to see Him exposing your wretchedness, and providing relief out of it? We have to do with a faithful friend, not a flattering friend. But while exposing and relieving, He was exercising too. He called the conscience and heart into activity. Was He not putting the conscience of this man on a goodly piece of moral activity? If you could part . with one of these things, the ministry of Christ would be defective. Then the Lord goes on to show the plea the seeker may put in. But "depart from Me." It will not do. He pleads his privileges and intimacy. "We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets." "Depart from Me." It will not do. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." What is the difference between the two? Do not confound them. Weeping is the expression of sorrow: gnashing of teeth is the expression of wickedness, as in Stephen's case, when they "gnashed upon him with their teeth." The incurred iniquity and villainy of the human heart is there, and they know it for ever. If the condemned soul carries its sorrow, it carries its enmity too forever. These are serious thoughts.

Now we find the Lord approaching the city and He comes into Herod's jurisdiction, and they say to Him, "Depart hence; for Herod will kill Thee." "Go... tell that fox," He answers. How He looked in the face of that monster and let him know He would move on unfearing. He exposes him as a fox and reveals Himself by the similitude of the hen. This is the story of Israel. They refused the hen, and preferred the fox; and, because of the mountain of Israel that lies desolate, the Roman foxes and the Turk and the Arab have walked there. Jesus would have gathered them, but they would not; and the foxes shall walk there till He that can gather as the hen is received, and they shall say, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." When they shall turn to the Lord, and the veil be taken away, and He, as the gathering hen, be accepted, in the homely style of this beautiful figure, Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the earth with fruit.

Read Isaiah 54 and Luke 15 and you will find yourself in company with the same God of grace. In Isaiah 54, Jerusalem is looked at as a widowed thing. The Lord had said, "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement?" Did I get tired of her? But in chapter there is not a thought of divorcement but widowhood. In chapter 15 of Luke, when the prodigal is introduced, is it, This is my wicked son? No, but, My lost and dead son. Oh, the tenderness and beauty of this! He does not wish to keep our iniquity in remembrance, but our sorrow, and will not introduce Jerusalem as a thing once put to shame, but as one long in sorrow and widowhood. The divine eye has no capacity to look on that which is worthless, but on that which is dead, and alive again, lost and found. Why has the Lord so little of our hearts? Just because we so little know Him. May He reveal Himself to each one of us, and discover Himself before the thoughts of our souls. Amen.

Luke 14 and Luke 15

Put together, these are wonderful chapters. In the first, the Lord visits our world; in the second, we visit His. In the 14th, He makes Himself acquainted with our ways; in the 15th, we are called to acquaint ourselves with His. This is the grand moral distinction between the two chapters, and nothing can exceed them in interest. In the 14th chapter we find that nothing satisfies Him. Are you prepared for this conclusion? There is nothing thoroughly according to His mind. In the 15th, everything is suited to Him, and if we were divinely intelligent and divinely sensitive, we should find that nothing in man's world and everything in Christ's world would do for us. It is the grand character of the Apocalypse, that there is not a thing in it but suits the mind of the glorified Church

Chapter 14 opens by the Lord's being invited to eat bread in a Pharisee's house, and, as He enters, at once all the sympathies of His mind are intruded on. The house is a type of man's world. As He went in, "they watched Him," and there came in a poor man that had the dropsy, and He asked them, "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" Now why did they hold their peace? It was a hypocritical silence. They ought to have answered, but they wanted to catch Him. Oh! what wretched, miserable tricks these hearts of ours can play! Your heart is under the lion and serpent violence and subtlety Satan is represented as both these. The Lord healed him, and then said to them, "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?" Ought not you to have gathered your answer to the question from your own ways? The Lord takes us on our own showing, and exposes us out of our own mouth and our own ways. I do not need anyone to show me what I am; I know very well.

In verse 7, He has entered the house and looked around. That is exactly where we fail. We are so much taken up with ourselves that we do not look around to see things with the eyes of the Lord. The Lord came with the heart and resources of God to dispense blessing, but with the eye and ear and sensibility of God, to acquaint Himself with the moral of the scene here. What does He see here? First, the guests, and they do not please Him. He saw they chose the highest rooms. Now suppose you had the eye of God, and looked on the scene around you, day by day; would you not see the same thing? We savour too much of it ourselves, and therefore cannot testify against it. Christ was infinitely pure, so that He could detect the smallest bit of impurity. He saw that it was pride that animated the scene under His eye, and you and I must have very false notions of what is abroad if we do not see the same thing. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life mark the spirit that animates the activities around us.

Now He looked at the host, but there was no relief for Him there. Selfishness in another form shows itself to Him. It was not the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind that the Pharisee asked to his feast; but his rich neighbours were seated on his right hand and on his left. Here the heart of Christ tells itself out in calling those who cannot recompense Him. It is very happy that Christ cannot be pleased with your world. What would your Lord Jesus be to you if He could put up with such a world? If Christ could have found sympathy with man's world as delineated here, you and I should never have been saved. He acted on directly contrary principles.

Now, one of the company says, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God" a gracious movement, I believe. I do not say whether it ended in good or not but a certain gracious instant passed over the soul. The Lord was not unaffected by it. He pays attention to the interruption. Oh, the precious and perfect humanity of Jesus! His deity was equal to the Father's; His humanity was equal to yours and mine, not in its corruption, but in all the beautiful traits that could adorn it in its perfection. He waits and indites the parable of the marriage supper. The man had said, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," and the Lord brings out this parable to exhibit eating bread in the kingdom of God. This shows that the Lord is willing to wait on the secret stirring of your spirit, and give it a suited response; and that word of the man that sat at table gives Him occasion to expand before his eyes a feast spread in the heavenly country; and, oh! what a different one from that here. Not one of the bidden guests came. No, and not a single bidden guest since Adam will be at that table. What do I mean? There must be more than an invitation. God must fill the chairs as w-ell as the table. He must force His guests in, as well as fill the board. He sends His servant, and says, "Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." There is a peep into heaven. Did you ever know such a place in all your life? The richest feast ever seen, and not one at it that has not been compelled to come in! And does God put up with this? If there had only been the mission of the Son, there would never have been a single guest. If there had only been the mission of the Holy Ghost, there would have been no feast spread. What a wonderful exhibition of the love of God! If you had prepared a kindness for another, would you like to find an indisposed heart in him? No, you would not ask him again, but would say, Let him go and get what he values more. But there is the double mission of the Son and the Spirit. The Son prepares the feast, and the Spirit prepares the guests. So there is not a single merely bidden guest there; they are compelled guests. What a wretched exhibition of the heart you carry! One has bought a piece of ground, another has bought five yoke of oxen. Anything but the Lord's feast. This is the contrast between God's table and man's.

When the Lord had delivered the parable, as He was leaving the house, great multitudes followed Him; and He turned and said, "Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." Now, how do you treat the Lord Jesus? Do you look at Him as a pattern an example? Well, you will say, I ought to do so, and I grant it; but you and I are thoroughly wrong if our first communion with Him is as a pattern; it must be as with a Saviour. The multitudes followed Him as a pattern, and the Lord says, If you will be like Me, you must give up everything.

The next chapter opens with publicans and sinners, and there is communion of soul with Him as a Saviour. The moment the Lord got that object, He was at home. He passes on through all till "publicans and sinners" draw near to Him. He had entered and left the Pharisee's house, and His spirit had not breathed a comfortable atmosphere; but when a poor sinner comes and looks at Him, that moment His whole heart gave itself out, and uttered itself in the three beautiful parts that follow.

It is impossible to follow the spirit of Christ in this chapter without being comforted. Could I know Christ as I would know Him if He could find a home in my world? No! but He says, If I cannot find a home here, you come and find a home with Me. You have disappointed Me, but I will not disappoint you. As one said once, "In preaching the gospel, the Lord said, 'Well, if I cannot trust you, you must trust Me.'" It is another version of the same thought here, and these beautiful illustrations show one leading and commanding truth that God's world is made happy by sinners getting into it. Do you believe that you, as a sinner, are important to heaven? Whether you believe it or not, it is true. It is not our gain in the matter of salvation that is presented here, but God's joy, and that only. He takes these homely figures that our thoughts may not be distracted, and that you may learn that you are lost; but you learn, too, the joy of God in recovering you. I do not believe a richer thought can enter the soul of man. I sit down in heaven, not as a recovered sinner only, but as one whose recovery has formed the joy of heaven. Now you are at Christ's table, in Christ's world, and you see what kind of a place it is. As for the poor lost sheep, if left to itself it would only have wandered farther still; and as for the piece of money, it would have lain there to this hour if the woman had not searched diligently till she found it.

Now let us combine these two chapters. In chapter 14, you get the words, "compel them to come in," and in chapter 15, you get the prodigal compelled. We were observing the missions of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost never gives me my title to glory, but He enables me to read it. If I could not read it, it would be of no use to me. Now, I ask, what is this compulsion? It is not against your will, but you are made willing. Take, for instance, the prodigal. When he was brought to his last penny and began to be in want, he came to himself. This was the beginning of the compelling, when the poor prodigal opened his eyes to his condition. What did the Lord do to the heart of Lydia? He opened it, and her opened heart listened to what Paul spoke. The mighty compelling power showed itself here when the poor prodigal looked around on his condition and said, What shall I do? The Holy Ghost makes you willing when He makes you see your need, and that death and judgment are before you. He stirs you up by this till He puts you on the road to God. One poor soul says, I had better begin to look out for eternity; another is terrified by the thought of death and judgment. He will take you in any way. The thing is to get your back to the land where once you lingered. The poor prodigal says, I will arise; I have found out the end of my own doings; I will go to my father; and back he goes, and back he is welcomed! The story of the prodigal beautifully illustrates the compelling of the previous chapter. Zaccheus wished to see Jesus one morning, and up he got into the tree. That was the compelling of the Holy Ghost. Oh, what two chapters! Christ disappointed in your world, and you satiated in Christ's world!

Luke 16

We have now reached chapter 16, and it is a serious chapter. We have been, in one sense, on very happy chapters in the last two, and have seen how the Lord visited our world, and how we are to visit His world how nothing in our world pleased Him, but everything in His own. It should be so with us. If we are right-minded we cannot find a home here. Man's apostate condition has built this world, and it is a painful thing to build a house and not be happy in it; yet it should be so with us. You have built a house here, and Christ has built a house in the heavens. Do you cultivate the mind of a stranger in this world, and of a citizen in the heavens?

Having gone through this wonderful moral scenery, we enter on Luke 16 a continuation of the same scene. If there is a serious chapter in this Gospel, it is this one. The Lord begins by the parable of the unjust steward; and before we go further let me call your mind to the word "wasted," in the case of the prodigal. It was just what he had done, and it is the business of this parable to show that the elder brother may do just what the younger did. He may be a very respectable waster; there are hundreds of thousands of such in the world, and high in the credit of the world they stand; but, weighed in God's balances, they are just as much wasters as this dissolute prodigal. If we do not carry ourselves as stewards of God, we are wasters If I am using myself and what I have as if they were my own, in the divine reckoning I am a waster. This lays the axe deep at the root of every tree. The elder brother thought he was not a waster; but let me ask you, if you are living for this world, and using what you have as if it were your own, are you not an unfaithful steward and, if so, are you not a waster? Here is a steward. We are not told how he spent his money, but it is enough to know that he was not faithful to his master. Then we see how the Lord goes on to draw out the reasoning of a man like that. He lived for this world laid plans about his history in this world and not in the next. The moral is beautifully laid to you and to me. As that man laid out his plans for this world, so you should lay up your plans for Christ's future world. If you live to yourself, do you not deny your stewardship to the Lord?

Then the Pharisees who heard Him derided Him. To be sure they must! It was a heavenly principle, and the were covetous. Covetousness is living for this world, and we are covetous just so far as we are laying our plans for this world. Now, when you find corruptions in yourself, what do you do? Do not let corruptions lead you to give up Christ, but to put on your armour. The Pharisees derided Him, and what did the Lord say to them? "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men." This is just what we w-ere saying. The elder brother may be highly esteemed among men, but "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

We are now introduced to the rich man. Tell me, has this passage been repulsive to you, rather than attractive? There seems something rather repulsive in it, but let us look at it. Observe the difference between the rich man and the prodigal. The prodigal "came to himself" before it was too late, and the rich man, after the door was shut. The prodigal was dissolute and abandoned, and when he came to himself he thought of his sin. The rich man came to himself in the place of judgment, and did not think of his sins, but of his misery. The prodigal came to himself in the midst of his misery here the rich man, in the midst of his torment there.

That is all the difference. The prodigal said, I will go back; what a sinner and a rebel son I have been! There was nothing of that gracious stirring in the spirit of the rich man when he lifted up his head in flames. The prodigal had not to finish the first sentence; the father answered him on the spot, and put on him a ring and the best robe, and killed the fatted calf; but the rich man cried again and again. It was too late. Here is the end of the respectable waster. Why do I call him a waster? Will you tell me he called himself a steward of God while he was living sumptuously every day, with a saint of God lying at his gate? I am bold to say you and I are just the same if we are living to ourselves. This man died a respectable waster, full of honour and gratification. He had no misery to call him to himself. Have you ever contrasted these two pictures? It has changed this picture from repulsion to attraction.

Luke 17

In the opening of chapter 17, the Lord applies all this. "It is impossible but that offenses will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." I call upon each one to listen to this. To offend one of these little ones is to be on the way to the judgment of the millstone. In Revelation 18, we see Babylon under the judgment of the millstone; and here the Lord sees, in the offending of a little one, something that savours of the same thing. Now what is it to offend? Beloved, the Church of God is His little one a cypher in the eyes of the world, but everything in the sight of God, and you and I ought to take care of any course of conduct that might stumble the little one. So far as I am living in this world, I am savouring of offense, having gone back to that out of which the grace of God had called me. Do you and I go through the circumstances of each day in the spirit of service to everything around us? That is the spirit of the little one. That is the beauty of the Church of God, and of every saint in the world. The moment you act as if you were privileged to dispose of circumstances after your own pleasure, you are an offender.

"If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him." That is serving his soul. We should seek for grace to walk through circumstances as serving Christ and our neighbour. Christ is to be our Lord as well as our Saviour. He is a Saviour inasmuch as He saves for eternity a Lord inasmuch as He demands our time. This beautiful combination is exactly what Peter talks of, "our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." There were some (2 Peter 2: 1) who talked about Christ as a Saviour, while denying His lordship practically. The Spirit is fruitful in revelations of grace and in admonitions of holiness. They cry out, "Lord, Increase our faith," for this is a terrible demand on us: and the Lord says, Ah, faith is the very thing that will do that for you. Faith is the very thing that God brings in, and then all things are possible. You might pluck up the roots of nature, and send them to be planted in the distant sea, in mortifying the flesh. There are two beautiful virtues of faith here, while it is a principle of self-emptying. "When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants."

If I can meet a temptation with the Lord Jesus, I have the stronger man with me, and I overcome, and then come back and say, I have done that which it was my duty to do. There is an import in this chapter that makes it infinitely valuable.

Luke 17: 11 to Luke 18: 8, must be read together. We are still with the Lord on His way to Jerusalem. The historic structure of Luke delineates the different stages of His journey up to the city. Now, as He passed through Samaria and Galilee, He came upon a certain village, and was met by ten lepers taking the place in which their leprosy put them, standing afar off. We find in Leviticus the divine dealing with leprosy. It was set apart among the plagues that visit human nature to represent sin, and to show what God would do with it. The leper was first put outside the camp, and that is just where sin puts you and me. Have you any business or right to put a spot on the fair creation of God? No, you have not; and therefore to represent that, the leper was put outside the camp; and his business there was to learn what he was. Your first business as a sinner is to learn that exile from God becomes you. So he lifted up his hands and cried, "Unclean, unclean." This, in evangelic language, is called conviction. There he is, left outside; and with whom? None in the whole creation but God. His friends and neighbours were put afar off. So none can meet our necessity but Christ. Then he was cleansed, brought back to the camp, and the priest received him back. This represents sin in its fruit and penalty, and the way in which God takes it up and deals with it.

These lepers cry, "Master, have mercy on us." This was not the language of faith, but of misery; but the Lord has an ear for the voice of misery. He had an ear for the voice of Hagar when she wandered in the wilderness; and now from their misery they howled out, "Have mercy on us," and He had mercy. "Go show yourselves unto the priests," He said; and they went, and as they went they were healed. This was the proof that they had been in God's presence that the Jesus who had spoken, was none less than God Himself, because if we look again at Leviticus we shall find that none but God had a right to speak to a leper. This just shows us that we in our sin can go to none but Jesus; if we go to any other, we have not learned what sin is that it shuts us out from all but Him. Our necessity is such that if we do not reach Christ, we do not reach blessing. The nine lepers had not discovered this; only one read the healing aright. Nine-tenths of those who hear a sermon will let it pass by. Another will ponder it and learn Christ. That was the tenth leper. He was stirred up to ponder what was done; and, instead of going to the priest, he returned to Jesus and laid his offerings at the feet of God his Saviour. This was faith; "with a loud voice" he "glorified God." The other cry was misery. He had discovered who the stranger was, and he was down on his face glorifying God. He who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," at once goes in and occupies God's relation to their misery. There is a difference between misery and faith. Did you cry to me when you howled on your beds? says the prophet. No, you did not. Yet many a one begins his eternity of joy with the howling of misery.

In verse 20 we find Him again in company with the Pharisees. How exquisitely interesting it is to trace the moral scenery that constituted the path of Christ! Here they asked when the kingdom of God should come. What a vain an insolent inquiry! What I mean is this: it was as if they had said, Oh, we are ready for the kingdom the only question is, when the kingdom will be ready for us. At once the Lord answers the condition of their souls. You must look for the kingdom within you before you can get it around. Do you not vindicate the Lord in such words? You are never ready for the kingdom in glory, till you have the kingdom within you. And having thus disposed of their question, He turns to the disciples and speaks to them of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is a self-evidencing thing. Whenever it erects itself, it does not need a witness. Does the sun or the moon, the thunder or the lightning require a witness? They bear witness to themselves. Are you conscious that God has set up His kingdom within you? Paul says, "The kingdom of God is . . . righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Rom. 14: 17. Now, can you have such a thing in you and not know it? It may be in feebleness. There is many a poor trembling soul whose tremblings are evidence to those who look on that it is in a better plight than it thinks; but wherever the power of God is, it makes itself known. "The kingdom of God" is an expression meaning divine power. Having established this with His disciples, He says, The days will come when you will desire to see the kingdom in glory, but you will not see it yet. What is the path of the Church all through this age? A path of desire. Is your spirit travelling, day by day, a path of desire after your unmanifested Saviour? He says, I am to pass through rejection first, and you must pass through it with Me. The saint is desiring an absent Lord and, till He comes, is the companion of a rejected Lord, filled with the desire for His return, and filled with consent to be companion of His rejection. It is a rebuke, but let us welcome it; it is an excellent oil that will not break our heads (Ps. 141: 5).

Having presented these qualities, He goes on to show the state of things just before the Son shines out in glory. In the days of Lot and Noah you get a picture of what the world will be then. They will be going on as those that have found their object in the world. The Lord had given a sketch of what the saint in the age of His absence ought to be; now He draws a sketch of what the world would be. Then, He says, it will be a day of discerning, as the day of Noah was. Was not Noah left when the whole world was destroyed? The story of Noah is to be revived in the closing hour of earth's history. There will be two in a bed two in the field it matters not; it will be a day of discerning.

Like the pillar of cloud that was at once salvation to the Israelites and doom to the Egyptians, so the day of the Lord will rise like the sun with healing in his wings to one in a bed, while it will burn like an oven for the other. No wonder that they cried out, "Where, Lord?" Strikingly, He answers, "Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." He never answered a question curiously, but totally So it is here. The day of judgment will make no mistake; it will not take one it ought to have left, or leave one it ought to have taken. We ought to say, Am I ready? Do I know that if the Son were to break forth in judicial glory, I should not be part of the carcass?

Then in this connection He gives the parable of the poor widow. "He spake a parable unto them to this end," that they ought always to pray. It should not read "men." Suppose I were practically the companion of a rejected Lord; what should I naturally be doing? praying, to be sure, for strength to take my place till the Master comes back. Then He shows how the judge lent a deaf ear to the poor widow. Now does not the Lord appear to do the same? It was the judge's wickedness it is His glory, and His long-suffering. Why did the judge not answer? Because of his selfishness! Why does not the Lord come back? Because of His long-suffering. The Lord seems to pass by our prayers, as the judge did pass by the poor woman; but the judge passed her by because of his selfishness! The Lord passes by, not willing that any should perish. But He will avenge, and the book of the Apocalypse comes in to make good the word. The day is coming when He will avenge these quarrels, but look to yourselves. Take care, while you are crying out against others, that you may be found right yourselves. Cherish and cultivate the hidden life of faith to which He has called you, and into which the Spirit He has given you would lead you. This completes the scene. Oh, if there is a thing to delight our hearts, it is to discover the personal, moral, and official glories of the Lord Jesus, and to see how Scripture harmonizes to bear this lesson undistracted to your heart and mine!

Luke 18

If we meditate on that portion from Luke 18: 9 down to Luke 19: 10, we have the mind of the Lord delivered on various detached subjects. It is a blessed thing to hear the mind of Christ on any single matter. His verdict entitles me to say I know how God thinks in such a case. This is a wonderful privilege. There is a difference between the gospels and epistles. The gospels introduce your heart to Christ, to find in Him its satisfaction; the epistles introduce the conscience to Christ, to find in Him its peace.

We find here the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Lord describes the condition of soul in both of these. The mind of the Pharisee was a mind of religious pride and self-satisfaction. The mind of the publican was the mind of a poor brokenhearted one that could not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven. Having these two objects before Him, the Lord lets us know His thoughts about them; and when He gives forth His mind, does it not make you happy to know that He approved the publican and not the Pharisee? It is a comfort to know that the mind of the Lord thus suits itself to your mind. I could not say that the publican was the expression of a fully justified man. He was justified "rather" than the other. He would not, if fully justified, have cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Is that the proper condition of a believer? No. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2: 20. That is not a poor publican, howling about his misery. He does not utter, again I say, the language of a consciously justified sinner. No doubt he was on the way to it, for "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Still there is comfort for us in this, when we see that the Lord values these first tremblings of the poor publican. Paul may have penetrated the innermost part of the sanctuary, and the poor publican be only at the brazen altar; but all these differences are very sweet to us who are conscious of our feebleness.

The next case is that of those who brought to Him young children, that He might touch them; "But when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them." Here we have to determine between the strangers and the disciples. Now do we not know that oftentimes those who are more familiar with the things of Christ, are less intimate? I think we see it here. These strangers had a better understanding of the Lord's mind than the disciples. They said, Stand by. No, said the Lord. Would you like the Lord to have approved the disciples rather than the strangers? I will answer for it, you would not. Now, am I not right in saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have done a worthy and wondrous work for us in introducing our hearts to Christ? When the heart is satisfied and the conscience is at peace, you are close upon heaven. You are pleased with the judgment of the Lord in this case. Some say, The Lord is better to us than our fears. A poor thought! He is better to us than our expectations. The strangers had said, Touch them, but He took them into His arms and pressed them to His bosom (Mark 10: 16). How He exceeds all our thoughts!

Next, we have the case of the rich young ruler. He brought an uneasy conscience, and said, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He saw that the Lord was a good man, as we speak; and, uneasy, he saw the life of the Lord Jesus and watched it, and had no doubt that He had the secret of peace; so he came and put the question which the Lord beautifully answers by another, "Why callest thou Me good?" because you have no right to call even Jesus "good" if He is not "God over all." This man did not apprehend His glory, so the Lord would not accept the title from him. He knew how to answer every man. He did not say He was not good, but "Why callest thou Me good?" You have no title to call Me good. You know the commandments. Well, says the young man, All these things have I kept; what lack I yet? "Yet lackest thou one thing," said the Lord; "Sell all that thou hast, . . . and come, follow Me." What is the meaning of that? Why, that if I will put myself in the track of Christ, I must be like Christ. The Lord gave up everything and came down as an emptied man to serve others. Now, if you will be perfect, go and do likewise. And, when he heard this, he was very sorrowful, for he could not comply. How would you like the kingdom of God characterized? by selfishness or by unstinted benevolence? Oh, you will say, let selfishness perish here.

The young man could not give up everything, so the Lord says that is a condition unfit for the kingdom. You may be ashamed of your own wretched, selfish heart every day, but I will answer for it, you will justify the Lord's answer. Worldliness and selfishness have no power to breathe the atmosphere of the kingdom of God. Do not all these things please you? You have to carry on a warfare with the same mind in you as was in the Pharisee, the disciples, and the young ruler. Conflict is your perfection here, as sinlessness will be in your glorified body. What a different Christ you would have had if He had approved the Pharisee rather than the publican, kept the little children at a distance, or allowed the selfishness of the young ruler! I do not doubt that the young man was struggling after the kingdom, or that he got into it by-and-by. I do not doubt that there was a labouring of soul that was given of God.

In the 31st verse the Lord turns to speak of His going up to Jerusalem, and of all that He must suffer there; but "they understood none of these things." No, they were very ignorant. We may observe that the Lord never speaks of His death without speaking also of His resurrection; in the same manner the prophets of the Old Testament never spoke of the judgments coming on their nation without speaking of the glories that should follow. So it should be with you and me. We may talk of death at times, but resurrection and glory should come in rapidly on our thoughts.

The Lord is still on the way, and I invite you again to look at the mind of Christ. Here is a collision between a blind beggar and the multitude, and the Lord comes in to decide between the two. Are you pleased with the decision He makes? I am sure you are. You would have had a very different Christ if He had joined the multitude in telling the blind man to hold his peace. Every stroke of the Evangelist's pen is full of the beauty and perfection of Jesus. The blind man asked who passed by, hearing the multitude, and they answered, "Jesus of Nazareth." Is that all you know of Him? "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." What acquaintance, tell me, had this man with Christ? He knew Him (and so must you and I) in His personal glory and in the boundlessness of His grace. He called Him, "Son of David," and when they told him to hold his peace, he cried "so much the more." That is how you and I must know Him. If He be not the Person He is, all He has done is worth nothing. If He be not man, as one with the children (Heb. 2), and God as alone sufficient to put away sin by Himself, it is all in vain. If we do not recognize the glory of His Person, the grace of His work is worth nothing. We must connect His grace and His glory. The confession of the blind beggar showed an apprehension of these two things. He did not take up their word, but called Him Son of David; and when they rebuked him, he "cried so much the more." But how did the Lord decide? What is it that you want?

His dignity is beautiful as He stops on His way at the bidding of a poor blind beggar. Joshua once bade the sun and moon to stand still in the heavens, but here the Lord of the sun, and the moon, and the heavens, stands still at the bidding of a blind beggar! That is the gospel the glorious, gracious One dispensing the grace of eternal healings to meet our degradation. We often admire Jacob, laying hold on the divine Stranger, but look at Bartimeus! He would not hold his tongue, but cried out till Jesus stood and said, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Take it, said Jesus.

Now look at Zaccheus. He saw the Lord pass, and went through the crowd to get up into the sycamore tree. In the narratives of the four gospels there are two cases that distinguish themselves from each other one is an exercised faith, as in Bartimeus; the other is a quickening of spirit. This was Zaccheus. In John, the second class of these prevails most, as in Andrew, Nathanael, Philip, and the Samaritan woman. These are all cases of quickening. In the two cases before us, we get samples of what I mean. Bartimeus was exercising faith; Zaccheus was getting life. It is a very simple story. He had a desire to see Christ. Who gave the desire? The life-giving Spirit of Christ. How beautiful to see eternal life beginning in such a seed! The power that clothed the desire is strongly manifested. Pressing through crowds to climb up trees was not the habit of this rich citizen. He made himself one of the rabble to gratify this commanding desire, and got up into a tree. The Lord called him down. He not only knew that there was a man in the tree, but He knew who he was; "Zaccheus, . . . come down." Is there intimacy in all this? Are you pleased with it? I will answer for it, you are. So we have the Lord delivering judgment in detached cases, and such a judgment as contributes to make us happy.

You can easily conceive with what haste Zaccheus came down. They spent the rest of the day together, and what is the fruit of their communion? "Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." His heart instinctively uttered itself a very different thing from the boastfulness of a self-righteous mind. The simple force of communion with his Lord enabled Zaccheus thus to speak. There was power when he pressed through the crowd, and there was power when he closed that day which had given him communion with Jesus.

Luke 19 and Luke 20

We will now read from Luke 19: 11 to Luke 20: 18. We are putting those parts together which seem to belong to each other, though the chapters may separate them. We have here another instance of the way in which the Lord applies His mind to the correction of the moral scene around Him. The human mind is historic; the divine mind is moral. Here they were near the city, so they thought: a little advance, and the kingdom must appear. This was taking a simply historic view, and we are never right unless we are taking a moral view of everything. The mind of Christ was a moral mind.

The Lord addresses Himself to the thought of the multitude in the parable of the nobleman. The Lord gets His title to a kingdom sealed in heaven but where is He to administer it? Not in heaven; He comes back to earth first. That is dispensational truth. He has, it is true, a kingdom now "The kingdom of God is . . . righteousness, and peace, and joy." But I speak here of His royal glory, hereafter to be displayed on the earth. He goes on in this strikingly fine parable to tell us of a certain nobleman, going into a far country, who called his servants and delivered them ten pounds; but his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Here are three parties — the departed nobleman hid in a distant country for a time the servants who were to occupy till his return and the citizens. This is graphic of the moment in which you live. The Lord has gone to the distant heavens to transact many things. One of these is to receive for Himself a kingdom. In Daniel 7 you see the nobleman in the distant country, but this parable only tells you that He has gone there. It is beautiful to see the prophet and the Apostle thus mingling their lights together.

The citizens were at that moment the Jewish people, but the enmity of the Jew is now the enmity of the world at large, which has let the Lord Jesus know it will not have Him for king. That is the relationship the world bears to Christ. The servants are those who profess to serve Him while He is absent. There is a moral secret embosomed in this part of the parable. I am never really in the spirit of service if I do not remember that He is an absent and a rejected Lord. If I serve Him as a King, I do not do it, to say the least, in dispensational wisdom. I am not now a subject to a king, but a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that his master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought, that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped upon Him here are so many fresh claims on our affection? Service, to be in the right character, should be in the recollection that it is rendered to One who has been cast out and refused. You might do but little, but that little would have a precious quality if rendered in the affection of one who owns the insults the Lord has received.

Then He returns and gives the rewards. There is such a secret as rewards. When the kingdom comes to be parcelled out, I have not a bit of doubt that there will be rewards. But there was one that hid his talent; and now, mark the Lord's reply for your comfort. "Wherefore... gavest not thou my money into the bank?" He did not say, Why have you not traded with it? I may not have the energy and activity of my brother, but the Lord would say here, Well, do not be afraid, if you have not energy to go out and serve Me; at any rate own Me, and put My money into the bank. But this man had no spirit of service; he did not know grace; he feared. As far as we have a legal mind, we are serving ourselves. That is this man. The best thought he had was to serve himself to come off free in the day of reckoning. So he was cut off as one that had no link with Christ. I love that "bank." If I have not the energy of my brother in service, at least let me own that I am not my own. but bought with a price. Let us cultivate in our souls the hidden spirit that says, Though I may be feeble, yet one thing, I will cleave to Christ-I am His and not my own.

How beautifully He links the next scene with what had gone before! There were two missions on which He sent His disciples; the first was to get the ass the second, to get the guest chamber. But the ass must precede the guest chamber. Do you see the beauty of that? You must distinguish His dispensational actings His rejection before His return. The mission to get the ass was that He might offer Himself to the daughter of Zion in glory. He was rejected and, as it were, asked to descend from off the ass so He must be a guest in this world and pass on to His cross.

Here we get the Lord in royal glory, seated on the ass, descending the Mount of Olives, and about to enter the city. The multitudes follow, with palm branches and exultation, and the King is seen in full beauty. God is taking the thing into His own hands. "The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof." Jesus took the place of Jehovah-Creator in Psalm 24. He had a richer title to the ass than the owner of it had. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The owner bows to His claim, and in He goes, in the midst of the acclamations of His people. But now the Pharisees say, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples." That was the heart of the nation exposing itself in the representatives of the people. The mind of the nation stood out in that saying "Master, rebuke Thy disciples." That was rejection. "We will not have this man to reign over us."

The Lord then laments over the city. Instead of being the city of peace, Jerusalem would have to go through another history altogether. Jerusalem is but a sample of the world in general, and because of the rejection of Christ, the world will have to go through a very different history than if it had been prepared for Him. The world has forced the blessed Lord up to heaven through His cross, and now it must go to the kingdom through its judgment. He went to display His beauty to the daughter of Zion, but the daughter of Zion was not prepared for Him, so He weeps over her and announces the judgment she brought upon herself. The world is not prepared for Him and the earth must pass to its rest through the judgments that will purge it of its defilements.

Now they suggested a bit of subtlety. But there was not a bit of subtlety in the Lord's mind as He answered them. He did not lay a snare for them, though it acted as a trap. His purpose was divine. John the Baptist being rejected, it followed that Christ Himself would be rejected. It was as much as to say, I will let God answer you. In John you have God's answer to your question. It was God's way to reach Messiah through John, and as he was rejected, so would Christ Himself be.

Now look a little at the next parable. Here is another "far country." "A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time." When was that? In the days of Joshua the Lord planted a goodly vineyard and left it in the hands of Israel and told them to till it. I need not tell you how judge after judge, prophet after prophet was raised up, and all in vain. Then said the lord of the vineyard, "What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves." Ah! BEWARE OF REASONING. So they cast him out of the vineyard. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?" This brings us just where the parable of the departed noble brought us to judgment. "He shall come and destroy those husbandmen." If you put these two parables together, you will get a beautiful sketch of God's dealings from the days of Joshua till the Lord's return in glory. The labourers in the vineyard give us God's dealings with Israel till the rejection of Christ, the heir of the vineyard. The parable of the "ten pounds" carries us through the present age, up to the second coming, or the kingdom of Christ. He has now gone into the distant country, not to send back servants to seek for fruit, but to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return and execute judgment. I will just ask one thing: Is it the case that the Lord is seated in heaven till His enemies are made His footstool? You know it is That thought in the 110th Psalm links itself with both these parables. There He is expecting till His enemies are made His footstool, and here His enemies ere made His footstool. These are the beautiful luminous fragments that Scripture throws in here and there, and tells you to go over the field and gather them up, and when you have filled your basket, to bring them home and feed upon them.

Luke 20 and Luke 21

In our last meditation we reached verse 19 of chapter 20. Now we enter, according to Luke, on the scene of the Lord's last conflict with His enemies. In this world, not only our sins but our enmities gave Him work. That you find continually. His sorrows on the cross, our sins put Him to; His sorrows through life, our enmities put Him to.

Now the Jews come to Him (v. 21) with a subtle question. There were three great representatives of the people the Herodians, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. The Herodian was political religionist; the Sadducee, a free-thinking religionist; and the Pharisee was a legal religionist; but these were only different forms of enmity against God. The flesh can never form alliance with God's Christ. We must be born again for that. Now they come to Him with a question "Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no?" They thought they had Him, and it was a sharp-sighted, subtle question. At once, detecting the moral of the occasion, He approached it. "But He perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye Me? Show Me a penny."

The Lord had no purse. When He wanted to preach on a penny, He had to ask to be shown one. The Lord had the wealthiest purse that anyone ever had in the world, but He never used a mite of it for Himself. He asked, "Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's." Very well; the Lord was not going to treat Caesar as a usurper. He was the rod of God's indignation in the land of Israel. Whether Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, or Romans, they were no usurpers. So, when the Lord saw Caesar's coin passing through the land, He saw in it Israel's shame, not Caesar's usurpation. How beautifully He escapes the snare of the fowler! "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." That was a golden rule ever since their captivity the rule of returned captives and so it is our rule. Do you treat the powers that are ordained of God as usurpers? No, but do not confound the rights of Caesar and the rights of God. If there is a collision between them, say with Peter, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." It was a short, terse sentence, replete with divine wisdom for Israel's condition at the moment.

Then when the Herodians are dismissed, the Sadducees come forth. The enmity of Satan is never weary. If foiled in the Herodian, he w ill try his hand in the Sadducee. Now, Master, here is the strange thing! The Lord is ready for them. He knows how to answer every man: You are confounding heavenly and earthly things. You are mistaking things altogether, but that ye may know that the dead are raised, even Moses called the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He is not a God of the dead, but of the living. Now do you see the difference between the resurrection of the body, and a separate life in the spirit? If the only thing brought in had been a life in the spirit, do you see that God would not have been fully glorified? So Paul lets them know in 1 Corinthians 15 that if they do not believe in resurrection, they do not know the glory of God. The enemy has brought in death to both soul and body, and God must meet him in the place of his power. If, when Satan had destroyed the body, God had said, I will now make another creature, His glory would not have been fully shown. If He took you out of the body, to dwell with Christ in spirit, it might satisfy you, but not His own glory. That is the need of resurrection.

Now He had silenced them. He confounded the interrogators, and then He put a question that baffled them: "David therefore calleth Him Lord, how is He then his son?" They were baffled, and none can answer that question who do not see the Person of Christ, the precious mystery of the God-man. Is it not a sad and terrible thing that you have sent the Lord to the right hand of His Father, there to wait till His enemies are made His footstool? You will say, He has gone there to help me, a poor sinner. Yes, but you have sent Him there too. You have a very imperfect view, if while you see Him waiting on the necessity of poor sinners, you do not see Him waiting till He comes forth to judge His enemies. at the end of the world. His grace has put Him there as the High Priest of our profession; our enmity has put Him there as waiting for judgment. Chapter 21 derives itself from this; and here I would just say, there is an exceedingly beautiful thing attending the close of the Lord's ministry.

At the early part of His ministry, He was getting consolation for Himself, as at the well of Sychar, the man blind from his birth, etc. These were the fruits of His own labour; but, from the moment He leaves Jericho and meets Zaccheus, and up to the thief on the cross, these were cases on which He never spent a moment's toil. They were consolations provided by God. The Lord was about to enter upon the darkest scenes of His sorrow, and God provides here and there a cup of cold water to refresh Him on His way. His toil was over He was preparing for Gethsemane, and Gethsemane was preparing Him for Calvary; and God said to Him, as it were, Now, You shall not toil I will bring refreshment to an untoiling Jesus. He had not expended labour on Zaccheus, or on the thief on the cross. These were brought to Him.

Now, the Lord opens the story of "the times of the Gentiles." He is up there waiting till His enemies be made His footstool, and He gives a sketch of the times of the Gentiles the age of the depression of Israel. "The times of the Gentiles" intimates the supremacy of the Gentiles and the depression of Israel. He anticipates the whole of this age. In verse 24, He calls the whole age, "the times of the Gentiles," in which the Gentiles are supreme; and Israel has no land or heritage in the earth. [While it is true that Israel again has land as a nation, the specific words of our Lord should be carefully noted: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Luke 21: 24. It was the city of their solemnities which they are not to regain until the period of Gentile supremacy runs out. The old city of Jerusalem, with its temple site and wailing wall, is in the hands of the Arabs, although it is a prime object of Israeli aspiration. They will probably get it from the beast of the revived Roman Empire when he makes a league with them for seven years (Dan 9: 27), but the Gentile soldiers of this Roman Empire will, in all likelihood, have to patrol it to guarantee its security. Thus the Lord's exact words are being literally fulfilled. Ed.]

Look in verse 7, when they ask Him, "When shall these things be?" "Take heed," He says, People will be promising you rest before rest comes. Do you remember the mistake of the people in Luke 19, when they thought the kingdom would immediately appear? The Lord here anticipates the very same thing. He says, Now, do not mistake; the time cannot draw near till there has been judgment. And that is what I am bold to say to the world now. You are not going to have a kingdom; the time of glory is not drawing near, nor will it, till judgment has purged the earth. It is very different with the hopes of the Church. Judgment is on the other side of my glory. I shall be glorified when I stand before the judgment seat; but will the earth enter its glory before it is purged from its iniquity? He cannot be Lord of lords till He has girt His sword upon His thigh. The world is promising itself glorious things. Do not believe it. Then He tells them, "In your patience possess ye your souls," not in false expectation. "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." That day has come, and Israel has been led captive into all nations. In verse 25, He anticipates the closing days of the times of the Gentiles. "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; . . . men's hearts failing them for fear, . . . and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." Then, when fearful signs come to pass then, ye Jewish remnant lift up your heads, for your jubilee draws nigh. It is the same word as redemption.

In Leviticus we read that every fiftieth year God re-asserted His own principles. For forty-nine years they might corrupt God's order, but in the fiftieth year they were sent back, every man to his own property, and the family order and estate was resettled. The moment we get things under God's hand again, we are keeping a jubilee. God knew that He was entitled to call His world, the world where His principles reign, a jubilee. Are you wearied of man's world? God's world will be a jubilee. Man's best world is to get his vanity gratified. Are we ashamed to have a heart for such enjoyment? So when these purgings and purifyings take place, then "lift up your heads." The sword of David is doing its business, and the throne of Solomon will be erected. "This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled." You will never mind it. It is now the very same generation as in the days of Christ. The world may be advanced in the accommodations of civilized life, but does that mend it? God only can cure it, and that by making an end of it. If He were to put new wine into old bottles, the bottles would burst. Then, that beautiful admonition to everyone. Do not live as if this world were your portion. The life you nourish in this world is a very different thing from the one you have to cherish for the next. If you live as if this world were your portion, that day will come upon you as a thief. So if you and I are telling our hearts to eat, drink, and be merry, the coming of the Son of man will be as morally different as the coming of a thief at night would be circumstantially different to a family that went to bed in rest and quietness.

Luke 22

We have now come to a very serious chapter and must be a little particular on each verse. We have entered a solemn moment, and the impression produced on the mind is this: that all to whom we are introduced have their thoughts on death. Immediately we find the Lord's thoughts on death, but in a very different character. His thoughts on death are of laying the foundation of the eternal kingdom. They thought if they could but kill Him it would close the matter between Him and them forever. The doom of the old thing, and the foundation of the new and eternal thing are laid in death. The blessed Son of God entered into death, and laid the foundation of the new creation exactly at the point and spot where the old creation had its close. How the unfoldings of His ways are fraught with perfection.

We see all who represented religion found in this confederacy. You may lay it up as a sure and settled thing, that the religion of flesh and blood is ever at enmity with God.

We have remarked before, that in the close of the Lord's ministry two missions are glanced at; one was to get the ass to take Him in royal glory into the city; now here is a mission to get a room to eat the Passover in. The failure of the first mission makes place for the second. If the Lord had been accepted on earth, He had a title to fill the throne of David; but the citizens would not have Him, so, being cast out as a King, He must become a stranger. He offered Himself to crown the whole system of the earth in royal beauty, but the earth would not have herself crowned; so what does He do? When He was refused as the headstone, He must be the chief cornerstone. That is the knitting of the two missions. The first was to get Him an ass and, as Lord of the fullness of the whole earth, He claims it from its owner. He says, so to speak, You are the owner, but I am the Lord. The man bowed to the claim, and so it will be by-and-by in millennial days the supreme Lordship of Jesus owned, and His sceptre kissed to the end of the earth. Now He sends out a mission, as a traveller going into a guest chamber. How the Lord knew how to transform Himself! He knew how to abound and how to suffer need; how to be abased and how to be exalted; to ride as a King into Jerusalem, and to go and take supper with a few poor disciples in an upper room! So to this day the Lord is a mere guest here, visiting His people. The master of the house is as ready to own His claim as the owner of the ass, so they sat down at the paschal table not yet the Lord's supper, but the Jewish Passover.

Now He says, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover [for it will be the last] . . . I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." That act blotted it out forever. Now, why did He not take the cup? It was not enjoined by the paschal ordinances. Now, said the Lord, I will not taste joy. As an obedient Jew, He celebrated the Passover, but joy was reserved for Him in the kingdom. Till then, He knows no earthly joy.

Now, He institutes His own supper. He did not eat of this. He merely gave it to them. He could not take of it. He does not want redemption purchase by blood. "This do in remembrance of Me." There is a deep and blessed secret in these words. That which in other days was anticipative, is now retrospective. The Lord's supper is a memorial. What has occasioned the transfiguration? "This is My body." The Son from the bosom of the Father took a body. "A body hast Thou prepared Me." And now we do not come on the principle that sin has to be remembered, but that sin has been remitted, put away; there is no more. The paschal table anticipated the coming of the Lord to die. Now He has spread a table at which I remember that I was once in my sins, but that sin has been put away. The body prepared of God has been broken [although a bone of Him was not broken; see John 19: 36] on the accursed tree, and now sin is put away forever. The whole character of the feast turns on the victim. The whole epistle to the Hebrews turns on the passage, "How much more shall the blood of Christ . . . purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" If your conscience is purged, what do you do with your sins? Remember that you were once in them, but that you are in them no more dead and risen with Christ.

Now see again how the thoughts of all are on death. So are the thoughts of the Lord, but with this difference: they were thinking of Him as a martyr. He was thinking of a sacrifice the victim character He was about to fulfil. The Lord died in two characters. He died a martyr at the hand of man a victim at the hand of God.

Now we see that Judas was not simply one of the multitude. He holds a more awful character. He is the representative of apostate wickedness. His was not the common form of man's enmity to God. Judas represents apostasy. There has always been apostasy. Christendom at this moment, if it be not fully blown, is on its way to apostasy. The apostasy of Judas formed the link between Christ and His enemies.

Now we are introduced to the disciples, and (oh, terrible!) were they thinking of death? They were thinking of their own pride. "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." Prov. 5: 14. Have you not been conscious, in the most solemn moments, of your vanity and lusts? In the midst of all these deep solemnities, the thoughts of the disciples were about their vanity. I wonder that a look of the Lord would not have stilled and hushed the workings of their carnal mind!

Now see the meekness of the Lord. The proud are flattered in this world. It likes the haughty and the great. There is a verdict on the world. "But ye shall not be so." Does it not give you relief to come to the mind of Christ? "But ye shall not be so"; and He says elsewhere, "Go and sit down in the lowest room." Oh, the beauty of His mind, as well as the perfection of His grace and the brightness of His glory! "Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations." Rebukes never separate. Suppose you are conscious that the Lord is rebuking you; you ought to be conscious that He is not putting you at an inch of distance from Himself. A rebuked Peter, James, and John went up to the hill of glory. The disciples had all been rebuked when He said to the Father in chapter 17 of John, "They have kept Thy word." Here they are rebuked, and yet the next moment He brings them nearer to Him, as the companions of His temptations, than the angels are. Did the rebuke put them at a single inch of distance?

In the kingdom of God there will be a table and a throne. The table is the symbol of personal family intimacy; the throne is the public display of glory. By a little word like that (v. 30), what a volume the Lord conveys to our hearts! We get the sanctuary of the family, and the outer places where the dignities of the throne will be displayed and shared. Now He turns to them, and they had earned it. If He never withdraws tenderness, He never withdraws discipline. The use of the rod never for a moment stills the pulses of the heart. "Simon, Simon," says the Lord, "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." He had sifted Christ as wheat. Why did Satan get into Judas but that he might sift Christ? and now he desired to sift the disciples.

You see this introduces Peter in a very special way. From the very beginning he showed characteristics of being a natural leader, and the Lord can use such if there is self-judgment and dependence on Him. When all the disciples Red, Peter afterward came back, but he failed miserably. His courage failed; everything failed but his faith in Christ, thanks to this intercession. Later when he saw the Lord, he rushed into the water to get to Him. Then, when he was converted, he could stand before councils; they could not make him a coward. So, when he was converted, he strengthened his brethren. We find the opening chapters of Acts verifying this. He was sifted; he failed in all but in faith; he was strengthened and he strengthened his brethren.

"And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing?" The meaning of this is very simple. When He was with them, He sheltered them; the garment is the symbol of shelter. Now that He was about to be withdrawn, they must take His place and become a militant people. They must reckon on taking His place in the face of the world's enmity. These are a weighty thirty-eight verses the beginnings of laying that foundation on which creation itself is to rest for eternity. Christ died under the doomed old thing, to bring in a new eternal thing. Nothing was as old there. The joy will be as fresh when it has run ten thousand years as it was in the beginning. The new creation is ever new and ever young.

Luke 22: 39-71

We have reached chapter 22:39 and, as we were observing, we must be more particular with each verse, for each verse is pregnant with something. It is very blessed in this chapter to see how the Lord passes through different relations with the disciples, with His Father, and with His enemies. It is beautiful to mark the moral pictures that adorn that path. Now He came out; He left the supper table and went to the Mount of Olives. That is a mystic spot. Why do I call it so? There are various lessons to learn there. A mystery is the enclosure of a secret. For instance, Abraham taking his son up to Mount Moriah was the incrustation of a secret. We find the Lord in these chapters in three conditions coming down the mount, ascending, and on the hill. As His royal descent was refused, we see Him making a wearisome ascent; and if we read Zechariah, we find Him again on the Mount, but it will split beneath His feet in judgment.

Now He is consciously leaving the disciples for the presence of His Father, and He leaves them with wholesome words: "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." His business is now with the Father. And what is He saying? "If Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me." Surely this was part of His moral perfection. It ought to have been so. His love made Him a willing victim; but it would have been a blot on the moral beauty of His journey if He did not deprecate such a relative position to God as that He was about to enter into on the cross. Since it cannot be disposed of except He drink it, "not My will, but Thine, be done."

"And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him." How do you interpret that word "strengthening"? It was not the same thing as "strengthen thy brethren." It did not extend beyond His frame. That is the office of angels. They are the messengers of providences. The Holy Ghost deals with your spirit. So I take it they were imparting some supporting virtue to His frame. It is a proof that He was not yet forsaken. We find nothing of that in the three hours of darkness. He was left in deep unfathomable solitariness. Not a ray of light from the countenance of God gladdened Him there. But as yet He was not made an offering for sin, and angels can come and strengthen Him. He is strengthened for a fresh agony. When He rose He came to His disciples and found them sleeping. They were His thought, not He theirs! He their thought? They could not watch with Him one hour. So it is now. He ever lives to make intercession for us. Do we live ever to love Him serve Him? He ever lives for you. Do you ever live for Him?

Now He is brought into His last relationship. He is plunged into the midst and thick of His enemies. "While He yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, . . . drew near unto Jesus to kiss Him." Then one of His disciples makes a mistake. It is a terrible thing to make mistakes. There is a class of mistakes that arise not merely from an imperfect understanding, but from a wrong condition of heart. That was the mistake of the disciples here. They had not been in Christ's company as they ought to have been. Can you conceive anything more distant from the Lord's heart than drawing the sword to smite the servant of the high priest? On His way to die, the just for the unjust, to see a hair of a poor sinner's head touched! I may mistake about the calling of the Church, or about coming glories, but there is another class of mistakes that you and I should keenly judge ourselves for. The Lord of course heals him.

Now mark verse 53. It gives a character to the moment. What is meant by this "hour"? How long did it continue? How is it distinguished from all that went before it, and all that followed after it? As to what went before, they could not touch Him till that hour had come. He must be a willing captive as He was a willing victim. But now the hour of the evening has arrived, and He becomes their captive. The moment you leave that hour (which stretches to the three hours of darkness) you have a new era altogether no longer the hour of the power of darkness, but the bruising of the woman's seed. Now He puts Himself into their hands. He was a willing captive now, as He was a willing victim on the cross. They took Him!

Did you ever, in the light of Scripture, consider what the heart of man is? You will tell me it is a wicked thing. Aye, that it is; but it is not only capable of wickedness, it is incurable, desperate. Conceive a man taking stones in his hand to batter and beat a face shining like an angel's! Could you conceive it? Look at the priests in the temple in the presence of the rent veil. They plotted a lie. Look at the soldiers in the presence of the rent tomb. They consented to a lie. The riven waters of the Red Sea did not cure Pharaoh's heart. The shining countenance of the martyr Stephen did not cure the heart of the multitude. A rent veil did not cure the priestly heart, and a rent tomb did not cure the soldiers' hearts. Now the sight of the healed ear (for the blessed Lord is a divine surgeon here) in the presence of that they take Him. Is that a picture of the heart you carry? You may have different habitudes but the flesh is the same in all not only evil, but incurable. The watery walls did not cure it, and here in the very garden, they see Him performing a wondrous divine miracle of healing, and yet they take Him with murderous purpose. Tell me what you can do with a heart that has been proof against those things? Has hell had power to cure the devil? He may be overcome in Legion; out he goes into the herd of swine.

Now we have the little episode of Peter warming himself. Cannot you fancy him sunk down into humanity? He became not the companion of Jesus of Gethsemane, but of a poor man in the outer court of the palace. Here we have two things the crow and the look. How do you interpret them? They are symbols of very different things, but two things we must all have to do with conscience and Christ. The crow awakened his conscience; the look placed him with Jesus. I want to have an awakened conscience and an eye by faith directed to Jesus. Then let Jesus close the story of my soul. If we are not all conscious of the cock-crow and the look, we are not yet in the school of God. My intellectual activity about the things of God will not do. Conscience must be occupied, and faith must be occupied. "And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." But his faith did not fail. He may be sent through sorrow and tears, but his faith does not fail.

"And the men that held Jesus mocked Him, and smote Him... And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led Him into their council, saying, Art Thou the Christ?" How He looks at the inquirer! Do you think we deal faithfully with one another? No; we are too fond of letting people think well of themselves, and we call it tenderness, but it is a vapid thing! You never find in Christ the human amiability that gratifies. There was love in every form of faithfulness, but no human amiableness. Now the Lord deals with their condition in answer to their question You will not deal with Me righteously You are set on mischief, and mischief you will have You are set on My blood, and My blood you will spill. Having convicted them, He rises up; "Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God." This is the exhibition of Christ in judicial power. In many ways we track Christ to heaven. We think we have disposed of the ascension when we say He rose and ascended; but you must track Him to the highest heavens in various characters: personally as with the Father in His priestly character as making intercession in the sanctuary as One whom earth has sent there, and whenever we get that form, we see Him ascending in judicial glory. That is presented here. He is not gone up to heaven as a sanctuary, but as being the place of power, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. In that character we view Him here.

Now we see the way in which He was viewed by the Gentiles, by the ecclesiastical and civil powers, that every form of society might be brought in guilty before God. Pilate and Caiaphas might be amiable men, but, as touching God, one and all stand guilty in a common revolted nature. Do you and I realize that the blessed Lord consented to walk such a path for us? We may well say that such love as that "passeth knowledge." May the Lord give us to receive it by faith, and feed on it by communion. Amen.

Luke 23

We are now going to meditate on chapter 23. "The whole multitude of them arose, and led Him unto Pilate." With what skilfulness did they adapt themselves to the moment! When He was before the Jews, they brought a charge of making Himself the Son of God. Before the Roman governor, they bring a charge of making Himself a King. He had a right to both of these titles. Both these claims were brought and challenged in a human court. Thus everything has been gainsaid and everything will be vindicated. We see Him standing as challenged before man; we find Him by-and-by vindicated before God.

Now when Pilate revives the question, "Art Thou the King of the Jews?" He answers, "Thou sayest it." It is a beautiful thing for you to carry conscious glory in a hidden shape. He avowed Himself a King when He was asked. It was a glory He constantly carried, but was constantly hiding. We should be conscious of dignities that would outshine the glories of the world; but we find the world in such a moral condition that we cannot display them. That was the life Jesus. He was consciously a vessel of glory, but morally under the necessity of hiding it.

How instructive it is to see the labouring of different states of souls! Nothing can be more striking than the story of Pilate. He had no enmity against Christ. He would have discharged Him if he could at the same time have preserved his character in the world.

The Jews' conduct was a mere carnal enmity against God. In Pilate you see the victorious struggle that the world makes in the conscience. Now, Pilate naturally wished to rid himself of an uneasy conscience. So, when he "heard of Galilee," he thought it was a little door of escape, and at once he took advantage of it. Ah, it will not do to get out by back doors. The subtlety of the human heart in wickedness seeks them.

So Pilate sent Him to Herod, and we find that, before Herod, He never uttered a word. Herod was unmixedly wicked. He did answer Pilate, because there was no enmity in his heart. He answered Caiaphas for the oath of God's sake, by which he adjured Him (Matt. 26: 63); but as for Herod, He has not a word for him. He passes from before him without opening His mouth. It is a terrible thing for God to be silent. It is better that He should be speaking to us by chastenings. "Be not silent to me: lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." Ps. 28: 1. The silence of God is as if you put a man into a pit. "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone." Hosea 4: 17. The intercourse between Herod and the Lord illustrates this. "And Herod . . . sent Him again to Pilate."

"For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast." We are entering on a moral moment of great solemnity. Why must he release one at the Passover? There is no direct commentary on it, but my own thought about it is that they claimed from the Roman governor a sign of the dignity that attached to this feast when the Lord of heaven and earth made a great deliverance for them. And in order to keep up the memorial of it they demanded that one should be delivered to them. The Passover was a memorial of the ancient dignity of the nation. We like some little relic of bygone dignities. Now at that time it so happened that there was a murderer in prison one "who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison." You could not go lower in moral acting than that. Now the question arises, Will they choose such a man as that, or the Prince of Life? We find Peter in the opening of Acts making much of that. What does it tell us? It is the deep, full sifting of the heart of man, and it tells me that the heart of man in Luke 23 is exactly what it was in Genesis 3. Man in Genesis 3 preferred the lie of the serpent to the truth of God. Man here preferred a murderer to the Prince of Life! and if you do not think you are a full-grown Adam, you are deceiving yourself. I see the Jew of Luke 22 practicing the Adam of Genesis 3. The God of grace, the God of life, the God of glory, given up for the serpent. A murderer was preferred, for "he was a murderer from the beginning." So it was here.

So Pilate "said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath He done?" Still struggling! Those battles are not settled in a moment. Conscience loves ease too well to yield in a moment. Pilate is in a field of battle till he is conquered. In this wondrous Volume we get man exposed and God revealed man shown to be an incurable moral ruin God revealed as a repairer of every breach. And He will go on repairing till He turns the howling of creation into the praises of creation. He begins with the conscience. If the conscience is not restored, it is nothing to you to see creation restored; but He begins where we want Him to begin. Have I any reason to doubt that if, as a sinner, my conscience is given to howl, He can give it the garment of praise? He is to do this in creation; by-and-by He will turn its groans into praises; and is not my conscience as worthy of His workmanship as creation?

Then Pilate gave sentence. He succumbed to pressure and condemned the guiltless.

Now we are introduced to the daughters of Jerusalem. The daughters of Jerusalem are not the women of Galilee. How do we distinguish between them? They are distinguished. It is another instance of the vast moral variety of Scripture. We get the disciples the women of Galilee the daughters of Jerusalem the centurion and Joseph of Arimathea. Are you not conscious of like varieties in the scene around you? It may puzzle and grieve you; but what is too big for you, roll over upon Christ. I can hardly tell where light begins and darkness ends. It is too much for me. I must leave it with God. Now, where must you put all these varieties? Do not put them anywhere. Leave them with Christ. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Do not seek to settle it. The angels will know how to clear the field by-and-by. I converse with people every day and, if I were asked, I should not know where to classify their souls. The women of Galilee were evidently "elect according to the foreknowledge of God." But what do you say of the daughters of Jerusalem? They were not among the crucifiers. They represent, I think, the soul of the remnant by-and-by, in the first moment of awakening. "Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." Ah, this self-forgetting character of the Lord! I do not know that it more wonderfully displays itself than in these last scenes. If you are in trouble, do you not feel privileged to think of yourself, and to expect others to do so too? What beautiful witnesses we have here of self-forgetting love. "Woman, behold thy son"; "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me"; "Father, forgive them."

Now we pass on to the cross. What do you say about the "spirit" (v. 46) ? Have you learned with calm conclusiveness that if the believer's spirit is now delivered from the body, it is with Jesus? When Stephen followed the track of his Master, he did it in life and in death. If they were battering his body here, the Lord Jesus was receiving his spirit there. Paul went to paradise simply as "a man in Christ." Men in Christ are independent of the body. He clothes the body with immortality, and the spirit with indestructible life. In His own Person the Lord was the first to recognize the spirit's going to the Father. He was the firstborn among many brethren, and the firstborn among many spirits.

Now we come to the confession of the centurion. Then Joseph of Arimathea seemed to get courage by the confession. He "waited for the kingdom of God." What are we to make of him? Why had he not, for these many years, cast in his lot with the followers of the Nazarene? Well, we do not know; we must leave him there. He boldly goes and claims the body of Jesus. It did not cause him much trouble to go to Pilate. Pilate had no enmity.

What a chapter! The Lord closing the old creation. The Sabbath of old celebrated its perfection; the death of Jesus celebrated its close. The old creation was doomed from the beginning, and if we have not a place in the new creation, touching God we are nothing.

Luke 24

We have now reached chapter 24, and here we might generally observe that the Lord takes the scene into His own hands. We observed when He was taken in the garden, that He recognized that moment as the hour of the power of darkness. Man was the principal then; man took Him, man nailed Him to the tree, thereby verifying the word, "This is your hour." Man was disposing of the scene as it pleased him. And so it went on till the three hours of darkness. Then God took it into His hands. That was the time when God bruised Him and made His soul an offering for sin.

It is very desirable that we should see the special characteristic of that moment. All through life, His Father's countenance was beaming on Him. Was He forsaken of His Father through life? Read His utterance in Psalm 16. But now, according to the prophetic voices, according to the premonitions of John the Baptist there He was God's Lamb. Then at once He became a conqueror. God did not wait for resurrection, to sanction the death of Jesus. He sanctioned it by rending the veil. This was not the public seal; but ere the appointed third day had come, for the public seal (of resurrection), God put His private seal on it. And the rapidity of it is beautiful. We cannot measure the time between the giving up the ghost and the rending of the veil (Matt. 27: 50, 51). That was the seal of the satisfaction of the throne. In two ways He was doing the will of God here. Through life His business here, as at the well of Sychar, was turning darkness into light. That was the will of the Father when He was a living minister. As a dying victim He was doing the will of the throne. The throne where judgment was seated was satisfied when Jesus gave up the ghost. One was doing the will of the Father; the other was doing the will of God in judgment. After that, having passed through man's hour and God's hour, we see Him in resurrection in His own hour. His own hour is eternity. How blessed to be in His company, to enter a bright and intimate eternity with Jesus.

We now see Him in resurrection, and we find many things here to invite attention. We find in the opening verses that as soon as the Jewish Sabbath was over, the women came with spices which they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher; but they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. Now what do you say to all that? There is something exceedingly comforting in it. It is ignorance and affection mingled. It was ignorance that took them to look for the living among the dead; affection took them, counting the dead body of the Lord of more worth than all around. What are you to do with ignorant affection? Just what Christ did with it. He could appreciate it, but He was not satisfied with it. He will not have love in the place of faith. Love is the principle that gives; faith is the principle that takes. Which is the most grateful to Christ? He will tell you in this chapter. He will have us debtors. He will occupy the place of the "more blessed." Faith says, Lord, You shall have it so. Another has said, Faith is the principle that lets God think for us; and so to that I add, That puts God into the chief room. If I come naked and empty and make God everything, that is faith. The law makes man principal, and God secondary. Man is to be doing this and that, while God is passive. The gospel changes sides altogether. In the gospel God is the giver and you are the receiver. Here, instead of faith, was ignorant love. They had affection, but they did not understand the victory He had gained in their behalf. It is Christ that has visited me in my grave, not I that have visited Him in His grave. He is the living One, I am the dead one.

So they bring their spices and ointments to the tomb, and there the angels meet them. They were afraid. They were looking for a dead body they might well be startled by a glittering stranger. The angels were fresh from heaven, the witnesses of the risen and victorious Lord. They had not been thinking of that, so the angels put them to fear. And they said, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?... He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee." That was a rebuke. Do you like to see love rebuked? It is not pleasant, but it is faithful. They were about the business of love, but the business of unbelief too. So in everything God stands vindicated.

Then they remembered the words. How much mischief we get into by not remembering God's words! When the Lord Jesus was tempted, He had the word of God at hand, and by that simple word He could gain the victory in the battle. They do this piece of foolishness, because they had not remembered the simplest words that could have fallen on their ears. How sweet to see the God of all grace in intercourse with us even in our mistakes! Would you like a person to be always standing before a glass, fitting himself for your presence? You would rather find him at ease before you, and so would God. The rebuke was well meant and well deserved, but it was an excellent oil that would not break their heads (Ps. 141: 5). Now this light puts them on quite a different road. Let my mistakes be a link with Christ, rather than the Ephraim condition, "Let him alone." "Be not silent: lest... I become like them that go down into the pit." Ps 28: 1. All this is anything but that. They were well-deserved and sharp rebukes; but again I say, Let my mistakes put me in company with Jesus, rather than that I should not be in company with Him at all.

So they went and told these things to the apostles, "and their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." Now would you call the apostles Corinthians, who, by intellectual workings, denied the resurrection? or Sadducees, who, as a depraved sect, denied the resurrection? I could not say that. I should not put them among the Sadducees of Israel or the Corinthians of the Gentiles. How then do you account for their unbelief? Ah, it is hard to believe that God is doing your business in this world. It is much easier to us to do Christ's business than to believe that He has done ours. Not a form of human religion takes up that thought. So it was with the disciples. They could bring their spices and their ointments, but they were not yet able to believe the mighty fact that He had been doing their business. We think of Him as hard, and exacting, and watching above the clouds to find occasion against us. Their hearts had been as leaking vessels of the words of Christ, and they came as the living to the dead instead of believing that He, as the living, has come down to us, the dead. We will spend our days in penances, but we will not trust Him. Then we see Peter in the same plight. Peter! Is it possible! he that had made the very confession on which the Church is founded!

When Peter had to live the confession, he failed. The one among the eleven that ought eminently to have blushed was Peter. How you can distinguish a man from himself at times his condition from his experience! If he had known what he was confessing, he never would have thought of "the Son of the living God" as among the dead.

Then we leave Peter, and return to the Lord, in company with two disciples. He got the very same element in them. The only exception lay in the distant corner of Bethany. We do not find Mary and Martha at the sepulcher. They had already been at the tomb of their brother. Was it from want of love that they were not at the empty sepulcher? No, but from faith in Christ. Ignorant love brought the Galilee women there; intelligent faith kept the Bethany women aside.

Now He joins these two disciples on the road, as with gloomy clouded hearts they were going back to the city. What made them sad? It was unbelief. That sadness was attractive to Jesus. If the affection that took the spices to His tomb was delightful to Him, the sadness that gathered round their clouded hearts was delightful to Him too. It was reality. Do you not believe that the gospels give you little bits of eternity? The gospels give you intercourse between the Lord of glory and poor sinners, and eternity will give you the same intercourse. It is worth a world to have an intimate eternity with Christ. The gospels prepare our hearts for it, even now, by such confidence. Their confidence was won and retained, though the Lord never made an effort about it. He just threw Himself out on their hearts, and they took Him up as He was.

And He drew near and asked them, "What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" And they said, "Art Thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?" We have turned our backs not only on Jerusalem but on all our expectations. This is the third day, and now we are going home. It is all over with us. He replied, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe" to believe what? "All that the prophets have spoken." That was the cure, and that was where they came short. Oh, how that should bind round your heart and mine every jot and tittle of God's Word! Then He showed them how Christ should suffer, and expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.

Now their reasonings turn into kindlings. What turned them? Jesus had interpreted Himself. How natural then that He should make as though He would go farther! He was hiding Himself under a veil, and, as a stranger, He would not intrude on them. "But they constrained Him." I do not thank them a bit I thank the kindlings they were enjoying for this piece of courtesy. We had better take up our thanks to the One to whom thanks are due. We know how it ended. Be sure the joy of eternity will never weary you. Kindlings will be there in seraphic order. Give me a seraphim mind within, and the glories of Jesus around. That will be heaven.

Luke 24: 33

We are closing the Gospel of Luke, and we still find the same thing that we were meditating on the last time the unbelief that lurked in their hearts touching the resurrection. Now the Lord sets Himself to dissipate it. It must be dissipated, for it is fatal to the faith of God's elect. Nothing could be a substitute for resurrection. The whole dealing of God with sinners depends on its being an accomplished fact. In several cases during His ministry we get the people expecting Him to interfere between sickness and death. But that was not God's way. The wages of sin is death. So now, He must go into death. He must meet the enemy in the place of his strength and defeat him there. In the history of Jairus's daughter, it was just that. He tarried so long that she died a beautiful witness that the Lord did not come to intercept death, but to defeat death. So in the case of Lazarus the Lord tarried till the sickness ended in death. They were all crying and bewailing howling over the ravages of death. That was the very place for the Son of God to display Himself. To be sure, He did heal and cleanse, but He came into the world not to interfere between sickness and death, but between death and life again. He is the holder of victorious life. Supposing He had met sickness and not death, nothing would have been done, for the wages of sin is death. Did He come to qualify the original judgment, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"? He did not. He came to meet it, suffer it, verify it, and get the victory on the other side of it.

When the two disciples are satisfied, they get back to the city to report what they have seen and, while they speak, Jesus Himself stands in the midst of them. There are many things for us to observe here. I will tell you a sweet thing. He not only rose, but He rose the same as He died. Could you put up with an altered Son of God? Though throned in glory this moment, He is the very same as He was at the well of Sychar. If you want to know what Christ is now, go and learn Him in the four gospels. Do you want a different Jesus than the one that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have introduced to you? Perhaps it is hard to understand that He is the same now in glory as He was here. It is part of the business of the post-resurrection scenes to assure us that He is the very, very same. Treasure that up in your souls. It will make the pathway to heaven easy. He has come into your world before ever He asked you to go into His, and the way to make the path there easy is to know that you will find, in yonder world of glory, the very same Jesus that came into your world. The Lord of the distant glories has been in the midst of my ruins, and has shown me that He is the same in the midst of the glories as in the midst of the ruins. It is among the moral wonders of the gospel that the blessed Lord has taken such means to accommodate my eye and ear to future glories. He has given beautiful pledges of that.

As He entered the room, He said, "Peace be unto you." Had He ever said that before? Were those strange words on His lips? He was only redeeming His pledge. Before He died, He said, "Because I live, ye shall live also." After He rose, "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." That is another witness. Before He died He said, I will meet you in Galilee. Did He not take up the pledge? You may say that was a little thing, but whether big or little, a risen Christ makes good what a ministering Christ had promised. Circumstances cannot change Him. Ruins here and glories there have no power to touch Him. He said before He suffered, "I go to prepare a place for you." After He rose, He said, "I ascend unto My Father, and your Father."

If you go through the post-resurrection scenes, you will be able to track a risen Christ in company with a ministering Christ. taking up the pledges and showing all the beautiful traits of character that He exhibited before. Do you ever think of sudden death? You may be borne without a moment's notice into His presence. Will it be a strange place to you? I may be a stranger to His circumstances, but not to Himself. Therefore, the more we acquaint ourselves with Jesus, the more we are in heaven already. It matters little about His palace if I know Himself. The blessed Lord wants to make us intimate with Himself. So in the post-resurrection scenes He lets us know that we know Him already.

Now we come to the verification of the fact of resurrection. Why is that such an important point? Suppose God had said, Satan has ruined your body, so I will take you to be with Me in spirit; it would have been verifying the victory of Satan over the body. Did God come into the world to do that? So the Apostle says, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain." Then He makes us, in our glorified bodies, the witnesses of His victory. Resurrection was not only the seal of His victory. He has made an atonement, and the throne has owned it by raising the Surety from the dead; but not only so, it is necessary to see that He has got a victory in this world; so to verify this, the Lord wonderfully condescends. "He said unto them, Have ye here any meat?" Why was all that? Simply to verify that it was no mere spirit that stood before them. The Lord came to fight a battle for you palpable flesh and blood. Palpable manhood had been destroyed palpable manhood must be redeemed. Having established the fact in the 44th verse, He makes all to hang on it. Then having recited what He had once told them, He here knits His present ministry with what had gone before. He opens to them in law, prophets, and Psalms, the things concerning Himself. We see something like this in His dealings with Peter. He had said, "Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice." That came to pass. Then the Lord looked at him. He had awakened his conscience by the crow; He relinked him with Himself by the look. When the Lord rose, He took up Peter exactly where He had left him. He did not want to awaken his conscience again, or relink him with Himself again; but He took him up at the critical point where He had left him. He puts him into the ministry again.

The Lord knows the path of your spirit and will take you up exactly where you are. He had told them while He was with them that all things should be accomplished, and now He gives them an opened understanding (which He had not done before), and sits down to give them a lecture on them. It is beautiful to see how He educates us. What a wonderful moment! and that moment has been continued to this moment. That was a moment that characterized the present dispensation that on the warranty of His death remission of sins should be preached to every poor sinner. In one sense we have never got beyond it, and we never shall till the last of the elect is brought in. Now He has done everything; and, as a preacher to the world, He was silent. He had declared remission of sins to a world of sinners. As an evangelist, I take leave of Jesus there. As a high priest, we have not yet fully seen Him, but, as an evangelist, that was a stereotyped moment of His ministry. He cannot add to that. He has told me, as belonging to a world of sinners, that through death and resurrection remission of sins is preached to me.

Now He led them out to Bethany. I believe it was a silent walk. If my spirit is drinking in the simplicity of such a gospel, it will be in deep-toned, silent satisfaction of soul. "And He lifted up His hands, and blessed them." That was priestly service. There He "ever lives." I never have done with His uplifted hands, and in that attitude He was taken up to heaven to carry on His priesthood on high. What effect has all this on you and me? to look at an evangelist Jesus giving peace to the conscience, and then see Him going up to heaven in the act of blessing! What effect had it on the disciples? The whole character of their religion was changed. They were no longer trafficking with Moses. Their service became that of eucharistic priesthood. They went back to the city with great joy, "And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God." Can anything be more divine? Nothing. And there Christ takes leave of you. The heavens will retain Him till the times of refreshing; but have you lost Him? Could He give a more graphic impression than He has done here? He has accomplished redemption and He ever lives to bless you. Go to your Jerusalem, and be ever praising and blessing Him.

There it drops. "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness." The trail of the serpent is everywhere, but in such shining paths as I see the feet of Jesus treading here. What He lays His hand to, He accomplishes to perfection.

Showers on the Grass

Showers on the Grass.

Being a few brief letters & papers, addressed to C. E. M. Paul, of Exeter,

by the late J. G. Bellett, of Dublin.

London: G. Morrish, 24, Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row, E. C.

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." — Deut. 32: 2.

Preface.

It has been a pleasant recreation to gather up and arrange these few simple papers for the press. There is living water here. The heart testifies to the unvarying freshness of the matter.

The reader will quickly perceive that there does not exist any special narrative interest in the letters — they are given for the sake of the touching sympathy and hallowed tone expressed in them. How truly they were found to the patient and tried one to whom they were addressed to be as showers upon the grass.

May the Master be pleased to use them for spiritual refreshment to any whose lot may be cast in a similar path of affliction.

C. McA.

London, 1865.

Papers.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

ROMANS 8: 19 - 22.

1 SAMUEL 1 - 7.

GENESIS 49 AND DEUT. 33.

JOHN 3.

JACOB AT PENIEL.

THE CASE OF JOB.

DEUTERONOMY 8: 7-9; 11: 10-12.

1 CORINTHIANS 11: 3-16.

THE WOMAN IN THE CROWD, MARK 5.

PATRONAGE.

DIVINE INTIMACY.

ELECTION.

REDEMPTION, LEVITICUS 25.

GENESIS 1 - 47.

LETTER 1.

Leamington, Aug. 12, 1839.

I trust His own peace has been keeping you abundantly, as it has been wont to do, and as, I doubt not, it will keep you to the end. I trust He has been giving you some sweet, and rich kidneys of wheat at times, some happy little cups full of fresh milk from the pure word of His grace. It will be happy, beloved, when you know the fresh and over-flowing springs that rise in Himself. Jesus is to be your prophet even in the glory. There He will feed your still enlarging thoughts with Himself, as here He has begun to do. The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed you even then as now. Love Him, dear sister, for He is worthy; and your delighted eyes by and by will be satisfied with His beauty, as your ears are listening to His praise from the great congregation.

Let us now meditate together on a little Scripture.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

The Church of Galatia was the scene of a conflict between the law and the gospel, or Sarah and Hagar. We have in the progress of Scripture many such scenes. The house of Abraham was such. There Hagar and Sarah for a season dwelt together, but in sad discord and strife. Again, the family of Jacob presented the same. Leah and Rachel, the two wives, dwelt together, but between them there was again the same disturbance, upbraiding and envy. Elkanah's house was the same. Peninnah and Hannah were the Leah and Rachel again — pride and provocations from the one, and constant sorrow of heart from the other. And all these scenes were the expression of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, or the law and the gospel, of which conflict the Church in Galatia was the scene, when we reach the times of the apostolic ministry. The trouble was brought in through unbelief, and could be removed only by strengthening the freewoman. Thus it was Sarah's unbelief that brought Hagar into the family. Had she, in the patience of faith, waited the Lord's time, and not given her maid to Abraham, she would have been spared fourteen years of sorrow from Hagar and Ishmael. It was Jacob's craft on Isaac that brought down Laban's craft on himself in giving him Leah, and thus his getting her into his house as well as Rachel. Had his faith been more simple, his faith would have been more undistracted. And nothing healed all this sorrow and quieted this disturbance, but the fruitfulness of the beloved, or the freewoman. Then Sarah gets rid of Hagar, Rachel rejoices, and Hannah sings her song of holy triumph. So Israel brought the law, or the bondwoman, on themselves by their unbelief and self-confidence (Ex. 19); and Galatia, and the flesh in each of us, is the same cause of trouble. And nothing drives it away, nothing heals the house, the Church, or the heart, but strengthening the spirit, the gospel, or the freewoman, thus giving fruitfulness to the seed of God, the spirit of adoption, the principle of liberty in us. Bring forth Isaac, and then send away Ishmael, and dwell in an undivided house, breathe the pure element of liberty, "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Indeed we ought to do justice (may I so speak?) to the wondrous love of our God. It claims our happy confidence, our filial confidence. To render it merely a diffident or suspicious glance, as it were, is treating it unworthily. May the Sarah in our hearts cry out, and cry out lustily, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son."

LETTER 2.

January 11, 1840.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

I know not dear G . . . 's address exactly, and this gives me this happy occasion of writing a little word to you, as you will kindly give the enclosed to Mrs. B and she will forward it for me.

I should be glad to be paying you a visit now and then, dear sister, to tell to one another of the blessed Jesus. But the principal thing I could tell you of would be discoveries of my weakness and poor, poor faith. We find out that much of energy and grace that may appear in us passes off like chaff before the wind. O, dear sister, we are brought to learn humbling lessons at times. But I am sure some of us are too, disposed to look at the death in Adam, rather than the life in Christ; the ruin and sorrow that have come in through the first man, rather than the mighty, everlasting relief that has been introduced by the Second.

What a thought it is, that corruption and glory so closely touch each other in us! We carry within us the seeds of both. What an illustration is poor Lazarus of that: one moment the feast of dogs at the gate of a rich neighbour; the next, the holy, happy charge of angels carrying him to bright and glowing scenes on high. And this is comforting; and it should help to withdraw our eye from the seed of corruption to the seed of glory in us. Some of us are tempted to brood over the one, and scarcely to lift ourselves up to the other. But Jesus in resurrection invites our eye, and there faith turns.

Our united love awaits you. O, dear sister, I desire to know the power of a little truth, rather, far rather, than increase the stock of truths. Farewell. The Lord be with your spirit. A little letter would be pleasant to me, but I do not put it on you. Believe me, very unfeignedly,

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 3.

Limerick, April 10, 1840.

The reading of your last letter, beloved sister, was indeed very sweet to my mind, and it has come into my heart to write to you again, though far in the country at present, having come to a small prophetic meeting in the county Tipperary. We have, however, been very happy together. All peace among us, and much valued truth communicated, and a strong sense of this precious doctrine — that nothing intervenes between the present moment and the catching of the saints into the air, but the fulness of the body of Christ. I shall not be in Dublin, please God, for another fortnight, but through the unwearied love of my heavenly Father (who, knowing my weakness, deals with me in constant tenderness), I hear comfortably of all there. However, accept our united love, dear sister, for indeed it is easy to remember you with love. I should like, indeed, to see you all again, but that desire is not to determine any movement.

Tell dear . . . . (and surely he has my love as well as my message), that the thought of building a house troubles some of his Irish brethren. Several (indeed well-instructed brothers) think it is sadly departing from the spirit of the dispensation, and that, sooner or later, Satan will get advantage of all such houses — perhaps into them, dear sister. I was always indisposed to ours in Dublin. I could, indeed, greatly desire "the upper rooms" still; but I only just tell what many felt and expressed at our meeting.

The accounts you give of the Lord's good hand are very sweet.

ROMANS 8: 19-22.

Look with me, beloved sister, at Romans 8: 19-22. "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

There is a propriety in the creation waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, because the "earth hath he given to the children of men." And thus creation travels her history with them. In their innocency creation was blest, in their transgression it was cursed, and so again it is when they are manifestedly glorified, creation will be delivered into the glorious liberty with them. The Church has the same connection with her Head. In this world, where He was rejected, she finds no place, but when He appears, they also shall appear with Him in glory. His ways determine those of the Church or saints. Man's ways or state determines creation's.

I do not judge that this "manifestation of the sons of God" will take place at the opening of the millennium, but at the close.[?] There will be something of it in the land of Judea then, but not throughout creation. The Church will be in some sense manifested in glory over Jerusalem all through the millennial age. The golden city will descend and take her millennial place in the air above the earthly city of the Great King. And, in that measure, creation will rejoice. That is, "nothing shall hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain." The glory resting there, the corresponding glorious liberty of creation, will be known there. But the whole creation will not, I judge, be called into such liberty till a fuller and more universal manifestation of the sons of God takes place, in the new heavens and new earth. The liberty of creation will be commensurate with the manifestation of the sons. When the heavens are new, the earth will be new. When the morning stars shine, as it were, throughout the hemispheres, and not merely in the skies of Judea, then creation will enter into her complete rest in glory. And Judea in the millennium will thus be a sample of the new earth that is to be afterwards.

And I see a great beauty and fitness in Paul's looking out to the last and wider manifestation. The Jewish prophet, when anticipating for a moment "the new heavens and the new earth," could at once turn to Israel and say, "For, behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." (Isaiah 65: 17, 18.) And again: "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." (Isaiah 66: 22.)

It was duly the way of the Spirit rather to contract the vision then and fix it on the land of the people whom He was addressing.

But Paul was not the prophet of Israel, but of creation, being the apostle of the Gentiles, and therefore he at once enlarges the vision, and passes by that subordinate and previous exhibition of "glorious liberty" which Jerusalem and the land of the Jewish prophet was to rejoice in, looking outward and onward to the manifestation of the sons of God in the eye of the whole creation.

Farewell, my dear sister; your poor body feels the pressure, but the Lord is under the load with you. There is a helper of infirmities. May His comforts refresh your soul.

LETTER 4.

January 16, 1841.

It is a small thing to say, my dear sister, that I have my little visits to you in sweet remembrance, when we used to speak together of that blessed One who had united us. Bad it is that the heart should ever be dull and cold — but oh, its stupidity, its lifelessness, its distance from the atmosphere of the Canticles, is known and felt every day; the shallowness and narrowness of the flowings of the Spirit through us are well understood in the secret of the soul within us. I am not sure that we have not been a little hasty after knowledge, and the soul in its search has not been given space to pour itself out over the word with sufficient desire. Better to break the heart over one truth than get many truths in the mind. But you, beloved sister, may not be so sensitive of this as I am. Your retirement has its privations, but it has its many holy advantages also. But, indeed, we know also the high blessedness of speaking of the precious word of God, and were it not for the contendings of wretched carnal affection, the joy of such occupation would be unmixed. But oh, the vanity, the strife, the disorder, that the flesh casts up! May the Lord be with you, my dear sister, and so plead with the pains of nature as to give you more ease. The bigger the cloud swelled over Job — though he judged it big with rain, and wind, and lightning — it was only the fuller of blessing for him at last, for the flocks that were scattered by it were replaced with larger, and the children who were slain by it were succeeded by fairer ones. And instead of being habituated to look at God as at the source of human sorrows, should we not the rather remember the griefs of Jesus over them, and in these griefs and tears see the divine mind, while contemplating such a scene of travail in pain as this whole creation is?

I have considered some of the scriptures, dear sister. The Lord keep us that our growth in knowledge may be healthful. In many souls I believe knowledge is doing mischief rather than good.

1 SAMUEL 1 - 7.

There is a beautiful line of truth through 1 Samuel 1 - 7. It was a time of the full ruin of the whole system, standing, as it then did, in man's strength, and its restoration by the sovereign grace and power of God, who takes up the barren woman, and the babe, and suckling, to be the vessels and instruments of His gracious working. In the course of all this, the people are brought to repentance, and confession, and the sign of this is, the mystic action of spilling the water on the ground, denoting the good-for-nothingness of flesh, that all it is fit for is to return to the dust out of which it came. Jesus speaks of being "poured out like water," "brought into the dust of death." (Psalm 22)

I would just take leave to aid your meditations on this lovely scripture by the following short analysis of it.

1 Samuel 1. Israel's personal inability is here presented in a mystery, and God's interference in grace.

1 Samuel 2. Israel's progress in sin, while the Lord is preparing His mercy.

1 Samuel 3. The Lord gets His instrument of mercy and salvation ready.

1 Samuel 4. Israel's ruin.

1 Samuel 5 - 6. God rises to plead His own cause, the glory of His own name against the enemy, though His people had sold it.

1 Samuel 7. The Lord's instrument, already prepared for mercy and salvation, does its work effectually, and EBENEZER is raised.

GENESIS 49, AND DEUT. 33.

It is natural to contrast these passages; but I understand a decided difference in the words of Jacob and of Moses over the twelve — the one regarded them as children, and the other as tribes of the Lord; the one was anticipating their own conduct and history, the other was putting them severally in that place of honour and blessing which God had settled and secured for them. Thus, in the words of Moses, you get nothing but blessing. No mention of any fault or evil of their own, but God disposing of them all according to His own purpose of grace. It is the tribes under the covenant of promise in the latter day. There may be, and are, divers glories among them, but all are blessed. No mention of any evil they had committed. All that is forgotten. Jehovah findeth none. No iniquity in Jacob — no perverseness in Israel. Their tents are all goodly, under the favour and light of the Lord! It is the blessing, as from mount Gerizim, being under God's covenant, as just before it was the curse from Ebal under their own. (Deut. 28) And on the mount, as it were, the God of Jeshurun is riding in his magnificence for their help. Happy are such a people. But Jacob anticipates their ways, ways which they have already, generally, ran, and ended; sin, shame, loss, apostacy, marking nearly all, more or less.

"From thence," in the prophetic word on Joseph I understand to mean this, that from the one whom the archers had shot at comes the stone and shepherd of Israel; i.e., the glories of Jesus result from His sufferings, as typified in the history of Joseph. Not that Christ came from Joseph as a tribe, but follows him as a type. I do not see that the stone here has connection with the pillar in Genesis 28. But the stone is a great title of Christ in Scripture — the foundation or chief corner-stone — the disallowed stone — the head of the corner that is to break the image in pieces — the living and the precious stone. And I judge as the stone in these its different aspects, it might be thus presented. First. He came to Israel as the Foundation-stone, but was rejected by them. The builders would not use Him. Secondly. Being rejected or disallowed by Israel and the earth, He has been lifted up as the Head of the corner, communicating the life and the preciousness that He has to all who will by faith own and use Him in His disallowed condition, and thus they become living stones and precious stones like Himself. (1 Peter 2) He communicates His life and value to them. Thirdly and finally, as Head of the corner. — He will, after He has thus communicated His life and preciousness to all the stones of His heavenly elect house, fall on the great image, the full concentration of all those worldly powers that once rejected Him, and grind them to powder. The pillars were witnesses of God, memorials of His ways, standing, abiding memorials. Thus, "the God of Bethel" is Jacob's God, the God in whom mercy rejoiced over judgment. Jacob learnt Him as such at Bethel and held Him in that character ever after — worshipped Him as such. Joshua erected the stones on the other side of Jordan the very first thing he did, that God's glory might be first provided for, that the inheritance of Israel might thus be taken first to God's praise, and then to the people's joy and blessing. As Noah when he stept out from the ark first erected his altar and offered his offerings. And the pillar in the midst of the waters, as on the shores of the promised land, may intimate that Christ will leave the memorial of His power and victory in the place of death on the enemy, as in the regions of life and glory — as the graves were opened, as well as the veil rent, when the blood was shed.

LETTER 5.

May 8, 1841.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

I have been just asking myself, how far I really see "form and comeliness" in the rejected and despised Jesus; and I am assured that while the soul is under the power of things seen, this cannot be; because the marred visage, the thorny crown, the carpenter's son, the penniless, homeless stranger, the One spit upon, the patient sufferer of wrongs and reproaches daily heaped upon Him, is no object of "form or comeliness" before the eye of mere man. If the soul, therefore, be under the power or pressure of things seen, what is Jesus to it? It is faith alone that can admire Him. It is the eye trained and practised by the Holy Ghost that alone can see the beauty of the smitten form of the low-estated Galilean. O, dear sister, this tells loudly against the constant currents of our hearts. May we be more and more lifted above the admiration of, or delight in, the things seen, the fair shows of the flesh. Such glances of our hearts, of which they are so guilty, weaken our power to perceive this only real "form and comeliness."

So, where is the ear for the Shepherd's voice? Surely only in that which the Spirit has, in like manner, opened. And if the flesh and the world be practising it with its music and soft words, beloved sister, its readiness and skill to catch that unearthly voice will, in like manner, decline and be impaired. Another solemn thought for our souls, another humbling reflection on the too easy and constant ways of our senses, arises here.

This was in my mind just now, and so I have put it down. But I had it in my mind to write to you, to get some one in . . . . to give me a line and tell me how the dear Miss . . . . are. Give my love to them, and to all besides, accepting it yourself, dear sister, with that of all united with me here. I hope my dear brother . . . . got my last, which I wrote in answer to one he sent me, accompanying the pleasing letters from . . . . I have just returned from a happy meeting of about 100 at Parsonstown. For two days we were considering some holy and precious truth, and all were edified and comforted, I think. I find the dear brethren in the country walking in much peace and union. But we have just lost a much-loved man, who kept a large country shop at Nenagh. His end was all peace. He told the apothecary, "he would not give one thought of Jesus for all that was in his shop." Thus joy and sorrow mingle together in our hearts, dear sister. His dear widow has been greatly supported. Pray for her. Tell the dear . . . . that we have also lost dear . . . . I do not know whether I mentioned her death to them.

We know nothing yet as to seeing England this summer. It was expected that there might be some meeting at . . . ., but I am not so sure of that now. But may we, dear sister, have no desire to promote anything of our own, and watch against all tendencies that way. They are very subtle. The teaching of Nicodemus, and the Lord leading him back to the brazen serpent, evidently shows us that the new life is the life of a sinner saved by the grace of God and blood of Jesus. The word of the gospel is consequently the seed of that life. (1 Peter 1) This shows the character of the new birth or life, as clearly as the Lord's words show the need of it. And this makes it exceedingly simple; and that which is thus produced is spirit. Because Jesus, the Second man, is a quickening spirit, and this new life is life derived out of Him, or a poor dead sinner getting life from Jesus the Saviour, who gave His flesh and His blood as atonement for sin for the life of the world.

JOHN 3.

"That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." This is our new and glorious life-blood — a life that stands both in the Head and members in victory over all the power of death. And it is blessed to see this new life, and the seed of it, the same from the very beginning. Adam had brought in death. God revealed the woman's seed in the character of a Redeemer. That must be remembered. The woman's seed was not spoken of as a teacher, or as a lawgiver, or as a king, but as a redeemer. And in that character the faith of Adam received Him, for he called his wife "the mother of all living," thus owning that all around was death; that he himself, though the first man, appointed to be the father of the human family, had forfeited that place and honour, and that life was now to spring and flow from other sources and through other channels altogether, that the promised seed of the woman, the promised Redeemer, alone held and carried it for man; and that if any lived unto God, they must live to Him as poor sinners saved by the virtue of the bruised woman's seed. Here was the new head of life revealed in the promise of God, and apprehended by the faith of Adam. And such is the family likeness, the blood relationship, between Adam and the last and weakest of the redeemed sinners. I need not trace the same life in Abraham. It is well understood amongst us. He owned himself as dead, but trusted God as a quickener of the dead. He lived, as a helpless, strengthless sinner, in the promise and power of God meeting his need as such. His is the pattern-faith of all the redeemed family. (See Rom. 4) Against hope all of them believe in hope, and thus give all the glory of their life to God, while they walk in the joy and certainty of it themselves.

And the word is, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." There is no entrance into that kingdom for any but a poor sinner thus taking Jesus as a Saviour. For such an one only is born again, as we have seen, and only those born again get entrance there. There are no righteous ones, no wise ones, no rich ones, in that kingdom. None who so stand in any confidence in the flesh, but those who are born again, born of water and of the Spirit; born, being dead sinners themselves, by the quickening virtue of Jesus the Saviour.

This truth is thus largely established. Blessedly too for our joy and stability of heart. And the opening of the Lord's sermon on the mount tells us of the need of this new birth, as His discourse to Nicodemus does. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It belongs to none else. The kingdom of heaven is the possession of the poor in spirit, but of such only. None but those "born again," none but those who are "poor in spirit," have title to it or place in it. The Lord by that word which opened His mouth as prophet of God to Israel (Matt. 5: 3), must have crossed the fond thoughts of that people. The flesh of Abraham, they judged, gave them title. Circumcision, as they boasted, was the pledge of their inheritance. But, no; the kingdom was only for dead sinners, who trusted in the value of Jesus the Saviour; for the poor in spirit, who, disowning all title in themselves, received the kingdom from the hand of a Saviour. And while this is very decisive, how happy is it to know that the poor in spirit shall possess it. The word that says, except we be born again we cannot enter it, clearly thereby tells us that if we are born again we shall enter it. If we will take (drawn, doubtless, by the secret drawing of the Father) the place of poor convicted sinners, and receive the word of salvation from the Son of God; if we but look by faith at the brazen serpent as bitten Israelites, then the kingdom is already entered; life is now had, and glory shall be had through the virtues of the uplifted Jesus.

Farewell, my dear sister. Our love to your dear mother and sisters. I hope they are well, and dear little . . . . still looking for beauty in the smitten One, of which I have spoken. The Lord be with your spirit, and refresh your hours with His divine presence.

Believe me, ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

Let me soon get a letter from some one, please.

LETTER 6.

August 1, 1842.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I got your welcome little word, in company with dear Miss B . . . .'s, some weeks since, and have quite purposed to answer it, but was not quite up to do so till now, when I feel disposed to sit with you for an hour. The Lord has laid you much aside, and are we not debtors in Him to pay you a visit now and again; and has it not often been my own comfort to do so? Indeed it has, dear sister; and may the blessed One Himself ever keep us in one spirit till we be together, with all saints, in one house of many mansions for ever.

We are this day taking leave of a much-loved brother, who has for years walked among us in sweet and blameless grace, so that his absence will indeed leave a gap in the midst of us that may not be easily supplied. He purposes to go to Demerara. His health has been bad, but appears now to be much restored. These separations are not as "nature would desire," like much beside. But a gracious, skilful hand holds all things.

JACOB AT PENIEL.

I was looking a little last evening into the beautiful truths contained in the mystery of Jacob at Peniel. It is clear, I judge, that his faith had failed. Instead of remembering the promise and passing on in the quietness of faith, his soul, through unbelief, gets into great exercise. Instead of looking at God's host, he looks at Esau's host; he fears, and prays, and calculates, and settles all according to man's best device. Here was exercise when all should have been stillness. "Stand still and see the salvation of God." And often it is unbelief that raises exercise of spirit. There is such a thing as religious unbelief, praying unbelief. We have an instance of it here. Jacob was in exercise of heart, he was praying, when he should have been still as a stone, asleep in the promise; for so God gives His beloved sleep. With all this, of course, the Lord is at issue. He has a controversy with all this. Accordingly He comes out to wrestle with Jacob. But this wrestling and all that accompanies it has deep meaning for the soul. I might look at this in a few particulars. First. The first thing learnt is that which I have already noticed; that the Lord has a quarrel with Jacob. So hath He with us all. His truth or word addresses us in the very first instance, as those who have departed from Him, and with whom He has a very serious question to settle. In His word He withstands us to our face, He convicts us, He tells us that all is far indeed from being peace between Him and us. Secondly. But in the wondrous management of this quarrel, the Lord allows Jacob to prevail, and he has to sue for, and even purchase deliverance from his grasp. So with us. If the Lord pleased He could consume us. He could let out His righteous anger and destroy us. The mere touch of His hand withered Jacob's thigh, so one charge of ten thousand would undo us, and leave us in hopeless condemnation. But He did not deal according to His strength with Jacob, neither does He deal with us sinners according to His righteousness. He allows Himself to be prevailed over. It is all His grace, all His own counsel and doing, but so it is, He allows Himself to be prevailed over, He has committed Himself to a promise which ties up His strength. He has revealed a gospel in the blood of His dear Son which decides His way towards us in peace. He cannot deny Himself. He has put Himself in such an attitude before us, that faith must prevail and get the blessing. No victory is so sure as when a willingly emptied and unresisting enemy is against us. If I were to fight with a Goliath, knowing that he meant to lay aside his arrows and his strength, my victory would be surer than if I were to meet the weakest boy in the camp. For in the latter conflict, I should still have to measure strength and to think of the chances, though they might be never so much on my side; but in the former conflict, I need not count on chances at all, the victory was already and altogether sure. So here with Jacob, so in the gospel with us sinners. We have to do with One who has laid aside His strength and His weapons of war; who says, "My terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee." He has provided a way whereby He way fold up all His instruments of death, lay aside His angry righteousness and fiery vengeance of law, which He might so justly have drawn out against us, and He has given the sinner, like Jacob, to prevail for a blessing through that promise by which He has put Himself before us in an attitude of gracious or voluntary impotency. The gospel, when He has taken up His position, hides all that would destroy us. And such is the way of this divine Stranger with Jacob here. Thirdly. We then see the nature of the blessing. His name is now Israel, for he has power with God, and this secures him power over man, and all beside. And so is it with the believer. He can say, all is his; he has got, through grace, the key to divine fulness — all that God is and has is for him. And he can, in the sense of this, say (as Jacob, after he became Israel, might have said of Esau), "If God be for me, who can be against me?" He is conscious of this. The sense of it is attached to him. In spirit he has power with God and with man, and has prevailed — and thus every believer is an "Israelite." Faith prevails. It hushes Sinai, it answers the accuser, it pleads Christ to the demands of the law, and thus satisfies them; it meets the Father in the Beloved, and delights Him; it shouts a triumph over death, because of Christ's resurrection; it assures itself of all glory, because of Christ's oneness with His poor people. The believer thus prevails — is thus "Israel." All are prevailed over, all give place to the power of faith. Fourthly. We see the natural slowness in understanding this — in apprehending God in the gospel of His grace. "Tell me thy name," says Israel to God. This is to be rebuked. "Wherefore dost thou ask after my name." "Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known me, Philip." But in no other way will God be known, save in the blessing of the gospel, in the revelation of His grace in Christ. As the Lord here blesses Jacob in answer to the inquiry, "What is thy name?" and as we are now to turn from other witnesses, and to learn "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." We may be slow like Jacob, but God is sure. Fifthly. After this we see the happy issue of it all. Jacob now learns that he has been with God, and yet, a wonder to himself, his life is preserved. His thigh may halt, but his life is preserved. And all this gives us a striking view of the issue of a poor sinner's faith in the gospel, now simple, full, and established. He knows that he has the face of God bright upon him, not to consume, but to cheer and, bless him. That glory that would have been intolerable to man or to flesh is welcome to the believer. He knows God's righteousness remains unmitigated, but he knows that he has it in Him, and thus no glory is too bright for him. He can see God and live. He can stand in His presence, and rejoice instead of tremble. He bears in his spirit, it is true, the pledge of being but a saved sinner, one whom God might righteously and easily have consumed, but one whom grace has put in a place, not of defeat, but of victory; not of death, but of life. He is a halting conqueror. Such was Jacob. Such is every believer. And such will he be for ever. Life and victory will be his, but he will never forget that he is debtor to grace for it all.

I dare say my dear sister will go along with me quite in these simple comments on this little place in Jacob's wondrous history. I should be glad to pay you a visit, not as thus with pen and, ink, but face to face. However, I see no present prospect, but it may be that the path of our feet may again lie toward you. You will give my love to many around you, whom I remember in all love, especially dear . . . ., from whom I used to hear occasionally; dear M . . . . and C. B . . . .

The Lord be with your spirit, dear sister, His hand under your head, and then will the other one be embracing you, His strength and gentleness being both yours.

Believe me ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

Accept the united love of all here for yourself, dear mother and sister, and our young friend. Some weeks since I had a welcome letter from dear Miss . . . .

LETTER 7.

THE CASE OF JOB.

September 17, 1842.

It has come into my heart to send you a little scribble on Job. May the meditation refresh your soul. May the Lord keep our souls, by the Holy Ghost, simply and preciously in the power of the truth, in this busy, intellectual day. The case of Job is quite one of every day observation, the principle of it we all understand. He was a man, I judge, who had a true evangelical knowledge of God, but his faith was weak in meeting the discipline of his heavenly Father.

Severe losses and crosses came upon him, and who of us will say, that he would have stood so hard and sudden a shook? In mind, body, and estate, he was tried at the same moment. Bereavement of health, family, and comforts, he knew all together, and the desertion and scorn of the world instead of its honour and flattery. What could much aggravate this? And who of us would have stood it, even as he did, for the seven days? But at length the weakness of faith and the impatience of nature sadly betrayed themselves. But it needed much wisdom and grace to meet a believer in such a state. "One of a thousand" it needed. But he was visited by three of a very poor and ill-instructed class. They evince themselves to be of the Lord's people, for they come and mourn with this His servant, when all the world beside was refusing him. But their standing in the light of the mind of God was low indeed, and therefore all that they could apply to the case of Job only made bad worse. But in what do they betray this ill-instructed state of their souls? Here again, I judge, we have something of every-day recurrence, for the mistakes of these three are as common as is the impatience or weakness of Job. They counted much on religion in a worldly way. They reasoned, as though it were true, that honesty is the best policy, that righteousness gets its sure advantages in this world, and, therefore, that all the present sorrow and trouble of their friend was the proof of some secret unconfessed iniquity.

They drew also from themselves, deeming that they were men of experience and of observation, and had been much favoured with divine light. And they seem to make their own attainments, as they deem them to be, the great standard; so that poor Job's reputation had no chance at all in their hands, nor had his answers or words any countenance at all, if they would not stand the test of their experiences, or abide the measure of their rules of judging. They were familiar also with the traditions of the elders, treating them with the same respect that they did their own experiences and observation. These they cite against Job as determining the case, deeming it folly to suppose that the claims of antiquity could yield to anything he could possibly say. In these ways their minds were much corrupted. Principles like these had been their masters. There was a great religious reverence for God without, that is quite clear. Job himself could not speak abstractedly of God in more self-renouncing style than they, or with deeper expressions of religious fear. But the springs within were all polluted by the principles I have noticed. There was a worldly leaven, and a leaven of spiritual pride, and a leaven of traditionary knowledge, defiling all the exercises of their souls, and debasing all that issued from them. What could a poor believer, tried to the uttermost by the strong hand of his heavenly Father, and sinking through weakness under the pressure, do in the conflict and collision of such minds as these? "Miserable comforters are ye all," were gentle words, words that we might expect to hear from Job, till his soul had been taught and strengthened by the Spirit of God.

There is, however, one feature in this tremendous conflict which I would more particularly notice.

According to their view of the worldly advantages of true religion, or that honesty is the best policy, Bildad, in chapter 18, insists, that as "the light of the wicked is put out," Job must not suppose that in his case any exception will be allowed. He is not to judge that for his sake "the Rock shall be removed out of his place;" in other words, that the general divine plan will be abandoned through any special favour or respect to him. All this plainly telling Job, that as he was now so great a sufferer, he must be a hypocrite, for it is only the light of the wicked that is thus put out.

Now, however weak Job's faith may have been, the whole book and history show us that he had a good conscience. And these things are, morally, very different. We are not extenuating his faults. His fainting under the rebuke of God was very sad; his anger and murmuring were grievous. But still the testimony of his conscience was with him, and not against him. It was not true that he was a hypocrite. It was not true, as these worldly minded men of religion would have it, that he was hiding some sin. A good conscience he had not put away. And it was their great mistake, and it is any one's great mistake, to assume that there can be no affliction to a saint but of a penal or judicial character.

And such a thought is, I believe, offensive to the mind of God, quite contrary to His revealed way. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." This is His common way, and this was His way with Job, that He might make him partaker of His holiness. It was not because He loved Job the less, or found in Job an unsound conscience, that the Chaldeans and Sabeans, the wind and the fire, were allowed their way against him.

The moment there was cause for the Lord (may I say) to vindicate His own principles, and also His servant (Job not having put away a good conscience, had not of faith made shipwreck), the Spirit enables him here, and the Lord entitles him, to make a full and glorious confession of faith (Job 19), a confession which embraces the person, office, and work of Christ, and his full assurance of his own personal interest in all that, as a believer or one of God's elect. And in the certainty of all this, he warns his accusers to take care, for that it was a serious thing to meddle thus, as they were now doing, with one of the flock of God.

The Spirit seems to give a deep tone to this confession. A man with a bad conscience may still, in the effrontery of wretched nature, be bold to confess a sound creed. But there will be nothing of the Spirit's unction or light in all that. It will not commend itself as the ready utterance of a soul that has, and knows it has, its warrant in God under the seal of the Spirit. But this confession from Job breaks forth in that character. It comes to us with a seal upon it. It comes from a heart that was full of the truth through the Spirit. And thus it is a witness to us, that if the "good conscience" be not "put away," "faith" need not be "shipwrecked." (1 Tim. 1) For this is a divine principle; and, moreover, it answers Bildad to his face, that there is another way of accounting for the afflictions of the righteous than by assuming that they are hiding some way of iniquity. And, thus, the principles of God, the principles of His words, as well as the person of His poor, weak but upright servant, are blessedly vindicated before the adversary and accuser.

And I cannot but add another thing that shows itself in the progress of this wondrous and valuable book. Elihu, for a long time silent, at length speaks. And in this we observe the modesty and yet holy confidence of one who has consciously the Spirit in him and with him. He waits till "years" had spoken, fully allowing that "years" should know wisdom and speak of understanding. But he finds it far otherwise. Their answers to Job, making only bad worse, had proved this. Then Elihu speaks, not as they had done, from himself, as from his experiences or observations of his own, neither from the dictates of the ancients, or in simple subjection to any authority, however venerable, of man, but from the Holy Ghost. His silence had owned what was due to "years," or to the elders, or the ancients. He did not in pride, or in an insubordinate, revolutionary spirit, refuse the claims which naturally they might put in. But he would not sacrifice the truth or the rights of the Spirit to any one, and if the elders spoke not according to truth, they were not to be regarded. If the carnal intellect, however consecrated by years, or church place and authority, finds not out the path of understanding, Elihu will not give flattering titles or bow before it.

All this reads our souls a deep and blessed lesson. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." A false humility is not to lead us to bow to carnal authority, however venerable in the esteem of the world. A true humility will hinder our drawing from ourselves. These three practised the first but not the second, for they were blindly led by tradition or Church-authority, and also were wise in their own conceits: they drew both from the ancients and from their own experiences. But Elihu was led of the Spirit, apart from both, and the Spirit ever uses the word of truth and ever teaches us accordingly,  forcing its holy path onward after God, through every resistance from the false lights both of men and of our own hearts. Job, however, was to be rebuked. He was suffering, but he traced this suffering up to the mere good pleasure or sovereign will of God. He did not justify God in these sufferings. For God does not willingly afflict. He has a purpose in all that He does or allows to be done. Job, therefore, was to be rebuked. And Elihu does rebuke him. He stands for God and God's goodness against all that Job had said; and though Job insisted that, as touching this life, it was vain to serve God, for all were equally subject to sorrow, and God made no difference; yet did Elihu insist that there was profit in waiting on the Lord. And the voice from the whirlwind confirms all this judgment of Elihu, and Job is humbled and restored.

I do indeed read these characters in this book with much interest, and it is for our profit to note them. For such things have their claim still. The authority of antiquity, the worldliness of religious profession, or that godliness is gain, and the force of one's own spiritual light and experience, are found themes with men still, and harass much the hearts of wayfaring children of God. These are the flesh and fleshly pretensions, though in different forms. But "let God be true, and every man a liar," our souls should still say, as Elihu in principle said. Nothing should stand with us if the truth be touched. We are debtors to the Spirit in us to assert His rights, though naturally we may be ready to take the lowest place, and let "years" speak, as Elihu did.

And there is still another thing I would notice. Job was more simply and genuinely evangelical than his friends were. The truth of the gospel in his soul was not corrupted, as it was in theirs, though he was impatient under the rebuke of God, and uttered the fruit of that impatience against Him. But he held the faith and a good conscience. And these differences are dealt with at the end. His friends are owned of God then. That is true and happy. But they have to submit to God, and to own the great principle of the gospel which they had been corrupting — that is, to bring their victims in sacrifice as poor guilty ones, and thus to confess that all their hope was in the simple value of that Redeemer and His blood to which Job had made confession. Job, on the other hand, for his faith was sound, had not to repent in that particular. He was to humble himself under the mighty hand of God, and to love his brethren, to "pray for his friends." But he was not called on to learn the gospel itself more perfectly, as his friends were. They had not spoken of God the thing that was right, as he had, therefore they were commanded to go to the brazen altar, and there learn the doctrine of the blood. He had only to bow his head to the rod. And all this was the healing of their souls. Jot and his friends were all restored, though differently, according to the different errors, which the course of the history had disclosed, as we have seen.

LETTER 8.

12, Herbert Place, Dublin, October 4, 1842.

I have received both your kind and welcome letters, my dear sister, grieved to hear that dear Charlotte had been so seriously ill. The Lord bless her abundantly. He has laid her aside; but He has deeply introduced her to the heart of His people. And your dear mother so ill also.

I have a good deal in MS. on the Canticles, and just enclose some meditations which were lying here, copied out by some one; they appear generally correct, but I have not read them over. I do not see any moral value in determining whether the rock or the water out of the rock only followed through the desert. I would not much entertain the enquiry. I believe that Galatians 3: 27 more fixed my judgment as to baptism than any Scripture, for it told me that baptism was the intelligent act of a believer, the personal act of one's own faith, so to express it. I do not see in 1 Peter 3: 21 anything to give the mind a pause. For while it owns that the answer which the conscience is enabled to give, when it reads and receives the value of the resurrection of Jesus, is the great thing, still it implies the putting of a believer's body under water. It seems to me to take that as the granted form of the ordinance.

We have been here all the summer, but in wonted tender mercy we have generally been very well.

I heard of beloved Mr. S . . . . having been at Hereford. Ah, dear sister, how conscious the soul is of its own leanness. "My leanness, my leanness," how unfeignedly may the heart utter, and the richer, simpler grace of others oft brings this to view.

Farewell, my dear sister, believe me, ever yours affectionately in our Lord Jesus,

J. G. B.

LETTER 9.

February 11, 1843.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

Your most kind and welcome letter has remained some weeks unanswered. But since I got it, we have all moved over to Clifton, 5, Richmond Terrace. Several circumstances have led to this, and we are here, please God, for a month, but I have no present prospect of going farther into England. It was not a sister but a cousin we lost some weeks ago. She was united with the Brethren, and died in sweet assured peace. I have indeed, dear sister, been happy in the knowledge of our dear and honoured brother. His simple zeal and confidence in Jesus, humbles me much, and the services he has been doing in the blessed Master's cause. But the recollection that "the small and great stand before God," comes to relieve the heart pressed by the sense of our comparative barrenness. I trust all the dear brethren in Exeter are happy together and individually walking in communion with the Lord. My love to them.

I remember my happy little visits to you, beloved sister, and am thankful that the Lord has put it into our hearts thus at times to say a word to each other on paper. I was sitting with dear . . . . yesterday. Her sister's decline is very gradual. This post has brought me a long letter from dear . . . . at Demerara. But I have not yet read it, beyond the just seeing that he appears, in the Lord's mercy, to be in health.

It was striking me much last evening, how the discovery of the Book of the Law in the days of Josiah has a distinct voice in it, in the way in which his heart was moved by it. He had been serving the Lord according to his light previously, but when he had the book read to him, he began to serve Him in a new spirit and with increased intelligence. (Something in this like Cornelius. See Acts 10) He rent his own garment then. He took the place of a sinner, in a spirit that he had not done before, and then he also makes the word, and not his own religious thoughts, the rule of his doings. So will it be with the faithful Israel in the latter day, I believe. Josiah's heart became much exercised, when he heard the book of God, and so will theirs when they return to that from the vanities and traditions which have now so long occupied and deceived the nation. There may be previously, as in him, a following of the light as far as they know it, but when they recover the word, when the oracles of God become their care and meditation, their souls will get onward as his does. Psalm 119 will be their experience and utterance just at that time.

But the judgment against the nation is not to be changed by all this. Josiah, as the faithful one, will be spared, but the decreed judgment goes on. So in the latter day. The nation will be judged; the convicted, believing, obedient remnant will be spared.

Farewell, my dear sister. Ready and thankful shall I be to get another little word from you, whenever disposed to write. The Lord be with your spirit; and with united love from all,

Believe me, ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 10.  5, Richmond Terrace, Clifton, Bristol.

March 9, 1843.

Another little word came from you, my very dear sister, with a full welcome. I should be glad to be among the dear brethren in Exeter and its neighbourhood again for a season, and to pay you now and then a little visit, as I was wont to do, for my own comfort; and it may be so ere I return, please God, to Dublin. But I do not as yet see the way before me, and I have engagements here that, I suppose, will keep me next week. I will send your little letter to . . . . who will be glad to read it, as I have been.

I enclose a little scribble, but expressing a thought that was refreshing my mind a day or two since. I have had this impression from the Epistle of Jude, that the Holy Ghost is summarily and rapidly glancing at the corruption that was to manifest itself in the progress of the history of the dispensation under the forms of "the way of Cain," "the error of Balaam," "the gainsaying of Core." The first being false religion, or the leaven of self-righteousness, coupled with hatred of the poor self-renouncing remnant, who trust, like Abel, only in the blood of Jesus, and walk in real godliness. The second being a sounder form of religion, real prophetic truth or correctness as to the mind of God, but coupled with worldliness, and a subjection to the powers of the kingdom for reward. The third being a more hold and infidel scorning of all that is divinely sacred, and a setting of oneself up in the place of God's dignities. And there is order in these forms of corruption: for the first rather gave character to the earlier times, and the dispensation will close, doubtless, when the pattern of Core be fully copied.

Accept united love, dear, dear sister, for dear mother and sister also. The Lord be with your spirit for rich comfort. I hope to spend part of tomorrow and Saturday in Bath, and to be at Trowbridge for Sunday. My love to dear . . . . and all the brethren. I do not ask you to write to me save as your desire and your strength may lead you.

Believe me, ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 11.

June 18, 1843.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

A . . . . O . . . . tells me of your being near him, so that it enters my heart to give you a few lines by way of remembrance; and surely the remembrance is pleasant. Oh! that our bond one to the other, and the bond of all saints together, may be, more than it is, in the bowels of Christ Jesus. There is far too little of this. "What think ye of Christ, is the test to try both your state and your scheme." Thus sang one of the children of Zion in his lovely simple songs some 40 years ago, and I pray that the echo of that music may soften and form our hearts together. We have got into the high regions of thoughts, and the warmer, calmer air of affection is like to be deserted or contemned as something over which we have soared in our prouder search after loftier objects. The more is the pity, dear sister. Israel was warned to remember their beginnings even to the end: "That thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life." And so surely are we. (Heb. 3: 6-14.)

I suppose you got my last letter from Clifton. Give my love to dear Mrs. . . . ., and ask her if she got mine also, enclosing a sweet extract from a brother's letter. My dear Mary is but ill today. Indeed, her feebleness is much greater than when you saw her: but faith simple and sure, blessed be His name. Accept all our love. The good Lord keep and bless you, and believe me,

J. G. B.

I do not know whether mother and sister be with you.

Christian love to them and to dear . . . ., when you see her.

LETTER 12.

October 14, 1843.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

Dear Mrs. . . . has told me that you have been again more poorly than usual, and as the remembrance of you is always pleasant to me, so do I desire to give you this little token of it now, and to express our united hope in the Lord that He will abundantly be with you in the sensible joy of His favour, which is better than life.

I hope dear mother and sisters are well, and we would all be remembered in Christian love to them. My dear Mary still retains, we think, something of the benefit she got from her being in England a little, but the poor limbs are still very, very feeble. She rests, however, dear sister, in the constant calm of faith, knowing that all shall be well, and His mercies are sure and abundant every morning. Dear Mrs. . . ., many a happy little visit I paid to her last spring, and knew some of the exercises of her heart. And little, to be sure, did we then count on the path the hand of her heavenly Father was purposing for her. But, it is well.

My love to dear . . . . and others near you, beloved. I wrote to dear . . . . about a fortnight since. We have all need to cultivate the deeper sense of the Lord's presence, and also the joy that springs from the blessed, simple fact of redemption, and the divine love and glory displayed in it. You ask me if I still hold the hope of the Lord's coming as that which is most immediate to us. Yes, dear sister. I have not yet learnt that He has put anything as necessarily delaying our going to meet Him. Much may happen, I am sure. But He had made, I believe, nothing necessary. I would rather have the letting thing of 2 Thess. 2 undetermined. Perhaps we have all been somewhat wrong in suggesting what it is, for the Spirit seems to leave it as a secret. But that rather confirms the thought that the Spirit has not revealed anything as necessarily delaying our being caught up. We may have to meet the stake or the lion's den. I do not deny that. And in the principle of our calling we are to court a martyrdom. But necessity in that shape is not laid on us. And I still judge that we are with the Lord before the prophetic action of the Apocalypse begins. May we, however, dear sister, be patient with one another, and let our union be more and more in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and that, too, with all saints, and not in favourite points of truth. Dear Mr. . . . . left us on Thursday. He has been among all the brethren in the country, I may say. Farewell, my dear sister. I enclose a little meditation for some quiet hour. The Lord be with your spirit, and believe me,

Your ever affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 13.

December 4, 1843.

MY DEAR SISTER,

It is always grateful to me to have a little communication with dear Charlotte; and tell her, with my Mary's love and mine, how truly we hope she may soon be able to use her pencil again. The good hand of the Lord has dealt peculiarly with her. But His grace and Spirit have dealt blessedly. May you all be kept, in His mercy, unto His kingdom, which grows nearer day by day.

Your mention of the early chapters of Genesis led me to sit down and put my view of them on paper, which I now send you in its rough form. There was much grace and full brotherly love at the meeting of Liverpool. This rather marked it than power; though dear Mr. . . . .'s preaching was truly edifying and comforting. But it is not, dear sister, our stock of knowledge which we need to have increased, but that stock to become more active and lively in our souls, to stir itself there, and make itself a quickening mass, giving character to our minds more and more. Our christian love to your dear mother, and to the dear . . . . I was very glad again to see him, as I did at Liverpool. To dear Miss K . . . give my true christian love also. A little communication with her is also so pleasant. I hope dear . . . . still continues well.

I am sure it is desirable for the soul to enquire after heaven from the Scriptures, to be musing on the notions which they give us of what it is — to cherish them in our hearts, and turn them over in our thoughts. How far, my dear sister, does the imagination hinder or help this? But we want every help to make our religion a religion of delight and of affection, so as to counteract the strong currents of natural delights and desires.

Dear Mrs . . . . . was very welcome in the midst of us, and many have lamented her departure.

The Lord be with your spirit, and believe me,

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

Had I even Simeon's righteousness, piety, revelations, and every gift he possessed, I would, with him, (Luke 2: 25-32,) willingly forget and forsake them, living or dying, in order to exchange them for the child Jesus — Israel's only consolation. It is matter of astonishment, adoration, and delight to see how the Lord can induce us to let everything go — every thing appears so frivolous, unsatisfying, trifling, and superficial — even good and spiritual things which formerly gave much gratification, and of which we were so tenacious, but which for that very reason served only to interpose between us and God, and were injurious because they were held so fast. Jesus alone is sufficient, but yet insufficient, when He is not wholly and solely embraced.

O what a treasure it is to set aside all spiritual light and the gifts of grace in order solely to know that God is what He is! It is indeed eternal life to know Him. The desire of men to know much, even in spiritual things, is a powerful proof that they know not God in reality.

LETTER 14.

April 8, 1844.

It has given me much unfeigned pleasure, my beloved sister, to hear now and again through dear . . . . of the sustaining hand of our heavenly Father towards you and dear Harriet. Indeed I may well assure myself that this day of visitation to you is far from what nature would desire; that it touches your heart in some of its most tender affections. But I think I can say for myself that I am increasingly rejoicing in the dear elect ones of God during their journey here; for the darkness is so thick around, the abominations will so multiply, and the distracted state of those who are to be together for ever with the Lord is so apparently without remedy here, that it becomes, beloved, increasingly easy to consent to part with our dear ones in this way. We have lately taken leave of three or four sisters, sweetly finishing their course in the blessed peace of God. And it is not too much to say, that in spirit we may have happier communion with them that are gone than those that remain, for faith sees them, delivered from all that clouded or hindered here, resting and waiting with Jesus for the day of the glory. "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." How precious those words of the servant following his Lord who had before said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And a countless multitude are already gathered who have found it far better to have departed to be with Him. Dear Harriet, she is strengthening her brethren by witnessing the good hand of her heavenly Father upon her in the hour of nature's weakness. You know what dear Mrs. Graham said to her daughter, just as the dear child's spirit was leaving its tabernacle: "I wish you joy, my darling." How blessed an utterance that was. Give my christian love to your dear mother — may she be abundantly comforted — and love to dear Harriet herself from my Mary and me. The Lord be praised because of His grace towards her; and believe me, beloved sister,

Ever yours affectionately,

J. G. B.

How pleasant to me is the remembrance of my little visits to your sofa five years ago. Dear Sir Christopher was about that time finishing his course.

"Part of the host have crossed the flood,

And part are crossing now."

LETTER 15.

October 19, 1844.

The Lord bless you, my dear, dear sister, and if called on to take the journey somewhat more solitarily than your heart had been wont to count upon, and to know sorrows which had not come within the range of your forebodings, may His hand be with you and its well known staff. "God is His own interpreter." There is no providence by which He deals with us, that He will not interpret by and by, nor is there any promise by which He sustains and comforts, that He will not abundantly make good. There is nothing excessive in the divine descriptions. The spirit of revelation is surely under and not over the mark, though the promises are "exceeding great and precious," and the reality will rather be according to the confession of the Queen of Sheba, "the half was not told me, it was a true report which I heard in my own land." How beautifully does Luke 1 rise upon the heart, in connection with this. It has just struck me very peculiarly. I read it like a new scene of light and joy breaking in after a gloomy and wasted interval and exceeding all that had been in the earlier days or that had been promised by the prophets. There had been most surely a return from Babylon in the times of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and they were good times; the zeal of the servants of God, the restoration of the house and the city, the revival feasts, and the order and services of the people, made them so. But such times had been clouded. The day was overcast, yea, while it was yet but morning, a change had come, and Malachi gives us an evil account of his time, in which condition, with a bright promise to the remnant, Israel goes on till the times of the New Testament, a dreary and evil interval indeed, without one single ray as from the light of the Lord or the spirit of revelation to animate or cheer it. But though it tarry, wait for it, it will surely come, and come with a bright witness. For such is this exquisite chapter. The morning breaks. The heavens are opened as it were, and the dreary wastes of Israel are revisited. And as in the twinkling of an eye all this takes place. No special harbingers, no marvellous notices, of the coming change; but the priest is at the accustomed altar, and the people in their places according to the manner, and in the ordinary current of everyday life; the women of the land were preparing for espousals (verse 27) when suddenly the heavens open, and visitations are made alike to the temple and the cottage, to the priest and the poor unknown virgin of Nazareth.

The suddenness and the brilliancy of all this is very blessed. And how it tells us, beloved sister, that the distance of heaven from earth is nothing, when the due season comes for bringing them into communion. The ladder is a short one that will reach from heaven to earth by and by. And in this chapter we get a sight of it for a moment, or a sample of some of its happy services. Here the angels of God are ascending and descending. Gabriel enters, without wrong, into the place of the priests, and stands even at the right side of the altar. He does not take the high style of the Angel-Jehovah, and ascend in its flame; nor does he, like Jesus-Jehovah, speak of himself as greater than that temple, but being a heavenly one he enters without trespass upon the place of the priest. But so does he enter without reluctance into the place of the poor unknown Nazarene. The earth may not be so prepared to receive such visitations, as heaven is to make them, but Gabriel has for both Zechariah and Mary the same healing and gladdening word "fear not." And joy, the most satisfying joy, diffuses itself everywhere, old men and maidens, young men and children, join in the millennial dance; Mary, and Elizabeth, and the child in the womb, and Zachariah, in their several ways attest their joy, and in principle all creation is lighted up in gladness. Here is more than earlier days had known, or voices of prophets foretold. Ezra and Nehemiah had never had such days of heaven upon earth as these, nor had Malachi told the remnant of such tastes of soul-satisfying joy as Elizabeth had when she saluted Mary, and as Mary had when she uttered her song of praise. He had indeed said that they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and thought on His name together, but now in the hearts and on the lips of such a remnant the gladdening light of the Spirit is shed, and the triumphant strains of the Spirit are poured forth. And the suddenness, dear sister, as well as the brilliancy of all this! Who was calculating on a bit of all this the day before? And then the ease with which heaven visits the earth when the due time comes. No reserve in coming side by side with the highest; no reluctance in coming side by side with the poorest and meanest. The ladder stretches its ample foot across the length and breadth of the land, and down to every point of it "abundant entrance" is administered to the angels in the heavens above. All these features of this communion attract me, dear sister. Would that the soul could wait more in the joy and patience of faith for the great original of all this, for that millennial day, when the ladder shall thus be raised, and the heavens after this pattern shall open on the earth again, when the passage downward shall be thus in full ease and brilliancy again, and if the receivers of the joy that is brought be made so happy by it, what shall be the happiness of them who bear it to them, and who in their measure shall experience the divine prerogative, and know that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." May your heart greatly rejoice, dear sister. He will interpret the doings of His hand, and will outdo the sayings and promises of His prophets. May He graciously hold you up while you are passing the dreary interval. I have not heard from dear sister . . . . for some time. Tell her so, with my love in the Lord, and give the same to dear Mr. N. and his house, the . . . . and others.

Our sisters are again at Clifton, and we were obliged to bring our Johnny to the country this summer, and the change has been of more service than all medicines. I have seen dear Mrs. . . . . occasionally, but she speaks now of very soon leaving Ireland. With Mr . . . . . I continue to have full and unreserved communion; and how painful to think that this should not be the general rule, but the exception. But so it is. Partition walls are thrown up, as well as veils cast over, by the god of this world, where the blood of Jesus and the Spirit of grace would throw down and rend. Accept my dear Mary's love, and ours unitedly also for dear mother if with you. Farewell, my dear sister, the Lord greatly bless and sustain and refresh your spirit. I do not ask you to write, but I doubt not dear sister . . . . will let me hear about you and herself and others. May the assurance of His love fill your heart. No one thought more blessed than that. It is so precious that the Holy Ghost makes it of His special service to impart that assurance to the heart. (Rom. 5) May you abound in hope also longing as for the morning.

He has gathered many and will go on.

"Part of the host have crossed the flood

And part are crossing now."

And believe me, in unfeigned love,

Your brother in Jesus,

J. G. B.

LETTER 16.

May 10, 1845.

I have been waiting from day to day, my loved sister, in hopes of sending you a little book entitled "Heaven and earth," which the brethren in London have printed, as it might remind you of a letter which about twelve months ago passed between us on some of the chapters in Genesis. But as yet we have received no copies of it in Dublin, so that I am determined not to wait any longer. We had a copy of L. S.'s narrative sent to us, and a happy, affecting account it was indeed of the servant's confidence in his Lord, and the Lord's ready and sure care of His servant. In a more lively manner it reminded us of Paul in the Mediterranean than anything I ever read.

How sure I am of the sense of the loss of your dear Harriet. The Lord make it up to you in Himself, for that alone can. A dear sister, lately dying, said, that at times she found such joy in the thought of Christ, that she was compelled to leave off thinking of Him. And then when another said to her, "and what, dear Ann, do you then think of?" "Nothing," she said. I thought that answer was very blessed, and evidenced the reality of the previous precious experience. Your dear doctor, when last you wrote to me, had also fallen asleep. Lord C . . . . wrote to me about it, that the scene was most edifying, and by faith he was able to treat death as nobody. You do not mention dear . . . ., and I should be glad to hear of her, if not from her, for her remembrance is very pleasant to me. When I was in England it would have been unfeigned joy to me to have gone on to Exeter, and seen you and others; but I did not know that it was my path to be among the brethren in Devonshire. The Lord direct our hearts into the deeper affections of the Spirit, that we may be ashamed to think of union save in His truth and bowels, and afraid to pursue any enquiry or seek any knowledge apart from the power of communion with Himself. I saw Mrs. . . . . this day, and told her that I was going to write to you. Till your letter came I did not know who it was that knocked at our door to ask for her address. Her dear uncle is well, and still kind as ever, and she expects her mother here in the summer. Give our united love to your dear mother and dear . . . . How I remember my visits to you in 1839. Love in the Lord also to dear . . . . and others. I make you a present of the enclosed little MS., but I hold you my debtor in a letter, when desire and power to write be present with you. The Lord be with thy spirit, my loved sister,

And believe me, etc.,

J. G. B.

The lines in Psalm 42: 5 are very tender, and sweet, and soothing.

LETTER 17.

June 5, 1845.

I cordially welcomed again a little pencil letter some two or three months since, my dear, dear sister — for the remembrance of our little seasons together, the assurance and experience of our union and fellowship in the Lord, and the sense of the peculiar dealing of His hand with you, all help to bring the heart and the living recurrences of the mind to you. And I was glad also to hear of others around you, and with full unfeignedness you will give my love to them, and dear . . . . whom I so well remember as my companion from Exeter to Countess Weir. I did not see your brother Henry, and I suppose long ere this he has left Dublin. Mrs. . . . . is now with her dear mother in London, I suppose to remain also for some further time. Our weather has become intensely hot, and I rather think a good deal of sickness is abroad. I wonder, does it suit you, dear sister? But, surely, as you say, under all the Father's discipline, the Lord Jesus sits by your side. As a dear soul said to me at Bath, "He does not send the rod, Sir, but brings it."

DEUTERONOMY 8: 7-9; DEUTERONOMY 11: 10-12.

I was musing a little on the beautiful description given to Israel of the land (before they entered it) by Moses, in Deuteronomy 8: 7-9; 11: 10-12. He exhibits it to them in its positive and comparative excellencies — as it was in itself, and in contrast with Egypt. In itself it was to be full of all manner of good things — wheat, wine, and oil; (Deut. 8: 8;) of which good things another scripture says, "Wine that maketh glad the heart of man — and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart." (Psalm 104: 15.) And not only was the soil or land itself to be thus the storehouse of these most needed and best things, but their hills and their stones were to be warehouses of brass and iron, wanted in the common traffic and use of life in their place as well as the other. (Deut. 8: 9.) But in contrast with Egypt, dear sister, the character of the promised land is very blessedly described. Egypt was watered by the foot, i.e., by the common industry of her people drawing off the water of the Nile upon their fields and gardens. (Deut. 11: 10.) Their river was everything to them — and all they wanted was to be busy round its banks, and they could supply themselves out of it. But Canaan was to be tilled by the Lord. He would water it from heaven Himself — His heart would care for it, and His eyes would rest on it from one end of the year to the other. (Deut. 11: 11, 12.) As another scripture says, "Thy land shall be married." (Isaiah 62.) A strong figure. The Lord was Himself the husband or the husbandman (kindred words, no doubt,) of the land of His people. But, beside, Canaan was to be a land "of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." (Deut. 8: 7.) And this is still blessed, I believe, containing deep intimations of the peculiar glory and joy of Canaan. Egypt had a mighty river that was everything to it, but the source of that river was unknown. Canaan, on the contrary, had no mighty river. A "brook," as it were, was its largest stream — even Jordan compared with the Nile was but as a streamlet to a river. But it had "fountains" springing up in all its hills and valleys. Its currents and channels may have been small, but it was full of the sources and springs of those currents. This was just the opposite of Egypt. There the current was mighty, but the source unknown; here, the channels were small and unimportant, but the sources were all known and enjoyed, together with their waters and streams. And, as we know, beloved, that these two lands were mysteries: the land of Egypt representing the world, or the place of nature, out of which the redeemed are called, and Canaan, the scene of communion with God into which the redeemed are brought — so we may learn that these features of the two lands have meaning also. For the world can go on, supplying itself from the great current of daily providential mercies, and leave the source or parent of it altogether a secret; while the believer or the Church has to do with the great Source or Parent in all things and in every place; a fountain is to be known in every hill and every valley, and if the little tiny brooks be tasted, it is well known where they rise and from what recess in glen or mountain they broke forth. Has not this a voice in it? The Nile itself commanded the notice of the world, while its birthplace was a mystery. No river in Canaan was worth the geographer's notice, at least in the scale of rivers — but every hill and valley there had its fresh and sweet springs. And we may ask ourselves, In which land are we more at home? Do we like to walk in a place that is full of the presence of God, like Canaan; or would we choose a place like Egypt, where we may get all providential supplies, while keeping the great Source of them at an unknown distance?

The character of heaven too, dear sister, is signified by this Canaan. It will be a rest surely so, it will be deliverance from a dreary wasted wilderness, but it is to be a rest full of the presence of God, and of the incessant and abiding witnesses of that presence. The fountain is to be everywhere. (Rev. 7: 17.) May we the more welcome it, because of this! and the more we can dwell in the presence of the fountain now, dear sister, may we be the better pleased. If we go up to a hill or down to a valley, may the fountain meet our gladdened eye! Perhaps I will not speak now with you on Matthew 20, though in its place and at its season it is indeed an important and interesting lesson for our souls. I know the little hymn you sent me, but never till I saw it in print. This will tell you that it is not mine. I am not sure that you ever knew dear Mrs. M . . . . She was for some time at Plymouth, but lived rather at Worcester. She came here three weeks ago, and, after spending a week with us, went on to Kilkenny, where her dear son, James (who is also in communion), is employed on the Waterford Railway; but after a few days' illness in fever, her spirit has departed to be with Christ. Sudden and unexpected, dear, dear sister, but happy that another has ended the journey in the peace of the precious gospel.

"There glory sits on every face,

And friendship smiles in every eye;

And every tongue relates the grace

That led them homeward to the sky.

O'er all the names of Christ, the King,

There sweet harmonious voices rove

And golden harps from every string

Record aloud his bleeding love." — WATTS.

It is well to have the mind bearing itself to some distinct thoughts of the heavenly court.

The Lord bless you. Accept for yourself and dear mother our united love. May His Spirit and presence cheer your heart, and believe me, ever your affectionate brother.

LETTER 18.

July 25, 1845.

I had been looking for a little word from you, beloved sister, and your letter was very welcome to me. But do not think yourself debtor to me, for I know that you cannot sit easily at the paper with pen and ink as I do. But the Lord is with you, beloved, manifesting Himself, as is the common way of His glory in the weakness and trial of His dear elect ones. I send you a little word on 1 Corinthians 11 and as to the breaking of bread, would only say that I feel a hesitation to break bread save on the first day of the week and in the place of the assembled saints. I may be inapprehensive of the simple and free mind of the Lord in this, as I know that generally brothers find their liberty much beyond this. But I do not and I have a great dread of soiling the simplicity of faith, and introducing to the heart or even to the eye anything to interfere with the precious sufficiency of Christ, or to divide the confidence of the heart between faith and any ordinance. I always am tempted to fear, if I hear of people taking the Lord's Supper in sick rooms, that there is want of simplicity in the soul's assurance, though I know that this is not the case in many such cases. But my judgment may be below the measure of the light and liberty of the Spirit in this. Our united love to yourself and to your dear mother. She has known her sorrows, but the thought that "Whom He loves He chastens," and that all shall work good when looked at in the light of eternity, are blessed provisions for the soul's comfort. My love also to dear Mr. S . . . . and to Dr. T . . . . , tell him I once breakfasted with him, and was happy with him in the days of Mr. . . . . and Mr . . . .at Tor; he will remember me. I send you a little word on "Hagar." I never print anything, dear sister, but if others like any MS. of mine and wish to do so, I do not object. This has been the history of that on "Heaven and Earth," and "The Scriptures," and I judge it to be a safer plan than putting forth anything on the authority of one's own mind. You may give "Rebecca" and this of "Hagar" to whom you like.

I saw dear Mrs. M. yesterday. Any letter to her had better be directed here, perhaps, as I could send it to her every day. I had not heard of dear W. J . . . .'s illness, and shall be very glad to know that he is better. A gloomy, disappointing scene, beloved, but bright, unspeakably so, to faith and hope. How the death of Sir W. Follett speaks the vanity of human hopes! He and I were the dearest companions at Exeter school in the year 1812. But those days are gone. The Lord bless you, beloved sister.

1 CORINTHIANS 11: 3-16.

Covering is the proper sign of woman. It expresses the subjection she owes. But the woman is mystically the Church; and thus, if a woman appear in the congregation covered, she appears duly, with the sign of subjection to Christ or the man. (Eph. 5: 24.) But it expresses also the protection she receives. And thus, if she do not appear covered, she publishes her own shame. For she does not carry the token of her proper state, but appears rather as a captive, or as a suspected woman. (See Num. 5; Deut. 21) She ought therefore on these two accounts in the congregation to appear covered. But there is another reason why this should be. She should be covered "because of the angels" — for angels are learning lessons from or through the Church (Eph. 3: 10), and the uncovered head of the woman would teach them a wrong lesson. Or, if "the angels" be the elders or ministers, then because of them the woman should be covered, lest she should afterwards have to confess her error. (Ecc. 5: 6.) But the man is not to be covered in the congregation, because, mystically, the man is Christ, and "the image and glory of God" — and it belongs not to Christ to bear the signs of either subjection owed, or of protection claimed — quite different from the woman, who is, mystically, as I said, only the Church, "the glory of the man." Christ is Lord and Saviour of the body (Eph. 5: 23.); i.e., claims my subjection, and rendering protection, instead of owing subjection and claiming protection. If the man, therefore, were covered, he would sadly dishonour his head, Christ. The covered head, accordingly, is most suitable to the woman, but most unsuitable to the man, in the assembly; and the Spirit, speaking by the apostle, would not allow it to be neglected, though most graciously he pleads the question with the saints, to lead themselves to approve it.

As to verse 5 of this chapter, I judge that the apostle means simply the place where praying or prophesying is going on, as in the Church or assembly of the saints. I do not think that his language implies that the women were themselves either to pray or to teach, because in verse 4 the very same words are used as to the man, and we are sure that all the men are equally to be uncovered in the place of prayer, though most of them may never engage actively in it. And so also those men, or male brethren, who do at times in the assembly either teach or pray, yet when merely sitting silent in their places, are to be as much uncovered, as when they are actually ministering. So that I judge the Apostle speaks of the place of prayer and teaching, or of the condition of the assembly. He legislates that, without assuming, that women necessarily are either to teach or to pray. In 1 Timothy 2, on the other hand, it is not the mere condition of things in the place of prayer, or the mere appearance of the male and female, the Apostle has in hand, but the actual services of the assembly and then he expressly requires the silence of the woman.

LETTER 19.

December 23,1845.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I am more thankful than you are that I went down to see you, so entirely does my soul before the Lord approve the little journey, though to add anything to you or to any soul how unfeignedly do I feel and own my poverty. However, there is refreshment in "the mutual faith," and I have found it at times in looking, as from a distance, at one in whom you know the truth dwells and shall dwell for ever.

I send a copy of the thought on Mark 5: 33, to you, and also another little meditation I have had since I saw you, something connected with it. I will not now say more on Romans 14, 15. It may be so at another time if the heart incline to the subject. Not only to your dear mother, but to dear Mrs. . . . . and family, Dr. . . . ., and the dear . . . . give my love in the Lord Jesus. All would unite in love to you, and my Mary's thanks for your living recollection of her. She had been very poorly, but is up again.

He is dealing with you as one of the stones in His great and various quarry, beloved. The workmanship there is very various. The hammer may be heard, or the saw, or the chisel, but the Workman has His purpose in His eye, while His vessel is in the wheel. The Lord give you abundant thought and refreshing, and the stillness of believing.

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

Remember me to Mr. and Mrs. T . . . . in christian love, and to dear sister.

THE WOMAN IN THE CROWD, MARK 5.

We may receive a benefit from a person and be thoroughly assured of our hearty welcome to it, and yet find ourselves ill at ease in his presence. Nothing is more common than this. Gratitude is awakened in the heart very deeply and very affectionately, and yet reserve and uneasiness as deeply and painfully felt. It calls for something beyond our mere assurance of his good-will toward us and of our full welcome to his service, to make us at ease in the presence of a benefactor. And this something, I believe, is the discovery that we have an interest in himself as well as in his ability to serve us. This delineates, as I judge, the experience of the poor woman with the issue of blood.

She knew the Lord's ability to relieve her sorrow, and her hearty welcome to avail herself of it. She therefore comes and takes the virtue out of Him without reserve. But she comes behind Him. This expresses her state of mind. She knows her welcome to His service but nothing more. She does not as yet know her title to be in His presence. But the Lord trains her heart for this as He communicated healing to her body. He lets her know that she is interested in Himself, as well as in His power to oblige her. He calls her "daughter." He owns kindred or relationship with her. This was the communication which alone was equal to remove her fear and trembling. Her rich and mighty portion is her kinsman. This is what her heart needed to know; without this, in the spirit of her mind, she would be still "behind him." And the higher the personal dignity or the moral worth of the one who serves us, the more will this reserve be felt, without this knowledge of kindred. This gives ease, and dismisses the fear and the trembling. "Go in peace" may then be said, as well as "be whole of thy plague." The word "daughter" entitled her to know that His presence was her home. She need not be reserved. Christ does not deal with her as a mere patron or benefactor. (Luke 22: 25.) She has an interest in Himself as well as in His power to bless her. And this is the gospel. The gospel tells us of our title to the "benefit," and of our interest in the "Benefactor," that He is our Kinsman as well as our Deliverer, so that we enjoy the blessing with full ease of heart, as before our God.

LETTER 20.

15, Herbert Place, Dublin,

Feb. 16,1846.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I had long been looking out for your letter, but am always prepared for delay, knowing how uncertain your power to write is. But I was glad to see the pencil letter again and the recollection of my little journey to see you is pleasant to me, beloved. The Lord has appointed you a peculiar path through the desert, but they who turn out of their own way to see it may find reason to know that the light of the fiery pillar is not confined to the more ordinary highway of the camp. We had a rough passage of thirty-four hours from Bristol to Dublin, the sea constantly beating over our decks, but a sailor, I suppose, would have thought little of it. However we were brought to the haven, the mercy of the Lord encompassing us around. Accept my dear Mary's love with mine, and to dear mother, when you write to her. I believe that Mrs. M. . . . will leave this tomorrow. My love to dear S. . . . and his. I am glad that I had my little knowledge of him, and to dear Mrs. M . . . . . and hers, and to Dr. T. . . . And be sure when dear Mrs. W. . . . . joins you to remember me with full brotherly love to her. If we had a little more of the fervour of the martyrs in Queen Mary's time, it would be well for us. With what earnest love did they write to each other and to their brethren elsewhere from their prisons. "My dear hearts" was the common language; and John Careless calls his brethren, in writing to them, "Ye elect darlings of God." Ah! dear sister, we are fallen on easy times; and if we watch not, great danger there is of even our little waxing still less. The intellectual (for to a great extent it has not been spiritual) pursuit and acquirement of biblical knowledge is yielding some of its distasteful fruit, I fear. I enclose a little scribble, but surely I desire that it may feed your soul with happy thoughts, if so be it can, and nothing less, beloved.

Farewell for the present. May the deep peace and sunny joy of the Lord be with your spirit, and believe me,

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

I suppose "the land of the living" would signify the same in resurrection. Messiah uses it again in Psalm 116, where He evidently speaks as risen from the grave.

PATRONAGE.

The nearness to which the Lord invites the soul, the intimacy with which He seeks to invest the heart of the sinner who trusts in Him, it is most blessed to know. Christ does not deal with us in the style of a patron, or even of a benefactor. The world is full of that principle. "They that exercise authority are called benefactors." Man will show kindness and confer benefits in the character of a patron, occupying the distant place of both conscious and confessed superiority. But this is not Jesus. "Not as the world giveth," says He, "give I unto you." He brings His dependent one very near. He lets it be known, that it is the dealing of a kinsman with us and not that of a patron. But this is all the difference in the world. I am bold to say, heaven depends on this difference. The heaven we expect to enjoy, and which in spirit we taste now, depends on the Lord Jesus not acting with us on the principle of a patron. Heaven would be then only a well-ordered world of present approved human principles. And, oh! what a thing that would be! Is it the condescendings of a great one that we see in Jesus? "I am among you as one that serveth," says He. Is it the distant and courtly benevolences of a superior that we receive from Him? "Where I am, there ye shall be also," is not the language of such; nor, "the glory which thou gavest me I have given them." He is, it is true, and He would have us know it and own it, "Master and Lord;" but He sits at one table with us. As of old, He could command Moses and Joshua to take off their shoes in His presence, and be worshipped as Lord by Abraham, but He would eat of the patriarch's fare, and speak to Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend. And see it thus with Him in the days of His flesh. How was it then? Every case would answer this. It was never the style of a mere benefactor. It was never the distance or elevation of a patron; never. "He bore our sorrows and carried our sicknesses." Just look at Him at Jacob's well. A woman was there who had the most exalted thoughts of Him. "I know that Messias cometh which is called Christ; when he is come he will tell us all things." This was her high and just sense of Messias, not knowing that He to whom she was speaking could say immediately, "I that speak unto thee, am He." But where was He all the time? Sitting on one stone with her, talking with her as they met together at the well, and when, as to give her the fullest ease in His presence, He had asked her for a drink of water. Was this patronage after the fashion of man? Was this the condescension of a great one? Was this heaven or the world? Condescension of the world will confer what favour you please, but will have the distance of the benefactor and the befriended kept and honoured. But heaven or love will impart itself with its gifts. Jesus acts as kinsman to them He befriends. He leaves no distance, no sense of place, in the heart He heals, for He visits it. It is as a kinsman He acts, and not as a patron. He sits and talks with us. He allows us to invite Him to our house, as He went and dwelt with the Samaritans two days. He asks for a favour at our hands that we may take a favour from Him without reserve. He'll fain drink of our pitcher while opening His wells, and eat of our kid at our tent door, while revealing eternal counsels to us.

LETTER 21.

6, Clifton Place, Exeter,

June 6,1846.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I left Bath on Thursday, designing to come as far as Wellington, but letters there reached me which made it plain to me that I was to come on as far as this. But I know not that I shall be able to get as far as Torquay. I should be glad again to sit by the side of your sofa, and spend a little season with you, if you were able for it. But I suppose this must end in a wish, as I am to be again in Wellington, please the Lord, next Saturday. Assure your dear mother that to see her also would be a great gratification to me, and also dear Mr. and Mrs . . . . . I have heard that you have been increasingly ill again. The Lord will explain all to you, beloved, as of old, "when he was alone, he expounded all things to his disciples." You will yourself be His interpreter, and the thankful, happy advocate of His hand in all that it has been doing. Such was Job; when it came to the end, he found that all was right. The Lord had to make no confession of mistake, but stood vindicated even in Job's thoughts for the fire and the wind and the Chaldeans. The Lord bless you and comfort you. The storm is to be only on the outside of your cottage. I left my dear people well in Bath, in the Lord's mercy, and I have lately heard of dear Mrs. M . . . . being still in Dublin. Ever, beloved sister,

Yours affectionately in the Lord Jesus,

J. G. B.

LETTER 22.

MY BELOVED SISTER,  August 10, 1846.

I grieved to see by your last letter received through Mrs. K. . . that you had been so much in suffering. The Lord bless you and comfort you, as He has done in times past. You ought not to have sent me the seal, you know how easy it is for me to remember you without any memento. And glad should I be at times to visit the side of your sofa, and exchange some thoughts with you, my dear sister. Our united love to you and to dear mother, and give mine to my dear brother S. . . . and his family, Dr. T. . . . and the M. . . . .'s. A native brother from Demerara was with us for some days lately. It is always sweet to me to hear from you, but you know I never exact it from you as payment for my little communications. To cast many a wishful glance beyond the river may well be the exercise of our hearts, beloved, both from the greenness of the fields there, and the aridness of the desert here. The Lord be with thy dear spirit.

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

DIVINE INTIMACY.

The intimacy which the Lord has sought with His creature man is in a very blessed way evidenced throughout Scripture. It may have had different expressions or forms, but still it was intimacy. In patriarchal days, it was personal. The Lord God walked in the midst of the human family, appearing personally to His elect, not so much employing prophets or angels, but mixing Himself in the action as it proceeded. (See Genesis.) In the times of Israel He was not so much in the human guise as before, but in mystic dress. Still however He was near them. The glory in the cloud, the Lord in the burning bush, the armed Captain under Jericho, and then the glory filling the temple, or seating itself between the cherubim — all tell this nearness of God to elect man. The God of Israel seen by them on the sapphire throne, and the promise of His own lips to the house built in the midst of Israel, "Mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually;" all this, in like manner, witness this desired and proposed intimacy.

Then, in the progress of His wisdom and counsels, the actual assumption of manhood, this is the witness of witnesses to this precious truth. I need not dwell on it. As we say, it speaks for itself.

But what at this time has the more strongly drawn my mind is, the intimacy that He so wondrously and graciously seeks and has provided for and secured in this our present age or dispensation. He has given the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of truth is in us. The Comforter abides with us for ever. Our bodies are nothing less than His temples or dwelling places. And the Son has borne Himself to heaven as our head and representative, and we are there in Him and with Him. No form of intimacy so wonderful as this. And none more true or real. If personally the Lord God would take a kid or a cake as pledges of hospitality to a travelling man, from the hand of Abraham; if in the sight of the congregation, He would let the glory swell itself out and fill the temple courts to show His joy in His new-found dwelling with Israel; if in the manhood of Jesus of Nazareth, He would sit at a well with an elect sinner, or let another press His bosom at supper and ask Him about the secrets that were lodged there. In this our very hour He has us, in the thoughts and purposes of His own heart, up in heaven with Himself, and the Holy Ghost is here in the midst of all the thoughts and purposes of our hearts.

Is this intimacy of a feebler nature? Is this a retracing of His steps and going back again into his own perfections and glories, or amid the principalities and dominions of angels? No. It is pursuing His former purpose of intimacy only in a further stage till He perfect it in the kingdom. For this indwelling of the Spirit tells us that in every pulse of affection that beats, in every duty or service that is fulfilled or performed, the thought of the Lord should mix itself; as in the details of precepts in the Epistle we find it, the Lord, in love to Him and respect to His authority being brought in as the animating and ruling principle.

Is this reserve? Is this withdrawal of Himself? This seeing Him and owning of Him in all human relations and social duties, is this the symptom of a God in thick darkness, a God afar off? Blessed thought! it is the very reverse. It is only a richer pursuit of that same desire for intimacy with us which broke forth in its infant form in the Book of Genesis, and which is to bloom in its perfection in the kingdom. It has been sweetly described by another, that the divine intimacy was preserved by Jesus risen as well as by Jesus in the flesh. This appears from his preparing the dinner on the sea-shore Himself, eating in company with His disciples. (John 21) For He would with Himself now invest or clothe our spirits. He would relieve our conscience with a peace which He has made and wrought out for us Himself to perfection. He would satisfy our hearts with attractions that are divine and ineffable and fitted to teach us that the half could not be told, because they are the attractions which nothing less than He Himself puts forth. And He would, as I have already said, bring Himself in amid all our occupations and relationships, that the recollection of Him and His authority and His grace may sanctify as well as bless the whole. It is faith that enters into this purpose of God and enjoys it. Faith apprehends a peace made by Himself and therefore perfect, and clothes the conscience with it. Faith apprehends the love and the other blessed attractions that are in Him and gives the heart as a dwelling-place, an unspeakably happy dwelling place in Him. Faith knows Him to be no stranger to the smallest action, and therefore invests the whole course of human life with the sense of His authority and His sufficiency and His gracious and desired fellowship with it all, with all the joys and sorrows and doings and circumstances of His people, as He says, "I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is," taking knowledge, thus, of the place and character of our abode. "Send men to Joppa and call for one Simon whose surname is Peter, he lodges with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea-side."

And here, I might just ask, in closing, does this intimacy appear at the end? In the Apocalypse, redeemed man takes the place of cherubim nearness to the throne — the tabernacle of God is with man, and the Lamb's bride becomes the habitation of the glory while the nations that are saved walk in the light of it.

LETTER 23.

28, Downshire Hill, Hampstead, 1846.

MY LOVED SISTER,

I am not able now to communicate with you on some little portion of the precious word, as we have often and happily done in other days; for my mind has had other occupation provided for it for several months past. I can only tell you a simple tale of sorrow, and of joy, personal, and within doors, as you know already, beloved, the serious illness and yet assured conversion of our dear, dear Johnny. His poor arm has been now removed and remains as yet unhealed. But though we calculate on this relieving him from much distressful pain, yet we do not tell ourselves that it gives any good hope of length of days with us. Nor would I know, my loved sister, how to ask for that exactly. The renewal of the warfare for him and the danger of soiled garments and of fiery trials in the advance of the present generation, give check to desires and prayers. But he is pleasant to us, and the case would fain hold its desire before it. You know what pain is and sore confinement, sore to flesh and blood; but you know what it is to have the trial come with its best and most blessed relief.

I hope dear Mrs. P . . . . is well, you will give our christian love to her, accepting it from us all yourself, my loved sister. Just as we were leaving Dublin, I received a note from dear . . . . in his own simple and affectionate style, sending me some help for the poor starving Irish. O how we should desire that fervency of spirit that blessedly anticipates and hinders brotherly contention. And I have long judged that our history as a gathering of saints would have been different from what, alas, it has been, had we cherished a more glowing state of the affections, and followed the culture of knowledge a little more continuously. If the staff "Beauty" be broken, the staff "Bands" will soon go also.

My kind christian love to Dr . . . . .

The Lord be with thy spirit, beloved, and believe me, ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 24.

March 3, 1847.

I had not heard of the sorrow of my loved sister, till I got dear E. K. . . . 's note. The Lord by His Spirit be abundantly with you, let His hand deal with you as it may. My heart never knew a sorrow so tender as the same to this. The loss of our darling Louisa, now nearly five years ago, gave me one of the deepest touches of grief I ever experienced. But, beloved, it is well. It is increasingly, I may say, the joy and boast of the soul to see or to hear of the dear children of God ending their course in peace and joy, for surely it is temptation and conflict, and a scene of growing, threatening evil. May your heart be greatly comforted, my dear sister. To hear of this was a great surprise, saving, that we learn the uncertainty of life and health so continually. Witness after witness comes forth to keep this ever in remembrance. But we must talk of life and not of death; as a dear one once said to me, it is not in the midst of life we are in death; but, in the midst of death we are in life.

My love in the Lord to your dear mother. Happy to have her dear child safe in the love of her heavenly Father; and His own house delights to make room for all who have taken Jesus for their Jesus.

The Lord be with my dear, dear sister.

Ever your affectionate,

J. G. B.

Accept my dear Mary's love. Our sisters are still at Bath.

Hope must enter within the veil

LETTER 25.

1847.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I have long been feeling as though it was some time since a little remembrance passed between us; but this has arisen I think from the recollection that our dear Mrs. W. . . . . was forming a kind of constant link between us, and through her we heard of each other. It has pleased the Lord to visit you all again. Many a time in your little history, as well as in your own person, dear sister, has this been. But you are abundantly entitled to regard all these dealings of His hands as the visits of a friend, or of one who loves you and would bring Himself near you. They are sore to nature indeed. And He would have them felt to be so. But no interruption of them is to be allowed for a moment, that would leave a speck behind it on the character of His perfect and everlasting grace. The labourers in the vineyard thought that they had the character of their employer at their mercy. He had dealt with them in a way that seemed to defy all vindication. But the next moment was sufficient to give them their answer, and the Lord of the vineyard shows them abundant ground for suspecting, that the error and evil were altogether rather with themselves and not a bit of them with Him.

How sweet a light that is in which to read the way and dealings of the Lord at times. We think that some of His doings are beyond vindication, so unaccountable, so contrary to all the natural sense we might have of righteousness and goodness — like the paying of a labourer the same wages for one hour's work as was paid to another for eleven! For what could appear more monstrous! But it is only to wait, and He will be His own interpreter, as He is in that parable. (See Matt. 20.) He will prove that He has done no wrong, and acted graciously, and will give reason to know that if His way be objected to, the objection must come from a tainted moral spring in the heart of the accuser himself, as He does there. Very comforting, darling, this hint from the parable is. And though the soul may not need it, through simplicity and faith of its exercises, yet it is well to have the thoughts strengthened by such a witness.

Give my love in the Lord to your dear mother, and tell her I desire grace to feel for her in this last bereavement. My love also to dear Dr. T. . . We are not welcoming the thought of dear Mrs. W. . . .'s removal from us. Her activity among us has been valuable to the poor, and her spirit, in the liberty and light of it, a comfort and encouragement to the saints.

I am sending this through dear Mrs. B. . . . . She is diffident, and would not at once let another know her foibles, but I have been witness to some precious exercises of her soul — and in a cold and formal day, beloved sister, like the present, that is sweet to one.

The Lord bless you, sustain, and lead you daily! And believe me in the dear love of Jesus,

Ever yours,

J. G. B.

ELECTION.

There is much strength and blessing to the soul from the doctrine of election, but perhaps not that character of blessing which is commonly understood to flow from it. For it is commonly resorted to by a saint when he trespasses. But that is not, I believe, the use which the Holy Ghost makes of it for our souls in Scripture.

If the saint sin, he has an Advocate. The blood and intercession of Christ is for the need of his soul then: if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive. It is not, therefore, the remembrance of the doctrine of election, but it is confession — the remembrance of Jesus in heaven, which meets the need of the conscience.

The truth of the divine foreknowledge of us, of God's having elected us personally and predestinated us to most blessed destinies, is rather for the saint as he walks in uninterrupted grace before God. It is for the joy of his heart rather than for the peace of his conscience. It is for the putting of very boastful and triumphant language into his soul, by teaching him what anxious and everlasting interest God has had in all that concerns him. For it tells us (to speak after the manner of men) that we were the subject of the divine counsels — when God was all alone - before the foundation of the world; before the activities, so to speak, of creation began, we were before His thoughts. And this is the witness of our deep interests in Him. It is always so. It is always the mark of special favour, if we do but occupy the thoughts of another in solitude, or when the heart is fully at ease or at liberty to take up its own objects.

And in that place of favour with God does the doctrine of election and predestination put us. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and were then predestinated to the adoption of children by Him, simply according to His own good pleasure, or to His purpose taken in Himself, or hid in God from the beginning. (Eph. 1.) We are the called according to His purpose, or as the fruit of His foreknowledge and predestinated purposes. (Rom. 8.) His grace was given us in Christ before the world began, though it is only now made manifest. (2 Tim. 1.) He promised us eternal life before the world began, but did not till due time manifest that word of promise to ourselves. (Titus 1.) As the Lamb slain for us foreordained before the foundation of the world, though not manifested till these last times. (1 Peter 1.) And in all these ways, we ourselves, and our glorious and happy destinies, have been the subject of the counsels of God when He was, to speak after such a manner, in the simple solitude of His own mind and affections, that we might have joy in knowing how near our interests have been brought to Him, and from what deep sources our blessings have gushed forth.

We have some expressions of this order of things in Scripture.

When the Lord smelled the savour of Noah's sacrifice, He said in His heart that He would not again curse the ground. But that was just His own purpose and grace. It was then the secret of His own bosom. In due time, however, He made His purpose and grace known to Noah, and then Noah took the blessing in a way of peculiar sweetness, for he took it as coming forth from the deep, well-advised, and thoroughly-approved counsels and affections of the heart of the Lord Himself. (Gen. 8, 9)

So afterwards in Jacob and the sons of Joseph. He adopted them ere He saw them. He gave them the place of the firstborn in the family while as yet he had not looked on them, for his eyes were dim for age. All the desire of his heart had been toward them while they were personally unmanifested. And thus, when the blessing does come, it comes with all its value. The warmth of Jacob's heart and tongue came with it. It is sealed and doubly sealed ere Ephraim and Manasseh enjoy it, so that they may know that their adoption had been the delightful theme of the father's counsel and promise, the subject of his thoughts and affections ere it is manifested to them.

Thus surely does the doctrine of election set the saint down in rich and happy pastures. The sinner need not think of it. It is not for him. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is at his door, as it were, telling of redemption.

One strikingly says,

"His purpose and his course he takes,

Treads all my reasonings down,

Commands my thoughts forth from their depths

And hides me in his own."

LETTER 26.

May 6, 1847.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

The Lord be with you and refresh your spirit. And it is simply resting on the sure and everlasting foundation of faith, which the hand of your covenant God has laid for you, by which this refreshment will come. It is not an effort of the soul after the joys of the Holy Ghost, or spiritual exercise of heart, but it is the precious repose of faith, and the bright prospects of hope which grow up therefrom, that will be our refreshment, beloved.

There is, in some deep and happy sense, more communion with those who have departed than with those who still cluster around us. I remember a dear sister saying this to me some years since, and I have often thought of her words. She spake in reference to a dear son who had then lately departed in the Lord. But it is so. We think of them only in their beauties in Christ Jesus. Our thought of them is not hindered, but there in spirit we see them, having first trusted in Christ, waiting with their beloved Saviour, for the consummation of His joy and their joy.

I thank you for your last few acceptable lines. I did not expect them from yourself, but I knew that my dear sister Ellen would let us hear of you.

The Lord bless you. The Lord comfort, in the calmness of a believing heart, your dear mother. My christian love to her and all around you. Accept my dear Mary's love. The good hand of the Lord still keeps, and our Johnny's arm, we think, is better.

Ever, beloved sister, yours affectionately,

J. G. B.

I do value the thoughts I enclose. They are by another; but this simple believing, setting of Christ above all, even above the exercises of the soul in the Holy Ghost, I do delight in. We are always, as was said, higher in our standing than in our experience. Faith alone does God, and His love, and His doings, justice.

I count on hearing again from some one. Do you know dear Gambold's hymn? "No more with trembling heart I try" Yes, indeed, whether we wake or sleep, we shall be together with Him.

LETTER 27.

1, Waterloo Road, Dublin,

March 29, 1848.

MY MUCH LOVED SISTER,

I was glad to see again your little pencil scribble. I will not now write much to you, but invite you to meditate with me on Job, as we have often and happily together meditated on other portions of God's sweet and perfect word. And Oh! the Lord forbid that there should ever be any distance between us, in these days of sad, sad estrangement, when it is as easy and as pleasant, as it sometimes appears to me, to make a brother an offender for a word, as in better days it was easy and pleasant to wish one another goodwill in the name of the Lord. Ah! it is sad. Love to dear Mrs. W . . . . . Tell her that her brethren here remember her, and that in mercy we are kept together in godly peace and unity. But we fear the importation of another mind from across the water, for the distance is short, and the poor nature is the same.

Remember us to your dear sister, and me to my dear brother Dr. T . . . . also to dear Miss W . . . . The Lord guide dear Mrs. W . . . for she puts her trust in Him. Ever, my loved sister, in much affection,

J. G. B.

(We have left Herbert Place.) Let me know that you have received this.

LETTER 28.

2, Sion Place, Bathwick Hill, Bath, Jan. 8, 1848.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

It has long been a pleasure to me to see your dear little pencil notes, and I welcomed the sight of another of them a day or two since; but I did not calculate on hearing of your renewed sorrow. It has left you, beloved, indeed more lonely in the great scene than once was counted upon — dear sister some few years since, and now dear mother removed. But, I need not add, what consolation in the thought that the blessed repairer of all breaches, the repairer of the mighty breach between God and sinners, had endeared Himself to them, and in that way made separation from you, presence with Himself, and in season He will repair the present breach between you and them.

May His comforts be much with you, my dear sister. My brotherly love to your dear physician and others around you. We are still watching our dear child. The remaining arm having become in a measure diseased, he is in a very helpless state. But this last week he is again better, and we have hope that he may recover a little more of his strength and use of it. But the result of his illness we cannot but apprehend, not doubting that the hand of the Lord in mercy has been ordering his history, very specially, for the last twelve months, and His Spirit working in company with His hand for the last five. We are likely to remain here for a while longer, and indeed until a change be recommended for him. Accept my Mary's love with mine, and remember us to your dear sister. Is dear Mrs. W . . . . near you still? If so, my love to her also. This time last year we were travelling the road together on Irish ground, and still are in mercy along Emanuel's land — may I say in spirit?

The Lord be with you, my dear, dear sister. How easy do I find it to wish you well with all my heart, and to greet you deeply in the bond of Christ Jesus. We expect dear Mrs. M . . . . here, and did look for Mr. K . . . .; but that is now given up.

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

REDEMPTION.

Leviticus 25.

Redemption is God's principle. Leviticus 25 (which is the great scripture on the subject of redemption) shows us that, because on the sale of either the person or the lands of an Israelite, if he had no kinsman to redeem him or his estate, God would redeem both every fiftieth year, and every man then should return to his family and to his possession. So that redemption was God's principle. And also, because it was so, neither the land nor the people were to be sold for ever, but to be sold subject to redemption — as we say in our laws, sold by way of mortgage, not sold for ever, or out and out, but sold by way of mortgage, or subject to redemption. The same chapter shows us that. Thus it is clearly apparent that redemption is God's principle. But what does it imply? The paying of a price, a full price, for the thing or person sold. The purchaser of an Israelite or of his possession was to have the full money weighed out to him, ere he could be required to restore the man or his land to his kinsman. The Scripture shows, in like manner, that our glorious kinsman (the God of heaven and earth manifest in flesh) has, by Himself, paid the full price of our redemption, paid the debt that lay upon us and our inheritance. In the balances of the throne of God (where righteousness was seated) the price was paid and weighed with the nicest hand, that no wrong might be done to any one through man having sold himself and all that he had by his sin. And thus Scripture calls Jesus a redeemer, in the sense of this glorious chapter on redemption. He visited and redeemed His people, and the price that He paid was His blood, or Himself — "he gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time," "by his blood having obtained eternal redemption for us" — "the redemption of the purchased possession," and "thou hast redeemed us to God," and many such passages.

And the scales of the throne of God tested the weight of this price before it was paid. They had before tried the weight of the blood of bulls and goats, but they found all such blood to be light and insufficient; but when the blood of God's own Lamb — God's divine Son — was put into that balance, which was thus held by the hand of Him that sat on the throne — that judges right — the balance stood, the will of God, the great Creditor, was satisfied, and by the satisfying of that will we are sanctified (Heb. 10); by the payment of that price our person and lands are repurchased by our glorious Redeemer or kinsman.

I do confess, to touch this doctrine of repurchase, or redemption, appears to me to touch the dearest thought in the mind of God, for it is as Leviticus 25 blessedly shows us, as I have said, His own principle. And why is it so dear to Him? Because it glorifies His love, that is, Himself, above everything; because it shows such a way of self-sacrifice in God, that though this ransom, this price of redemption, demanded the Son from the bosom (the Isaac), yet the Isaac was delivered.

And what comfort to the conscience to know that the full price has been paid. What comfort to a poor redeemed Israelite it must have been to know that his creditor, to whom he had sold himself, had been paid the uttermost farthing of his demand by his generous kinsman! The heart gets comfort from knowing that God's love was gratifying itself in the work of our redemption, but the conscience gets ease from knowing that God's righteousness has been honoured and secured, that the demand of His throne has been fully answered. And I judge that the Scripture enables us to understand how the blood of Jesus is equal to accomplish this great end of paying the ransom or redemption money. For the original condition was this: life must go for sin; "in the day thou eatest thou shalt die." Adam ate, Jesus died or gave up life; and He had life to give up. No other victim on earth had life; for sin, the principle of death, was tainting everything. All other blood carried the savour of death in it, but the blood of Jesus was the blood of a living one, and this was equal to meet the penalty of sin, and when given was the full price for the redemption of all who would trust it and plead it, for life had now gone for sin. Jesus was not debtor to sin or to death, for He was entitled to life, but yet for us he consented to "die unto sin" (Rom. 6), to own the claim of sin and death, and thus has He fully and meritoriously discharged it. The blood was the life and was reserved for God. It was a thing forfeited or given back to God, because of sin. But God laid it up (or, found it) in Jesus, and in Him gave it to sinners for atonement. (Lev. 16) In this way again we see the blood of Christ to be as heavy as all the penalty of sin. For death has been induced — life has gone for sin, and that was the original condition. And again, the Lord said, the soul that sins shall be a curse. But the same Lord says, the man that hangs on a tree shall be a curse. And thus, in another shape, we see the price equal to the debt in the very reckoning of Him who alone can take the account, that is, the Lord, or God Himself. (Deut. 27, 21; Gal. 3) And it is most comforting to see the unbending severity of righteousness in this matter. It will be satisfied. The patriarchal law (Gen. 9: 5), the national law of Israel (Exodus 21: 23), the law of shadows or ordinances (Num. 35; 33), all show this. The payment must be equal to the debt, the ransom to the penalty or forfeiture. Guiltless living or untainted blood in Adam was shed by sin; guiltless, ever-living, and untainted blood in Jesus has now been shed for sin. (Heb. 9: 14.) And our comfort as sinners comes from thus seeing that the nicest and fullest demands of the righteous One have been honoured, ere pardon and peace are preached to us, ere the boundless love of God would give itself to our hearts to rest, refresh, and gladden them for ever. And that blood which as the victim Jesus once shed for sin, (Heb. 9: 14), as the Mediator He pleads always for transgressions. (Heb. 9: 15.) For it is the redemption of the one as of the other — the price for full remission of daily defilement. And by that same blood, as the forerunner into heaven, the same Jesus now there is getting all ready for us. (Heb. 9: 23, 24.) The very presence-chamber and all the heavenly things in glories that are there, making them approachable to sinners. And after all this display of the blood in Hebrews 9 we see the act of the righteous hand of God, as it were, holding the balance, as I have said, while weighing it against sin in Hebrews 10, and then the balance gloriously stands, and sin is then righteously remitted. So that in the blood we enter the holiest with a perfect conscience no longer in our sins kept outside.

The blood, as thus the price of redemption, or the consideration on which God can be just and the justifier of the believer, is called "the blood of the covenant." (Heb. 13; see also Ex. 24; Zech. 9; Luke 22: 20; 1 Cor. 11: 25.) And in that character also it is seen on the mercy-seat, or the throne of God, being that which shows how that righteousness and peace can kiss each other. And as the price of redemption it was put on the lintels of the Israelites' houses, and from the beginning of the world to the death of Jesus used in atonement, used as that which alone could meet sin.

LETTER 29,

Bath, July 26,1848.

MY BELOVED SISTER,

Your little word waited for me here on my return from Dublin last Saturday. Our stay here is uncertain, as is also the direction in which we may move from it. But I cannot speak of being at Torquay, though you know, to sit occasionally at your side, and speak together of our blessed Lord and His truth, would be pleasant to me.

I have judged that sea air would be very desirable for our . . . ., and her dear mamma also has the little cup of tears, dear sister, still wrung out at times; but many things make these movings not so easy.

Is not the great move a little nearer than it was? Do not the present agitations tell of the winds beginning to strive upon the great sea? And if ever distant symptoms of such action be perceived, is there not cause for afresh looking up in expectation of the meeting in the air?

I see dear L . . . . M . . . . now and again, and last evening we drank tea together at Miss B . . . .'s. My love to the little flock near you, beloved sister, and to your dear physician. Accept the same from us all unitedly, and to your dear sister.

The Lord be with your spirit with every desire towards you in the bowels of Christ Jesus.

Believe me, my dear sister,

J. G. B.

LETTER 30.

May 9, 1850.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER,

I had written to you and my dear brother, as I heard through your last of his sore bereavement.

Would that I had bowels that could feel for others, and give my honoured brother the comfort of deeper fellowship in his sorrow. Remember me in all love to him. Tell him I am knowing something of the dealing of the blessed, blessed God with my own soul just now, and in the midst of exercises can both trust Him and bless Him. He aims to take us out of an artificial into a real atmosphere, to speak immediately to us, to give tokens without and consolations within, while both things and people be against us, and our reins are chastening us.

As surely as it is written, "He that believeth shall be saved," and again, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven," so surely may our dear brother rejoice in the evidence his departed one has left behind her. How quick the passage is made from darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son! We take the two steps: we learn that we have destroyed ourselves, and then that in Christ is our help.

The Lord be with your spirit! Accept our united love and remember us to your dear sister. We are moving this day into Dublin, so that our address will be, 2, Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin.

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 31.

March 1, 1851.

MY DEAR SISTER,

Your letter was a surprise and a joy to me. I had, I believe, concluded in my mind that we were at present very differently affected by this agitation among brethren, and that it was well understood by our hearts that the happier way was to be silent towards each other. But your letter has told me other things in which I rejoice. And indeed the more I give myself a thought upon it, I think I can the more say that I marvel at the lessons which this agitation is fitted to teach, as being still unlearnt by so many. But it shows that many a mind among us was very little removed from the ordinary dissenting ground. The great personal grace and devotedness of some was long an occasion of delay and hindrance with me, and some of the ways of those in the other scale, was another similar hindrance. I made such mistakes, and took the journey so lamely, that I have to be forbearing and humble; but I do indeed, again I say, wonder at the slowness of many hearts.

It has been a testing of the state of the spiritual senses among us. Had the Christ of God and the Church of God been more discerned in the exercise of the divine nature, I am certain the actings of Bethesda would have been promptly resented. The unclean letter of the ten, and the divisive or heretical actings in connection with that letter, ought to be instinctively detected, repudiated, and condemned.

It is not a question of personal devotedness with me. I know how such ones as dear . . . . stood in the midst of difficulties and oppositions for the Lord, while I was at ease and in leisure. But, I feel assured, the spiritual senses have been but poorly exercised in the peculiar calling of the Church of God, when such a letter as that can be gloried in, or its existence as the symbol, of any gathering in Christ be vindicated.

Oh how little, with all that we assumed, was the mind that was in the midst of brethren purified from the common leaven of the day! Would that many, my dear sister, would still the prejudices and the partialities of their hearts for and against individuals, and in the pure and heavenly light of the Church's calling, challenge the sayings, the writings, and the doings of Bethesda.

But with all this, many of us are deeply debtors to this agitation — debtors to the Lord through it. Indeed I am sure of that, and though I see myself in such changed circumstances here in Dublin, that I suppose time will never repair, or give me back what, in a certain way, I have lost in brotherly enjoyment, yet I would not surrender what I have learnt and experienced for a tenfold increase of even the past enjoyment.

Oh that dear . . . 's mind was spiritually guided in this, as I know his heart and services are with the Lord! There are some who surprise me, in the place they are taking, much more than others; and had I been asked, I should say, he was among them. I should have hoped he would have seen the direction in which the Spirit was — may I not say — so manifestly leading. He had not even the earlier habits of even an Independent's or Quaker's mind to withstand his progress. But we know not. Calculations have been all disappointed, and on either side the Lord has dealt in much of the sovereignty of His grace. In my own little connection with this agitation I have known Him again and again disappointing what I had reckoned on, and giving help even from what I had feared and suspected.

May He Himself be more personally with and before us! a nearer and more real object than ever!

Truth that gives thoughts is not fully the right thing; but truth that gives Himself - that is the thing.

Jesus once here — now in the heavens — again to be here and with us for ever — the same Jesus throughout — known for eternity as He was known in His track through the cities and villages of Israel — this is the mystery that gives us Himself. And it is the business of faith to reach Himself. The centurion pierced the cloud, the thick cloud, of His humiliation, and got at the divine glories, which lay the other side of it, or under it. The poor sinner of the city pierced the cloud, the dark cloud, of her own sin and misery, and got at the divine love that could heal it all. Faith may thus find various excellencies in Him, but it is Himself it reaches.

Faith sits and sings

"All human beauties, all divine,

In my beloved meet and shine."

Let not this evangelic age, dear sister, give you the work of Christ alone. It tends that way. Without His work, I know, all would be nothing. But let not doctrinal acquaintance with His work turn you from personal acquaintance with Himself.

I write at once, on receiving yours, for it was indeed a surprise and a joy to me.

Our dear sisters are at Cheltenham, where Mrs. M . . . . is, in very bad health. My dear Mary is increasingly feeble in her limbs, but "her peace in Jesus," through His grace, perfect. Great comfort have we in our dear child at our side; deep, eternal joy in our dear child that is gone.

All will soon close in the brightness of vision.

The Lord bless you and be with your spirit. Ever, etc.,

J. G. B.

Accept my Mary's love. Let us hear again of you and all dear to you, for it is a long time since we did.

LETTER 32.

2, Upper Pembroke Street,

Dublin, May 4, 1852.

MY DEAR SISTER,

It is, indeed, some time since a little word passed between us. The good Lord knows that it comes not from change or lack of the old and wonted love between us, but it may be, like some dream, from the multitude of business, and much of that business far less attractive to the heart than communion over some of the precious truth of God, but perhaps as needed and not less profitable.

I want to prove, "when he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?" Beautiful sentence!

I heard of a good man who had been long under trial, people mistaking and reproaching him, saying to one who told me of it, "It has not given me five minutes' uneasiness for the whole seven months." What a living, happy experience of the reality of that short scripture. How much the soul covets the like, dear sister.

In our conduct and journey as saints, it is not enough, for the full repose of the heart, to have a good conscience. Without that, it is true, there could be no repose. But we need that light and grace and energy of the spiritual mind, that will keep us in the track of the mind of God, and in such activities as become the house and people of God, and our place in the midst of them. But, at the same time, I believe we can bring our lacking or our erring in these ways of the Spirit up to the throne of grace, in confession, with somewhat a less painful mourning heart than we should have to bring our blots of conscience.

I would that you could tell me better things of yourself, as to the body; but you scarcely expect much till all that be perfected in its "eternal house." I was lately reading a life of dear G. Whitfield. What a fervent spirit he carried with him, and what a love of souls filled his heart. I found it good and rebuking to be in company with him and with others who breathed the life of Christ in those days of dear Lady Huntingdon. Oh for more such fervency, loved sister, in my cold and narrow heart! He wept while he preached, like his Master; in his measure and way he seems to have given himself to the people, imparting his own soul to them, as the apostle speaks. The Lord spread among us more of this!

Give my love to dear Mrs. W . . . ., when you see her, and to your dear physician. I have heard of his brother in the north, but knew not of his loss. Blessed be God for the mercy 1 In the riches of grace He has given me, in recollections of mine, some of the dearest joys of my heart. The Lord be with your spirit, and believe me,

Ever your affectionate

J. G. B.

My Mary desires her love, and remember me to your dear sister. I may find something on Matthew 13 among my MSS. and will send it, please God.

I was glad you told me of yourself, where and with whom you are now living. I visit two dear saints of God, laid up, like yourself, for years in pain of body. One of them a near connection of the dear man, Mr. Greene, who ministers to Matamoros. Trials, my sister, will re-appear as honours by and by, sufferings as crowns. (1 Peter 1: 7.) You may be full sure I should find my way to the Quarries, were I at Exeter. My own sister from Tiverton we hope to see here in the course of the summer; but for six years I have not paid her a visit. A visit from dear M . . . would be very pleasant to you, I am sure. The recollections of him are very grateful to me, as of dear Mr. and Mrs. W . . . . and theirs. But all is imperfection, till the presence of Christ in glory teaches it by and by. May we have a heart for His appearing, without the check of present lust and vanity!

I have not heard of dear L . . . . M . . . . for a long while. Your dear doctor at Torquay cannot visit you now, as he was wont to do so lovingly.

"We talk of the land of the blest,

That country so bright and so fair;

And oft are its glories confest,

But what must it be to be there."

Oh! for deeper, richer, larger desires and sympathies for it and with it, my sister.

Ever your affectionate brother,

J. G. B.

LETTER 33.

May 29, 1863.

How naturally, yea, necessarily, my dear sister, the sight of a letter from you took me back many years in the recollections of my heart, and the interval surely was marked by its lights and shadows. How consistently, as one company, brethren were walking together, when first you and I knew each other, and now how broken! And yet I believe we can say, we would not exchange our present experience with what it was in apparently brighter and calmer days. The harvest that is reddening for the sickle is not as lovely to the eye as it was in its early freshness of green spring-time. And it is well, my dear sister, to be thinking of the day of ingathering. With me, at my age of sixty-six, it can be but comparatively a little while; but to faith, it is always a little while, and the less the better — save as service and the will of the Master would have it otherwise.

There is nothing like resting in His love. "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God." There is no one moral thought so full of power, I believe, as that which the apostle utters, "the Son of God who has loved me." The soul looking upward, as in communion not with God in judgment but in grace, apprehending not an exactor but a Saviour. You speak of my visiting Exeter, my dear sister. But I have no such prospect. My dear Mary is dependent on me every day, the frame increasingly feeble, and the mind bemoaning much failing; but the simplicity of her faith holds on, and no cloud rests on her well-known title to the love of God her Father. Our dear . . . . is a great comfort to us, and in more health of body, I think, than some years since. You know, perhaps, that we have lost all our dear sisters. The three died within two years of each other, at Cheltenham, where . . . ., . . . . ., and . . . . still live, and live as walking with the Lord, and serving Him in their way and measure.

For more than four years I have not been absent from Dublin for a week, and though I know it is profiting to visit brethren in other places at times, and see how they do, and take their pledge, and learn where they have been seated at divine lessons which have escaped the notice of one's own soul, yet if His strong hand fix your habitation, that becomes your profitable as well as your right place.

We are kept here, thank the Lord, in much peace, and the revival times which were blessedly seen in our city and neighbourhood some three years ago, have led to the enlarging of our company, and to the manifestation of much grace and godliness in many young persons. . . But in the state of churches, dear sister, we have great reason "to rejoice with trembling." Mischief breaks out suddenly at times, and in quarters which had not awakened one's apprehensions.

GENESIS 1 - 47

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The scene of the divine hand in all was, thus, twofold, and accordingly, in "the dispensation of the fulness of times," He will display Himself, in the new creation in Christ Jesus, both in heaven and earth.

I believe that the chapters in the Book of Genesis which we have mentioned above give us a view of the Lord acting with respect to each of these, as it were, by turns, till in the end, we see them presented together in a way typical of what their connection and yet distinction will be in the coming dispensation of the fulness of times. It was of the earth that Adam was made the lord under the Lord God. He had no place in heaven at all. The garden was his residence, and he was to subdue and replenish the earth. But this, excellent as it was, was the limit of His inheritance and enjoyments. All that He knew of in heaven was the Lord God the Creator who was above him. He had no thoughts that linked him personally with it at all. But when he transgressed, he lost the earth. He became a slave and a drudge in it to get bare existence out of it, and then had to lay himself down upon it and die. Such was his changed condition in the earth, grace the while providing remedy for him as a sinner, and pointing his hopes to a better inheritance and richer enjoyments in heaven.

This is much to be observed, and this is the voice of Genesis 5. There Adam, Seth, and the whole line of godly patriarchs, have in the earth only a burying-place, no memorial, no inheritance there, but, as represented in Enoch, destined of the Lord God to be translated to a higher portion in the heavens with the Lord Himself. This was faith and godliness now. That people who would cling to the earth must do so in the spirit of Cain or the Infidel, desiring to find their memorial and their delights in a place expressly under the curse, seating themselves down with satisfaction and at ease, when God had said; in righteous judgment, they were to expect only a hard and sorrowful livelihood. (Gen. 4)

But the earth was not given up. It is, we know, destined to rejoice in the liberty of the glory by and by, when the promised "dispensation of the fulness of times comes." And, accordingly, this purpose the Lord will rehearse and illustrate, as He now, in due season, does in the history of Noah. (Gen. 6 - 9) For here, after passing through the judgment of water, the earth appears again in the scene of the divine delight. God has his representative prophet, priest, and king in it, and makes His covenant with it, undertaking to preserve it, and providing for its righteous, godly government. Cattle and fowl, and creeping thing of every sort are preserved with it; and the earth and its whole system, with man at the head of it, as God's image, is the scene of divine care and delight again. Noah's possession of the earth was quite unlike either that of Cain's or of Seth's family. He did not, like the former, enjoy it and fill it in defiance or in spite of God; nor did he, like the latter, take only a burying place in it. But he enjoyed it under God. The Lord sanctioned his inheritance of it, his dominion over it, and his delight in it, in some sense, like Adam at the beginning, though, of course, it was now in an injured condition.

All this is very significant. In Noah the earth reappears as the scene of divine care and husbandry, after it had for a season been given over, and the elect had been, in their hopes and calling, removed to heaven, as we saw in chapter 5. The heavenly family there had died to the earth. They could speak of its coming judgment and restoration. Enoch foretold of its judgment (Jude), and Lamech of its restoration and blessing, though it was then under the displeasure of the Lord. (Gen. 5: 29.) But they neither of them lived for the scenes they thus spoke about. They carried the mind of God in them, and could speak or prophesy of these things, but they had gone from the scene before they happened. So heavenly were they, having the intelligence, that true stranger-character, and the inheritance of the Church. But Noah, who comes after them, is found to be an earthly man. He returns to it, after the judgment, to find in it the sphere of covenanted blessing and honour.

Again, however, we know the earth soon corrupted its way before the Lord. As in Adam, this corruption began in Noah himself, and was perfected in the builders of Babel, who, like another family of Cain, desired to fill the earth with themselves and their works, independently of God. They were mighty hunters before the Lord — they scoured the face of the earth in the full infidel spirit, asking, as it were, "Where is the God of judgment?" But, as we also know, this was not allowed. Another judgment came upon the people, and they are scattered and confounded, and made strange the one to the other. The whole human social order is awfully broken up, and Abram is called out to find his fellowship with the blessed God Himself apart from all that which had now thus corrupted its way before Him.

And thus it is that the Lord still continues to unfold and tell out His purposes. He does not put the earth into Abraham's hand, as He had done into Adam's and Noah's, but He promises him a future inheritance in it, and in that hope and under that promise Abraham becomes a stranger in the world. He walks as a heavenly man therefore, like Seth, or Enoch, or the others of Genesis 5, with the prospect of the earth and his seed being linked together by and by. Such appears to be the nature of things as exhibited in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and thus in their persons were heavenly, but their distant hopes, at least the hopes of their seed, pointed to the earth. They did not enjoy it themselves, but it was inheritance in the earth that was covenanted to them and their seed.

Having thus become the objects and holders of these covenants and promises, in process of time, their children, too much in the spirit of Cain, hate and persecute their righteous brother. And this has the operation of separating that brother from them. Joseph is estranged from the scene of the promised and covenanted inheritance and is a pilgrim and a sufferer among a distant people, till he there becomes great and honourable, the second man in the kingdom, on whom by the strong hand of the Lord the whole earth, and his brothers who once hated him and cast him out, became dependent.

I judge that nothing can be more exactly and wonderfully expressive than all this. It is a striking exhibition of the great result — for now we see not the heavens merely or the earth merely, each in its season broken up and made the scene of the divine counsels, or of the hopes and inheritance of the elect, but we see the heavens and the earth together in one great system though in different departments, gathered under one head, a fair and beautiful type of those days of refreshing and restitution, when there shall be, according to this pattern, gathered together in one, all things in Christ, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven.

Joseph is, at first, cast, by the wickedness of them who were the children of the covenants and of the promises, among the Gentiles, among strangers, and then after his sorrows he becomes exalted, and the head and father of a family which yields him such joy that his heart can well afford to forget his kindred in the flesh. He is raised also to be the great depositary and dispenser of those resources on which the whole earth is soon made to depend. This, surely, is Christ in heaven now. This, surely, is the Church taken from among the Gentiles, "the fulness of the Gentiles," made the companion, the family, and the joy, of Jesus during the season of his estrangement from Israel. But the world is brought to look to this exalted one, and his brethren who hated him to bow to him and seek his favour. And surely this is Christ on the earth by and by. And this is Israel brought to repentance, and seated in favour and in the richest portion of the land which their exalted brother can bestow on them. And this is the whole world in the days of the kingdom, when the true Joseph will order and settle them according to His perfect wisdom and pleasure, feed them out of His stores, and receive from them, as Joseph did from the Egyptians, a willing and unmurmuring obedience — when the whole world will say, as the believer, the child of wisdom now learns to say, "Our Jesus hath done all things well." And all this will be to the honour of Him who holds the supreme place, as Joseph did all this for Pharaoh's praise, and as every tongue by and by is to confess Jesus Lord, but to the glory of God the Father.

But in the midst of all this earthly honour of Joseph, Asenath and the children are not seen. No lot of ground is appointed for this family of Joseph. Jacob may get Goshen, the fairest and fattest of the land, but Asenath, apparently, gets nothing. Is it that the wife and children were loved less than the father and the brethren? Nay, that must not be, that could not be, in such an one as Joseph. But it is because Asenath and the children are heavenly, and cannot mingle with the interests and arrangements of the earth. Even Goshen would be unworthy of them. They are the family of the Lord of all this scene. They share the house and the constant presence and the closest endearments of him who presides over all this.

Is not this, all things heavenly and earthly gathered into one? Is not this the Church with Jesus, and the nations and Israel at their head with Jesus in their several spheres in the days of the kingdom? Here, surely, the heavens and the earth are heard and seen together, and yet distinctly here.

LETTER 34.

2, Upper Pembroke Street,

Feb. 19, 1864.

I thank you, my dear, long-known sister, for your word of living sympathy. I have had a sore bereavement, thirty-nine years of sweet and pleasant and edifying communion may well give me to know that. And though, in all feebleness of mind and body, it was my joy to look at her, and see and hear the expressions of her simple and ever-unclouded faith. May the Lord give me to find more in Himself, I am sure I ask Him, than ever I have done. For the most that way has hitherto been small surely.

My dear . . . . from the neighbourhood of T . . . . happened to be with us on a visit, the first time we had seen her for twelve years, just at the time when we were visited by this sore and painful loss; and it was a gracious arrangement for us under the hand of God. And how glad I should be, were I again in Devonshire, again to see you. My recollections of you, at Exeter are still fresher with me than those at Torquay, but if the good Lord have kept us with Himself, He has kept us with each other. My love to dear Mr. and Mrs. W . . . . Truly can I add, renewed communion with them would also be very grateful to me. Mrs . . . . is the only one from those parts I have seen of late, but her visits have been very pleasant to us.

I never hear of L . . . . M . . . . I was invited to the Torquay meeting, but I felt unequal to it at the time. My dear . . . . is in better health than she was some years ago, I am thankful to say; but our tabernacle has been emptied of its choicest Israelite. May it be a moving wilderness one, I pray, till Canaan be reached. The tents must have gathered soil and fractures, as they passed from the Red Sea to the Jordan, but they were better in their relations on the banks of the Jordan, though worse in their conditions, than they had been on the banks of the Egyptian sea. Though torn and dirtied, they were nearer to being struck for the last time.

My child has just come in, and desires me to give her love. Our aged Aunt who lives with us — ninety-four — is still wonderful in mind and body.

The Lord be with your spirit, my dear sisters.

Ever yours affectionately in Him,

J. G. B.

I would have heard better of your health than your letter allows me to do. But there is One who sees the end from the beginning.

Paul's Apostleship and Epistles

Paul's Apostleship and Epistles.

J. G. Bellett.

The Book of "The Acts of the Apostles" is rather the book of the acts of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Apostle of the circumcision, and the Apostle of the Gentiles. In the events recorded in that part of it which gives us St. Peter's ministry (that is, Acts 1-12), I judge that we can discern such an order and meaning as prepares us for the Lord's further purposes among the Gentiles by the subsequent ministry of Paul. I would thus briefly notice and interpret these events.

Acts 1 — While waiting, according to the commandment, for the promised power from on high, the disciples, under the leading of St. Peter (constituted chief in the Jewish ministry, Luke 22: 32; John 21: 16), commit it to the Lord to fill up the vacant bishopric of Judas. This was needful, as I shall observe more particularly by-and-by, that the Jewish order of twelve Apostles might stand full and complete; and that this was done with the full intelligence of the mind of God, appears further from this — that the Lord seems at once to undertake what His servants thus commit to Him, for He honours the lot (the Jewish form of discovering the Divine will in such matters, 1 Chr. 24: 5; Num. 26: 55; Joshua 19: 10), and Matthias is numbered with the eleven Apostles; and the Holy Ghost in the next chapter seems to adopt Matthias in his new office, by falling upon him equally with the rest without any rebuke.

Acts 2 - 7 — The number being thus filled up, the Holy Ghost is given according to promise; and Peter again takes the lead, and preaches the risen Jesus to the Jews. The enmity of the Jews, however, sets in, and proceeds through these chapters, increasing gradually, just as it had done before against the Lord. The Apostles, however, like their Lord, go on with their testimony undismayed; great grace is upon all — holy discipline keeps them pure — and with great power the Apostles give testimony to the resurrection. But as the enmity had worked against the Lord till they crucified Him, so now does it work against the Apostles, till they run upon Stephen and stone him. And as the heavens had received the crucified One, so do the heavens open to His fellow-sufferer and witness. And in Him the Church receives a living pledge that the heavenly glory was for her as well as for her Lord, for the world had now rejected both.

Acts 8 — This being so, Jerusalem could no longer receive the sanction of God, for it had fully declared its sin, and for a season must be cast out of His sight. The disciples are therefore now scattered from Jerusalem, and the Jewish order is disturbed: this chapter giving us the acts of one who had not been sent forth, either as from Jerusalem, or by the Apostles at all. Philip goes forth — and at first preaches Christ in Samaria, and is then sent down by the Spirit "to Gaza, which is desert," to bring into the fold a lost sheep that was still straying there, but known to God before the foundation of the world. But immediately afterwards, he is borne by the Spirit to Azotus (the place next to the desert where men and women could be found), that he might proclaim there, and in all other places, the grace which says, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life." Thus by his mission to Gaza, and then by his rapture to Azotus, Philip's ministry is made to signify the sovereignty and the universality of that grace which the Lord was to publish.

Acts 9 — The channels for the life and power that is from the Son of God to flow in among the Gentiles were now fully opened; for the Jews, and the Samaritans, and the Proselytes, had been called. All was ready for the gathering of the firstfruits of the Gentiles. But before this was done, and present judgment upon Israel thus publicly sealed, the Lord gives, in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, a sign of the future conversion of Israel (see 1 Tim. 1: 16). A sample, no doubt it is, of that long-suffering that saves every sinner. But Israel is to be made the great final witness of that longsuffering, and is principally pointed at by this sign; and therefore all that accompanies this great event is a foreshowing of the things that are hereafter to mark and accompany the repentance of Israel. Saul's looking on Him Whom he had pierced — his being shut up three days without sight, and neither eating nor drinking — the removal of this judgment, and his baptism, all shows us the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem looking on Him Whom they pierced and mourning, every family apart, and their wives apart, and then proving the virtues of the cleansing fountain opened for their sin and for their uncleanness. Jerusalem will then be the signal witness of sovereign grace, as Saul now is (Zech. 12, 13) And in further proof of this mystical character of Saul's conversion, we may observe that he tells us himself, that he obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief; and this is the very ground of final mercy to Israel; as the Lord prayed for them, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (See also Acts 3: 17)

Acts 10, 11 — A pledge of Israel's future conversion being thus left them, proclamation of present judgment upon them is made by the call from among the Gentiles of a people for God. This is done by the ministry of the Apostle of the circumcision; and most fitly so. For he had received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and was also the representative of Jerusalem, who is (however faithless, and as such divorced for a while) "the mother of us all.", But Peter's title to this, as representing Jerusalem, being thus allowed, we find a Church of Gentiles gathered at Antioch by other hands, and Barnabas and Saul, rather than Peter, called to the help and comfort of it.

Acts 12 — And now the Lord had only publicly to dismiss Jerusalem for a season. But as He had before pledged Israel's future conversion, so does He, as I judge, now pledge to them their future restoration. To me, I confess, this chapter has great beauty and meaning, presenting both the sorrows and the deliverance of the remnant in the latter day, and the full ruinous overthrow of their enemies. James is slain with the sword, as hereafter at Jerusalem the complaint will be this, "their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem" (Ps. 79: 2, 3). Peter also, the hope of the circumcision, is cast into prison, the enemy thus all but prevailing against the Israel of God.

Pledges of Israel's Restoration.

But he was to go no further, for Peter is to appear to be the Lord's prisoner, rather than Herod's. He sleeps between his keepers. He lies there "a prisoner of hope." The enemy is strong and mighty, and the remnant have no relief but in God. But that is enough. They make prayer without ceasing for him, till at length this prisoner of the Lord is sent forth out of the pit, as Israel will be in the latter day (Zech. 9, 11, 12). At first he was like one that dreamt, thinking that he saw a vision; and so were his company, saying, "It is his angel." But so will Israel be hereafter. They will sing, "when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream." But in the sudden joy of their heart, they will have to add, "then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing as Peter, coming to himself, now says, "Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews."

All this is to me sweetly and strikingly significant. But the sign does not end here. In royal apparel, Herod sits upon his throne, having thought it well to be highly displeased, as though vengeance belonged to him. He makes an oration to the people, and they give a shout for him, saying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man." Thus he takes to himself the glory which was God's, and immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, "and he was eaten with worms, and gave up the ghost." So will the Lawless One magnify himself above all, and sit upon the mount of the congregation on the sides of the north, saying, "I will be like the Most High." He will do "according to his will"; but he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. "So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord , but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."

Thus is final mercy pledged to Israel. Under these signs of their Conversion and Restoration, and of the overthrow of their enemies, they are now left prisoners of hope. The Lord Himself gives them a sign, and then hides His face from them; goes His way for awhile, and leaves His sanctuary. All this prepares us for a ministry beyond the bounds of Israel; and accordingly, in the opening of the next chapter, we find the word sent forth to the Gentiles, Jerusalem as the source of grace and ministry forgotten, and the name of Jew and Gentile left without distinction.

Such I judge to be the course and meaning of the events that occurred, during the ministry of the circumcision, under the hand of St. Peter, as we have them recorded in these chapters.* What was the nature of the ministry itself? What were the hopes that it spoke of to Israel? and what was the call that it made upon Israel? We shall find, in answer to these inquiries, that the Apostles spoke of the proper national hopes of Israel, calling on them to repent in order that they might attain them, and be blest in the earth. They declare Israel's sin in crucifying the Prince of Life; God's acceptance of this crucified One, and, upon repentance, the remission of Israel's sins, and the fulfilling of Israel's hopes.

*In token of this, our Apostle's Jewish name, "Saul," is made to take the Gentile form, "Paul." This was of the Holy Ghost, Who would have it further known even by this, small as it may appear, that the distinction of Jew and Gentile was to be lost during that dispensation, the testimony to which was now going forth. just as before at Antioch (see Acts 1: 26). When the Church became Gentile, or mixed, having been drawn out from its strict Jewish character, the disciples for the first time were called "Christians"; the Holy Ghost by this making it known, that a body was now preparing for Christ, which was to be anointed in, with, and through Him.

A Testimony to Israel.

Thus, in Peter's sermon in the second chapter, his testimony to Israel was this — that the resurrection secured the promises made to David's throne; that the ascension was the source of the given Spirit; that Jesus was to abide in the ascended place till His enemies were made His footstool; and upon all this he calls on Israel to repent. But he says nothing about the Church ascending after her Head, and her consequent heavenly glory. So in the third chapter (after he and John had recognized God's house at Jerusalem), in his preaching, he calls on Israel to repent in order that "the times of refreshing might come from the presence of the Lord," when Jesus should return to them, and all things promised by Moses and the prophets be accomplished. But all this in like manner was a testimony to the hopes of Israel and the earth, and not a testimony to the heavenly glory. It was a publication of the acts and promises of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the children of the prophets and the children of the covenant. And so in the fifth chapter we have this — "Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins," words very strongly marking the value which the Spirit in St. Peter gave to the resurrection of the Lord, applying it merely to Israel as God's nation.

And as the proper fruit of this preaching and of these hopes, we find the conduct and practice of the saints to have been this — they present beautiful order and grace in the way of settling their earthly possession — they get favour with all the people, as Jesus had in His infancy at Nazareth — they continue daily in the temple, as though they knew not how soon the Lord might return to it — and they heal all disease among the people, as the Lord had done when He walked through the cities and villages of Judea. But beyond all this, perfect as it was in its season, there was something still. The Church had still to take with Jesus her earth-rejected and earth-rejecting character. Citizenship in heaven, death as to the earth, and life hid with Christ in God; a looking forth towards the things within the veil after the glorious forerunner, were great and new things still to be brought out of the treasury. Neither Peter's testimony, nor the Church's conduct, were such as exhibited them. The glory within the veil first looks through, when Stephen's face shines as the face of an angel. And this was beautiful in its season also; for Stephen was soon to be made the first witness of the heavenly calling. Martyrdom was the needed ground of the full manifestation of this calling. The Apostles might have suffered shame, and stripes, and imprisonment , but there was still space for repentance to Israel, as there had been during the Lord's ministry (though He in like manner suffered shame and rejection), till His last visit to Jerusalem. The cross, however, had closed the earth upon the Lord: and so did the martyrdom of Stephen close it now upon the Church; and awful separation for a while was made between all who are the Lord's and this present evil world.

Thus till this death of a saint after the resurrection, the time had not come for the bringing out of this thing (the heavenly calling of the Church) from the treasury of the Divine counsels. Types, and the other intimations of it had been from the beginning. Our Lord had given the vision of it on the holy mount, but it was dimness in the eyes even of the Apostles. He hinted at "the heavenly things" which the Son of Man alone could speak of (John 3: 12), but they were not perceived. "The little while" of His abiding with the Father, was as strange to the disciples as to the Jews. His ministry of these things was to them proverbs (John 16: 25). And so even the ascension of the Lord was not of itself adequate ground for the manifesting of that glory.For it was needed to the Lord's forming the Jewish Church for godly citizenship on the earth, the Holy Ghost being received through the ascension, "for the rebellious," that is, for Israel, "that the Lord God might dwell among them" — dwell among them here. But on the martyrdom of a believer in the Lord thus risen and ascended, the time had fully come for the manifesting of the heavenly calling, for the showing out of this mystery, that Christ was to have a body which was to share with Him in the glory on high into which He had Himself ascended, whose citizenship was not to be in Jerusalem, but in heaven.

"In the regeneration," as the Lord speaks, that is, in the coming kingdom of the Son of Man, there will be again a people that will find their proper place on earth, — the Israel of God. And then the twelve Apostles will be manifested in connection with the twelve tribes, and the saints with the world (see Matt. 19: 28; 1 Cor. 6: 2, 3). All this will be the glory and joy of that happy time, and most beautiful and perfect in its season. The Son of Man seated on His throne of glory — the Apostles judging the twelve tribes — and the saints, the world. The servants will then share in the kingdom of their Lord, having authority with Him and under Him over the cities of His dominion. But this time is now delayed, for the earth has refused it. Israel has cast the heir of the vineyard out, and killed them that were sent to them (1 Thess. 2: 16). Another testimony was now to go forth, a testimony to the loss of Israel's and the earth's hopes for the present, and to the call of an elect people out of earth into heaven. And Saul the persecutor, that is, Paul the Apostle, was made the special bearer of it.

The Conversion of Paul.

And how rich was the grace displayed by the Lord in choosing Saul to be the vessel of this heavenly treasure! At this very time he was in full enmity against God and His Anointed. At his feet the witnesses whose hands had been first upon Stephen, laid down their clothes. But this is the man that is to be made God's chosen vessel and such is the way of the Lord in abounding mercy. Before this, man's fullest enmity had been met by God's fullest love; for the cross was at the same moment the witness of both, as the person of Saul is now. "The soldier's spear," as one has observed, "drew forth the blood and water — sin has drawn forth grace." And now, as we may say, Saul's journey to Damascus was the spear making its way a second time into the side of Christ; for he was now going with commission and slaughter against the flock of God. But it was on this journey that the light from heaven arrested him. The blood of Jesus thus again met the soldier's cruel spear, and Saul is a pattern of all longsuffering.

The sovereign grace that saves the Church was thus displayed in Saul. But the heavenly glory that is reserved for the Church, was also displayed to him, for he sees Jesus in it. And by these things his future ministry is formed.

New Ministries Called Forth.

And here I may observe in connection with this, that at the times of calling out new ministries, there have commonly been characteristic exhibitions of Christ. Thus, when Moses was called forth at Horeb, he saw a burning, but yet unconsumed bush, out of the midst of which Jehovah spake to him. And the ministry which he then received was according to this vision, to go and deliver Israel from the affliction of Egypt, in the midst of which God had been with them, preserving them in spite of it all. When he and the people afterwards stood under Sinai, the mountain was altogether in a smoke, so that even Moses himself exceedingly feared and quaked. But all this was so, because there was about to proceed from it, that law which poor fallen man can never answer, and which therefore is but the ministry of death and condemnation to him, though he be such an one as Moses himself. When Moses afterwards drew towards God, standing between Him and the people, he receives (in accordance with the mediate place which he thus occupied) his commission to deliver, as the national mediator, the laws and ordinances of the King. But when in the last place, he goes up to the top of the hill, far beyond both the region of horrible fire and the mediate place which he occupied as the mediator of the nation, and where all was calm and the presence of the Lord around him, he receives the tokens of grace, the types of Christ, the Saviour and Priest, and is from thence made to minister to Israel, "the shadows of good things to come." In all these we see much that was expressive of the ministry about to be appointed.

So afterwards, though in a more limited way. When Joshua was about to receive a commission to compass Jericho with men of war, the Lord appears to him as a man of war with a sword drawn in His hand.

When Isaiah was called to go forth as the prophet of judgment against Israel, the Lord was seen in His temple in such terrible majesty, that the very posts of the door moved at His voice, and the house was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6)

When our Lord stood in the land of Israel the minister of the circumcision, according to this place and character, He appoints twelve to go forth to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But after the resurrection, when He stood on the earth in a larger character, all power in heaven and earth being then His, He commissions His Apostles accordingly, — "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." And so now, — ascended into heaven, and having there received the Church to Himself, He appears to Saul from that glory; and in him appoints a ministry formed upon the principle of this manifestation. Heaven was the birth-place of Paul's Apostleship; and according to this, he was sent forth to gather out and raise up a people from earth to heaven.

Thus, from the place from whence his call into office came, we at the beginning might be prepared for something new and heavenly. But his Apostleship was out of due time, as well as out of due place (1 Cor. 15: 8). It not only did not come from Jerusalem, but it arose after the Apostleship there had been perfected. Judas' forfeited bishopric had been filled up by Matthias, and thus the body of twelve, as ordered by the Lord at the beginning, was again complete; and Paul's Apostleship is thus a thing born "out of due time."

But though in this respect, "out of due time," yet not so in every respect. The times and seasons which the Lord has taken for the unfolding of His counsels are, doubtless, all due and rightly ordered; and having "the mind of Christ" (the present inheritance, through grace, of every spiritual man), we may seek to know this; remembering first of all, Whose counsels we are searching into, and how it becomes us to walk before Him with unshod feet. May He keep us, brethren, thus treading His course, and may the haste of inquirers never take us out of the place and attitude of worshippers. Let us remember, that it is in His temple we must inquire (Ps. 27: 4).

Successive Stages in Revelation.

As then, to these times and seasons, I observe that our Lord marks successive stages in the Divine procedure with Israel, when He says, "the law and the prophets prophesied until John." Here He notices three ministries, the law, the prophets, and John. But these extended only down to our Lord's own ministry, and therefore now, in the further progress of the Divine counsels, we can to these add others.

The Law. — This dispensation put Israel under a covenant which exacted obedience as the condition upon which they were to continue in the land, and in the blessings which Jehovah had given them. But we know that they broke it.

The Prophets. — After offence and trespass had come in, prophets were raised up; among other services, to warn and encourage Israel to return to Him, from Whom they and their fathers had revolted, that they might recover their place and blessing under the covenant. But Israel, we know, refused their words, stoning some, and killing some.

John. — The Baptist is then raised up, not as one of the prophets merely, to call Israel back to the old covenant, and to the obedience which it required, but to be the herald of a kingdom that was then at the doors, the forerunner of One Who was coming with the sure blessing of His own presence. He summoned the people to be in readiness for Messiah. But John they beheaded.

The Lord. — Thus introduced by John to Israel, the Lord accordingly comes forth, and offers the kingdom in His own person to them, and Israel is summoned to own it and worship Him. But we know that the Heir of the vineyard was cast out by the husbandmen. "His own received Him not." The builders disallowed the stone. They crucified the Prince of Life; but God raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.

The Twelve Apostles. — They had accompanied with our Lord all the time that He had gone in and out among them, from the baptism of John to the day that He was taken up from them and they were now called forth (being endued with the Holy Ghost) to be witnesses to Israel of the resurrection. And these witnesses tell Israel that the times of refreshing, the times of accomplishing all promised good to them, waited only for their repentance; for that Jesus was now exalted to be a Prince and Saviour to them. And now the final trial of Israel was come. What could be done more than had now been done? Trespass against the Son of Man had been forgiven, at least, the way of escape from the judgment which it called for had now been thrown open to Israel by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles; but what could provide relief, if this testimony were now despised? (See Matt. 12: 32) But the Holy Ghost is resisted, the testimony of the twelve is despised by the martyrdom of Stephen, and the Lord's dealings with Israel and the earth are therefore necessarily closed for a season.

The Apostleship of Paul.

The Apostle of the Gentiles then comes forth, fraught with further treasures of Divine wisdom, revealing purposes that had been till now (while God was dealing with Israel and the earth) hid in God. He comes forth with this testimony — that Christ and the Church were one; that heaven was their common inheritance: and the gospel committed to him, was the gospel, as he expresses it, of "Christ in us the hope of glory." This gospel he had now to preach among the Gentiles (Gal. 1: 16; Col. 1: 28).

We are thus enabled to see the fulness of the times in which the mysteries of God have been revealed. It must be so we know, for God is God. But through His abounding towards us in all wisdom and prudence, He gives us grace to see something of this that we may adore Him, and love Him, and long for the day when we shall see Him face to face, and know as we are known. For all these His ways are beautiful in their season. Israel was the favoured earthly people, and it was due to them to try whether or not the fountain would be opened in Jerusalem, from whence to water the earth. But this debt of Israel had now been paid by the ministry of the Lord, closed in by that of the twelve; and Stephen's speech in Acts 7, is God's conviction of Israel's rejection of all the ways which His love had taken with them. They had silenced, as He there charges them, the early voice of God in Joseph — they had refused Moses the deliverer — they had persecuted the prophets — slain John and others, who had showed before of the coming of the just One — been the betrayers and murderers of that just One Himself, and, finally, were then in His person resisting, to the end resisting, as they had ever done, the Holy Ghost. The Lord therefore had only to forsake His sanctuary, and with it the earth, and the martyr sees the Lord in heaven under such a form as gives clear notice that the saints were now to have their citizenship in heaven, and their home in the glory there, and not on the earth.

This martyrdom of Stephen was thus a crisis or time of judgment, the final one with Israel; and a new witness to God is therefore called out. There had been already such times in the history of Israel. Shiloh had been the scene of the first crisis. The ark that was there was taken into the enemy's land — the priest and his sons died ingloriously; Ichabod was the character of the system then, and Samuel was called out as Jehovah's new witness — the help of Israel, the raiser of the stone Ebenezer. Jerusalem was afterwards the scene of another crisis. The house of David had filled up its sin; the king and the people with all their treasures were taken down to Babylon, and the city laid in heaps; and Jesus (for the interval as to this purpose need not be estimated) is called forth, God's new witness — the sure mercy and hope of Israel. But He was refused, and in judgment turned His back upon Jerusalem, saying, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate." That was a season of judgment also — judgment of Israel for the rejection of the Son of Man; and another witness is then called out — the twelve Apostles, who testify, as I have been observing, in the Holy Ghost, to the resurrection of the rejected Lord, and that repentance and remission of sins were provided in Him for Israel. But they also are rejected and cast out. Then comes the final crisis. — Stephen is their representative, and he convicts Israel of full resistance of the Holy Ghost; and then a new and heavenly witness is called forth. Such witness is the Church, and of the Church, and of the Church's special calling and glory, Paul is made in an eminent sense the minister.

The Son Revealed in Saints.

"It pleased God to reveal His Son in me," says he. This is the ground of the Church's special dignity, and the Gospel which Paul preached. It was not the Gospel of Messiah, the Hope of Israel, nor the Gospel of the once crucified One, now exalted "to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins"; but it was the Gospel of the Son of God revealed in him. The Son had been revealed to the disciples by the Father before (Matt. 16: 17); but now He is revealed in Paul. He had the Spirit of adoption. The Holy Ghost in him was the Spirit of the Son. And anointed with this oil of gladness, he had to go forth and spread the savour of it everywhere. And upon the Son thus revealed within, hangs everything that is peculiar, as I have observed, to the calling and glory of the Church. Thus we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together" (Rom. 8: 16, 17). And again, we read, "that we are predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ," that is, as Paul here speaks of himself, to have the Son revealed in us. And this being the predestinated condition of the Church, there comes forth, as in the train of this, all the Church's holy prerogatives — acceptance in the Beloved, with forgiveness of sins through His blood — entrance into the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, so as to have made known to us the mystery of the will of God — future inheritance in and with Him, in Whom all things in heaven and earth are to be gathered — and the present seal and earnest of this inheritance in the Holy Ghost. This bright roll of privileges is inscribed by the Apostle thus91 spiritual blessings in the heavenlies"; and so they are, blessings through the Spirit flowing from and linking us with Him Who is the Lord in the heavens (Eph. 1: 4-12).

All this follows upon the Son being revealed in us, by which the Church puts on Christ, so as to be one with Him in every stage of His wondrous way; dead, quickened, raised, and seated in heaven in Him (Eph. 2: 6).

Paul's Stewardship.

Of this mystery, Paul was especially the steward. The Lord had hinted at it in the parable of the Vine and the branches. He had spoken of it as that which the presence of the Comforter was to effect, saying, "At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." He spoke of it also to His disciples through Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, saying, "I ascend unto My Father and your Father, unto My God and your God"; thus telling them that they were to be one with Him in love and joy before the throne, all through this present dispensation. But this mystery did not fully come forth till Paul is sent to declare it, It is a calling of exceeding riches of grace, but nothing less could meet the mind of God towards His elect; for He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, were to be "all of one" (Heb. 2: 11). Thus stood the covenant of love before the world was. A mediator such as Moses, whose best service was to keep Jehovah and the people asunder (see Deut. 5: 5), could not answer the purpose of this marvellous love of our God. But in the Son the elect are accepted; and while His work and merit are all their title to anything, they have everything by their oneness with the Mediator Himself (John 17: 26). Nothing less than this could fulfil the desire of our heavenly Father's heart towards us. The partition wall, whether between God and sinners, or between Jew and Gentile, is broken down; and we sinners stand together on its ruins, triumphing over them in Christ, our heavenly Father rejoicing over them also. This is the marvellous workmanship of the love of God, and the forming and completing of this union of Christ and the Church, is the husbandry which God is now tending. He is not, as once He was, caring for a land of wheat, and oil, and pomegranates, that His people might eat without scarceness of the increase of the field (Deut. 11: 12); but He is the Husbandman of the Vine and the branches. He is training the Church in union with the Son of His love until all come in the knowledge of Him to a perfect man. It is this union which makes us of the same family with the Lord Jesus, and entitles us to hear of Him as "The First-born" (Rom. 8: 29). It is this union which gives us the same glory with the Lord Jesus, and entitles us to look after Him as "the Forerunner" (Heb. 6: 20). It is this which gives character to that life which we now have, and to that glory in which we shall be manifested, when He Who is our life shall appear.

Life, Love and Glory.

Our life and glory are thus both of a new character. The life is a new life. The man in Christ is a new creature; he is a dead and risen man. His powers and affections have acquired a new character. His intelligence is spiritual understanding, or "the mind of Christ." His love is "love in the Spirit." The power in him is "glorious power," the power of Christ's resurrection. And so he knows no man after the flesh, but all things are become new to him. It is not enough that human affections or natural tastes would sanction anything; for being after the Spirit, he "minds the things of the Spirit." He serves in "newness of spirit," and the name of the Lord Jesus is the sanction of what he does either "in word or deed." He has been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, and there he walks, going forth in assurance and liberty to do service from morning till evening, living by faith on Him Who loved him and gave Himself for him.

The glory is also a new glory. It is something above all that was seen in previous ages. Excellent things have been spoken of Adam and of Israel; but not equal to what is told us of the Church. Christ is to present the Church to Himself, as God presented Eve to Adam, to be the companion of his dominion and glory. The saints are to be conformed to the image of the Son. It is "the joy of the Lord" that is prepared for the saints, a share with Christ in the authority of the kingdom, in that which He has received from the Father. They are not so much brought into the glory, as made glorious themselves; as we read, "The glory which shall be revealed in us"; and again, "glorified together," that is, "together with Christ"; "fashioned like unto His glorious body." The place of the Son is the scene of their glory. They are not to stand on the footstool, but to sit on the throne. Israel may have the blessings of the earth, but the Church is to know the upper or heavenly glory. And it is life and glory that makes us what we are. The life makes us sons, the glory makes us heirs, and our sonship and inheritance are everything.

Paul's Gospel.

It was the Gospel of this life and glory that Paul was specially called out to minister. Peter and the others forwarded it we know; but Paul was the distinguished steward of it. And Peter and the others did not forward this Gospel as being the twelve at Jerusalem. As the twelve, they had borne their testimony to Israel, and been rejected like their Lord, and now had become witnesses to the heavenly calling of the Church. The vision which instructed Peter in the fact that God had sanctified the Gentiles might also have told him that God had made heaven, and not earth, the place of their calling, and the scene of their hopes. The vessel with its contents was let down from heaven, and then taken up again into heaven. This was, by a symbol, a revelation of the mystery hid from ages. It denoted that the Church had been of old written in heaven and hid there with God, but now for a little season was manifested here, and in the end was to be hid in heaven again, having her glory and inheritance there. This was signified by the descending and ascending sheet, and such, I judge, is the character of the mystery hid from ages and generations. And according to this, Peter, under the Holy Ghost, speaks to the saints of their inheritance "reserved in heaven"; and exhorts them to wait with girded loins, as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. He presents the Church as having consciously come to the end of all things here, and looking, like Israel in the night of the passover, towards Canaan, having done with this Egypt-world.*

*In Peter, we have many allusions to Jewish circumstances. And the Spirit in him who was the Apostle of the circumcision, would naturally have suggested this. But I will refer to only one instance of this. (see Acts 2: 9, 10) The latter verse has Hosea 2: 23, in mind. But the different connection in which the truth there stated stands in the mind of the prophet, and in the mind of the Apostle, is very striking.

Israel is to be made the people of God in the latter day, as the prophet teaches us; but he further teaches us, that when that takes place, Israel shall be sown unto God in the earth, that is, God will bless Israel with earthly blessing. But the Gentiles have now been made the people of God, as the Apostle teaches us; but he further teaches us, that there is no such blessing as this for them; but that, on the contrary, they should reckon themselves as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. How strikingly does the Spirit thus, in these two witnesses, contrast the call and blessing of Israel with the call and blessing of the Church, showing us that the Church has no place on the earth, but that being a stranger there, she is to look for a heavenly country, a citizenship in heaven; but that as soon as Israel is again acknowledged of the Lord, the Lord will hear the heavens, and the heavens the earth, and the earth the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they Jezreel (Hosea 2: 23; 1. Peter 2: 10).

But Paul was apprehended in a special manner for this ministry. A dispensation of the Gospel was committed to him, and woe to him if he did not preach it (1 Cor. 9: 16, 17). Though, as he speaks, it were even against his will, yet he must preach it. The Son was revealed in him for this very purpose, that he might preach Him among the heathen (Gal. 1: 16). For when the Lord converted his soul, He sent him out with this Gospel, "Rise, and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee."

Paul's Ministry.

I do indeed judge that it is very profitable to the saints that they discern rightly, that Paul's ministry was thus one stage in the Divine process of telling out the purposes of God. That he holds a distinguished place in the Church, the feeling of every saint will at once and without effort bear witness; for there is no name more kept in the recollections of the saints than that of our Apostle, save the name of Him Who in the hearts of His people has no fellow.

And his office being thus from heaven, he refuses to confer with flesh and blood — refuses to go up to Jerusalem to them that were Apostles before him. He was not to get himself sanctioned there or by them. Before this, the twelve at Jerusalem had all authority. But the Apostles at Jerusalem are nothing to Paul or his ministry. They had not cast the lot over him, nor are they now to send him forth; but it is the Holy Ghost Who says, "Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." And having thus received grace and Apostleship from the Lord, in the glory, and being now sent forth by the Holy Ghost, in full consistency with all this, he and Barnabas receive recommendation to the grace of God, from the unconsecrated hands of some unnamed brethren at Antioch. All this was a grievous breach upon that order that was to establish the earth in righteousness, beginning at Jerusalem.

Not only was Paul's Apostleship and mission thus independent of Jerusalem, and of the twelve; but the gospel which he preached (the nature of which we have before considered), he did not learn either there or from them. He received it not from man, neither was he taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He goes up, most truly, from Antioch, with Barnabas, to Jerusalem, to confer with the Apostles about circumcision; but before he does so, he withstood some, though they had come from James, and rebuked Peter before them all. And these things were ordered in the provident wisdom of the Spirit; just as our Lord's rebukes of His mother; the Spirit of God, foreseeing the boasts in the flesh which would arise from both these sources, from Mary and from Peter; and thus has given the wayfaring man these tokens of his heavenward path. He circulates the decree upon the question of circumcision, for present peace. But when counselling the Gentile Churches afterwards on one of the subjects which this decree determines, viz., eating meats offered to idols, he does so on the ground merely of brotherly love. He never refers to this decree (1 Cor. 8) He was taught his gospel entirely by revelation (Gal. 1: 12), for at his conversion it had been so promised to him (Acts 26: 16). And accordingly it was from the Lord Himself that he received his knowledge of the death, burial, resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 3), and his knowledge also of the last supper and its meaning (1 Cor. 11: 23); though these things lay within the common acquaintance of those who had companied with the Lord, and he might have received them from them. But, no; he must be taught them all by revelation. The Lord appeared to him in those things of which he was to be a minister and witness. The Lord was jealous that Paul should not confer with flesh and blood — should not be a debtor to any but to Himself for his gospel. For as the dispensation was to allow of no confidence in the flesh, neither was Paul's Apostleship. All that might have been gain in the flesh, was to be counted loss. Confidence with those who had seen and heard, eaten and drunk with Jesus, might have been gain; but all this was set aside. Paul would thankfully be refreshed in spirit by the mutual faith of himself and the humblest disciple. Nay, he would have such acknowledged; all such in whose belly the Spirit had opened the river of God for the refreshing of the saints (Rom. 1: 12, 1 Cor. 16: 18). But he could accept no man's person. The previous pillars of the Church could not be used to support his ministry. The Jewish order was gone. Of old, Jehovah we know, had respect to that order. It was according to the number of the children of Israel, that at the first He divided the nations (Deut. 32: 8). Afterwards He distributed the land of Canaan according to this number also, that is, among the twelve tribes (Joshua 13 - 19) So David in his day, under the guiding of Jehovah, had respect to the same number, when he settled the ministries of the temple, and the officers of the palace at Jerusalem (1 Chr. 23 - 27) And in like manner, the Lord provided for the healing and teaching of Israel, appointed twelve Apostles, still having respect to the Jewish order. And this order of twelve Apostles was preserved, as we have seen, under the hand of Peter afterwards; for he was the guardian of the Jewish order, and pastor of the Jewish Church. But Paul's Apostleship is at once an invasion upon all this. It has no respect whatever to Jewish, earthly, or fleshly order. It interferes with it. It is a writing under the hand of the Spirit of God for the revoking of that order. And this was, as was natural, a great trial to the Jewish Christians. They could not easily understand this undue Apostleship, and we find that he was considerate of them under this trial. And, indeed, those who stand with him in the assertion of the sovereignty of the Spirit, and in the rejection of all fleshly authority, should with him likewise be considerate of the difficulties which many now experience from the Jewish feelings and rules of judgment, in which they have been educated. But still, Paul was an Apostle, let them hear, or let them forbear.

And not only was it a trial to Jewish believers, but there were found evil men moved of Satan, who made their use of this state of things. We find it to have been so at Corinth. In Galatia it was not this. In his epistle to the Churches there, he does not speak of his Apostleship, because it had been slandered among them; but because it was the Divine sanction of that gospel which he had preached, and from which they had departed. But at Corinth his Apostleship had been questioned, and by what witnesses would he have it approved? why, by his pureness, his knowledge, his armour of righteousness (2 Cor. 7) How does he seek to be received? why, because he had corrupted no man, he had defrauded no man (2 Cor. 7) How does he vindicate and establish his ministry? Read his proofs in such words as these — "Am I not an Apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are ye not my work in the Lord? If I am not an Apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you, for the seal of mine Apostleship are ye in the Lord." And again, "For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." Does he not by all this commit the proof of his Apostleship to the manifest presence of the Spirit with him? His children in the faith were the seal of his office (1 Cor. 9: 2); the epistle that ought to commend it to the acceptance of all men. The signs of an Apostle had been wrought by him (2 Cor. 12: 12). And must it not have been so? What office or ministry could now be warranted without the presence and exercise of the gifts received for men? Could the purpose of the ascension be evaded or annulled? Could fleshly authority and order be allowed in despite of the revelation now given, that the ascended Head was the dispenser and Lord of all those ministries that were for "the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ"?

Christ, the Head of the Church.

When the Lord ascended, on His way up, He was a conqueror in triumph, leading captivity captive. But when He reached His heavenly seat, He became a crowned priest,* and sent down coronation gifts to His Church, by the ministry of which He is either forming or strengthening the union between Himself and the members here, and their union among themselves. These ministries thus act like the joints and bands in the human body; and all other ministries the Apostle sets aside as "rudiments of the world," fitted to those who are alive in the world, but most unsuited to those who are — as the Church is — dead and risen with Christ (see Eph. 4: 16; Col. 2: 19-23).

*The "glory and honour" that form our Lord's present crown were typified by Aaron's garments, which were said to be to him for "glory and beauty" (Ex. 28: 2). And the very same words are used in the Septuagint, for "glory and beauty," as our translators have rendered, "glory and honour" in Heb. 2: 7; so that the Lord's present crown is a priest's crown or mitre, and not a king's. He has not put on His royal crown yet.

Gifts to the Church.

We are therefore not true to the ascension of our Head, if we do not look for His ascension-gifts in those who minister in His name. They constitute the hand-writing of the Lord in the Church's genealogies. The Jews were careful to put from the priesthood those whose genealogy could not be proved. They refused to register them (Ezra 2: 62; Neh. 7: 63). And this too in a day when all was feebleness in Israel. No cloudy pillar had led them on their way home from Babylon — no arm of the Lord had gloriously made a passage for them through the deserts — no rain of angel's food from heaven, nor ark of the covenant was with them. All this, and more than this, was gone. But did they plead their feebleness, and do nothing? Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, do what they can. They cannot recover everything, but they do what they can: and among other services, they read the genealogies, and do not allow the holy things to be eaten by unproved claimants of the priesthood. And ours, dear brethren, is a day of feebleness like theirs. Much of the former strength and beauty is gone, and we cannot recover everything. But it is not therefore to be a day of allowed evil; nor are we, in the spirit of slumber, to fold the arms, and say, "There is no hope." We should do what we can, and among other services, we can study the genealogies, when anyone seeks their register: and thus they run, "A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre" (1 Tim. 3)

Thus run the genealogies of the bishops of the flock of God; thus has the Spirit of the ascended Head of the Church written in His Word.

The Holy Spirit's Presence.

The time for glorying only in the Lord, and in that authority, and in that only, which had been formed by the Holy Ghost had now fully come, and therefore the fact that the Lord had given Paul authority in the Church, was shown by witnesses to the presence of the Spirit with him. The signs of an Apostle were wrought by him. His authority stood approved by this, that he could "do nothing against the truth, but for the truth"; and because the power used by him was used "to edification, and not to destruction" (2 Cor. 13: 5-10). He claims no authority, save what was thus verified by the presence of the Spirit with him, and used by him for the furtherance of the truth, and the profit of the Church. For the Holy Ghost had been publicly avouched to be sovereign in the Church, as the Son had been proclaimed Head to the Church. The gifts of the Spirit may be among us in various measures of strength; but the Holy Ghost in us is the title of all present worship and service. Whatever worship is now to be had in the temples of God, it is to be in the Spirit; for "we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit." And the Apostle, speaking of worship, says, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord (that is, no man can call Jesus, Lord, or say, 'Lord Jesus'), but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 12: 3) So whatever service is now to be rendered in the Church is with this limitation, "according to the ability which God giveth"; it is by this rule, "the manifestation of the Spirit." Paul might lay hands on Timothy, and Titus might appoint elders; but the presence of the Spirit was in measure according to the authority and service. Timothy was left in Ephesus; but the charge entrusted to him there, was according to the gifts bestowed upon him (1 Tim. 1: 18; 1 Tim. 4: 14; 2 Tim. 1: 6). To assume any ministry beyond this measure, is to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think (Rom. 12: 3). And as every individual saint has title through the indwelling Spirit to "prove all things" (with this condition doubtless, that he "hold fast that which is good"); so the congregations of the saints, or the temples of God, as spiritual, are to judge also (1 Cor. 14: 29); and if the resources of the flesh, the name, the human advantages, or earthly distinctions of men be gloried in and trusted, the temple is defiled. And the temple of God at Corinth was thus defiled (1 Cor. 3: 16-23). Some had rested in Paul, some in Cephas, some in Apollos. But this was carnal. This was walking as men, and not in the presence and sufficiency of the Spirit, Whose temple they were. They became untrue to the Spirit Who dwelt in them.

Responsibility in Ministry.

And here let me say, that it is not so much right to minister which the New Testament speaks of, as obligation. If any man have the gift, he is debtor to exercise it, and to wait on his ministry. The habit of looking on ministry as a right, rather than as an obligation, has given the Church its worldly aspect. The "great house" has forgotten that service on earth is glory. But our Apostle did not forget it, and he never affected anything that might have its influence in the world, upon the world's principles. He was one whom the world would pass by. He laboured with his own hands, followed his trade, and made tents, just at the time when, in the authority of the Spirit, he shook his raiment upon the unbelieving Jews. He was among the meanest of his company (mean in the world's judgment) gathering sticks for the fire, when, in the power of Christ, he shook the viper from his hand. Beloved, this is unlike all that which corrupted Christendom has sanctioned in her ministers, as their due and suitable dignities! But Paul was in his own esteem (and would have others esteem him by that rule also), just what the Lord had made him. He would not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ had not wrought by him (Rom. 15: 18). He measured himself only by that line which the Lord had distributed to him (2 Cor. 10) What folly does he count all boasting in the flesh. He was compelled for a little moment thus to be a fool before the Church at Corinth; but with what zeal, with what revenge, with what clearing of himself, does he leave off this "folly," as he calls it? (2 Cor. 11) Would that the same mind were in us all, the same zeal for the Lord, the same revenge upon the flesh, which is fit, like the offal of a sacrifice, only for the burning outside the camp.

To me, brethren, I confess, these principles are very clear from the New Testament. The Lord knows that naturally, I would rather have all continued and settled in the flesh, that we might the more securely hold on our quiet and even way. But I pray for more faith, for more living and powerful apprehension of this truth, that the earth and its inhabitants are to be dissolved, and that Christ alone is to bear up its pillars. We need the faith that would root us out of that earth in which the cross of the Son of God was once planted, and in which the course of this world, continuing the same as it was then, has fixed that cross only more firmly. We want that faith that would call us to arise and depart from it, and go forth to meet the Bridegroom.

Paul, a Representative Man.

But I would now hasten to a close, having extended my paper further than I would have chosen, and take a few short notices of our Apostle in his Person, ministry, and conduct; for in these he will be found to illustrate many features of the dispensation, as his Apostleship was the general sign of it.

In his Person we see much of the dispensation reflected. He could call himself the chief of sinners, when he would magnify the grace of the dispensation, and show that it could reach over all the aboundings of sin. But he could also call himself blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law, when he would make known the character of the righteousness of the dispensation, and show how it sets aside all other as loss and dung (1 Tim. 1: 15; Phil. 3: 8). These things are wondrous, and yet perfect. Saul of Tarsus is taken up by the Spirit, in order to present in him the grace and the righteousness that are now brought to us. Strange, that we should find the first place in the first rank of sinners occupied by him who was thus touching the law blameless. But so it was. A fair, bright, and full sample of the workmanship of the dispensation is given to us in him who was made the representative minister of it. The grace of God and the righteousness of God are displayed in his person.

So in his person we see the "thorn in flesh." And let this particularly be what it may, it was in the judgment of the world a blot. The comeliness that a world could estimate was tarnished by this. In the Spirit, he had wondrous revelations, and the secret of God was blessedly with him; but before men there was a stain upon him. But all this is in character with the dispensation. The saints, exalted in Christ, before men are to be humbled. The world is not to know them. The dispensation admits of no confidence in the flesh. In it God has set the flesh aside as profitless. The right eye is gone, and the right hand is gone; things after the external appearance are not to be looked after; there is to be no measuring or comparing of things by any such rule. And according to this, Paul had a temptation in the flesh. There was put upon him something that tempted the scorn of men. As when Jacob became Israel, he halted across the plain of Peniel. The flesh was marred, when before God he got a new and honourable name. But the shrinking of his thigh was in the same love as his victory over the Divine stranger. And so the thorn in Paul's flesh, was in the same love as his rapture into paradise. Hezekiah, in the day when he was exalted, had been left alone, that God might prove him (2 Chr. 32: 31). But the Lord was gracious to Paul, and would not leave him alone, but put a thorn in his flesh. And if he had stood in the full intelligence of the Spirit, he would not have prayed for its removal; for he had soon to recall his prayer, and to glory rather in his infirmities. Thus there is none perfect, dear brethren, but the Master Himself. Favoured and honoured as Paul and others may have been, there is none perfect but the Lord. This is comfort to our souls. God rests well pleased in Him for ever, but in Him only. He never had a desire to recall, never a prayer to summon back from the Father's ear. "He was heard." But Paul had to learn that he had mistaken the rule of blessing and of glory; he had to learn, as every saint has, that when he was weak, then he was strong. And thus with the thorn in his flesh, but the power of Christ resting on him, he shows forth the saints in this dispensation.

In his Ministry, we see something of the dispensation also. "The foolishness of God," and "the weakness of God" (that is, the testimony to Christ crucified, which the world judges "mean and slight"), were now dispensed, and according to this was Paul's ministry. It was weak and foolish in the judgment of the Greeks of this world. He came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom. His preaching was not with enticing words, but he was among the saints in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling (1 Cor. 2)

But further, extended as his preaching was over the world, it set forth the comprehensiveness of the grace of God in this dispensation. In principle the sound of this grace was to go to the ends of the earth; and so St. Paul speaks of his ministry as stretching itself on the right hand and on the left, from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum. He had received "Apostleship for the obedience of faith among all nations," and he felt himself debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. He spake to the Jews, and to the devout persons, to the common people as many as he met with, and then with the philosophers (Acts 17) His purpose was to compass the whole earth. And thus he speaks continually to the Churches of passing from place to place, by Corinth into Macedonia, returning from thence to Corinth again, and so being brought into Judea. And again, he speaks of going to Rome, as he takes his journey into Spain. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and the Spirit that was in this Apostle of God, therefore thus reached the ends of the world. He was calling on men everywhere to repent, as did the dispensation. And when he could no longer go about with the gospel, being the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, "he received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God ' and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28: 30). All this was expressive of the comprehensiveness of the grace that was now calling in "bad and good, that the wedding might be furnished with guests." In the Jewish times, the ordinances of God were all at Jerusalem. It was there that men ought to worship. The priest abode in the temple, for the dispensation was one that refused converse with men, but in righteousness kept the flock of God folded in the land of Judea. But now the dispensation is one of grace, going forth in the activities of love, to gather home the lost sheep that have gone astray upon the mountains; and preaching is therefore the great ordinance of God now. Preaching is the new appointment of God, something that is beyond the mere services of a secluded temple; and of this new ordinance Paul was made the most distinguished minister.

Then in his Conduct, I may say, that in a very general way it was made to exhibit the dispensation. In his conduct, as he says, there was "a manifestation of the truth." And this is what faith always in measure does. Faith in a living form reflects the truth dispensed. The conduct of faith, as one has observed, is always according to the principle of God's present dealings. As John says, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." And as St. Peter says, — "not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise, blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing" (1 Peter 3: 9). That is, blessing being bestowed on us, blessing is required of us. And so in Paul's conduct, we trace the great principles of God's present dealing with the Church. The Son of God emptied Himself of the glory that He had before the world was; and while on earth ever refused Himself. With title to call for legions of angels, He was dumb as a sheep before His shearers; being free as the Son, He submitted to the exactions of others (Matt. 17: 27). So Paul, though free from all, made himself the servant of all, becoming all things to all men for their good (1 Cor. 11: 1; 2 Cor. 11: 29). And mark his words to the Ephesian elders, when he takes leave not only of them but of his ministry, ready to go into prison or unto death, for his Master — Jesus (Acts 20: 17-35). Mark what he there declares his conduct in his ministry had been, and how he testifies of himself that "he had showed them all things"; thus telling them that he had been made to take the honoured place of reflecting the actings of God in the gospel, letting the Churches see in him the blessedness of dealing in grace, which is (as we to our salvation know) the way of the Son of God in the gospel. "I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak," and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "It is more blessed to give, than to receive." This was a holy testimony which the Spirit enabled him to bear. And in a certain sense I would say, that he even surpassed the gospel; not the spirit of it (that was impossible), but the mere conditions of it. The Lord had ordained that they which preach the gospel, should live of the gospel; but he had not used this his power in the gospel (1 Cor. 9: 12). He might have been burdensome to the disciples as an Apostle of Christ, but he was desirous to impart to them, not the gospel of God only, but his own soul, because they were dear to him (1 Thess. 2: 9). But what does this reflect but the unmeasured and untiring love of God, which has visited us in the Gospel? So effectually had he learnt Christ — so blessedly was he, through grace, enabled to exhibit the dispensation — and beside, so fully was he a pattern of that conversation to which the dispensation calls us, that he could say, "Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample; for our conversation is in heaven." He lived on earth as a citizen of the heavenly city, and was (as the Spirit allowed him strikingly to express it) "unto God a sweet savour of Christ."

But however honoured he might thus have been as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and in his Apostleship, person, ministry, and conduct, the witness of the dispensation; yet he was not sent, as he tells us, to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. For there was not to be any gathering point on earth. If any such had been, this Apostle would have known it. Christ was the centre of all renewed souls, and He was in heaven. The Lord was not now setting up one visible point, as He had once done at Jerusalem. The dispensation was heavenly: its source of power and its place of gathering was the upper sanctuary. It was "a citizenship in heaven" that was now enrolling; for not yet was it to be said of Zion — "this and that man was born in her." All that in every place called on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ were now recorded on high, as in the Lamb's book.

The Rapture into Heaven.

Such was our Apostle; and far more might be added of the same character; but I will not further speak of them. I would now notice only one other thing that was peculiar to him also; I mean, his rapture into Paradise. In this he stands also as the representative of the dispensation, inasmuch as it was as "a man in Christ," that he was favoured with this rapture. In it he knows himself only as such, and therefore this paradise is the portion of all such. I judge it assuredly to have been the place of the spirit of the saint while absent from the body, and to which the pardoned thief went on the day of his crucifixion. Paul was actually* caught up to it for a season, but no other man has ever had the same joy. He calls it "paradise" — "the third heaven," the place of abundant visions and revelations. Whether in or out of the body, he knew not, but there he was. He has not been allowed to tell us much about it, and Scripture is generally silent on the nature of it. But there he was, and in this rapture of our Apostle, as by the teaching of Scripture, it is witnessed to us, that it is better to depart and be with Christ, and that the place of the delivered spirit is a place of abundant revelation, and a paradise of visions of Christ.

*Ezekiel had been caught away to Jerusalem and other places, as a prophet to Israel, that he might in the visions of God, understand and declare the Divine counsels. And so St. John was taken away to various scenes, as prophet to the Church, that he might testify in like manner of the Divine purposes. But these were only raptures in the Spirit. Philip had been actually, and not merely in Spirit, caught away to Azotus from the desert of Gaza, that as an evangelist, he might pursue his ministry among the habitation of men. So Paul is actually caught up into paradise, but this was not as a prophet, nor as an evangelist, nor as an Apostle, but "as a man in Christ," that all "in Christ" might know their portion in that blessing and honour which awaits them after this life, and which was so great that our Apostle, returning to the flesh and to the earth, was in danger of being exalted by it above measure.

The actual being of such a place was opened fully to the faith of the Church (though it might have been apprehended before), when the Head of the Church said — "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." And again was it verified to our faith when Stephen, "a man in Christ," said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." But still this is not the Church's perfection. The Spirit given to us of God, is but the earnest of the house "eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5) The throne of the Son of Man is the inheritance of the saints, and the glory for which the Church waits. But that place of glory is not yet prepared, as the place of the spirit of them that depart in the Lord is. There may have been visions of it, as on the holy mount, but it rests still only on vision; it is the hope still long deferred. Christ waits at the right hand for it, and the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. The whole creation groaneth for it. But it still tarries. However, beloved, the word is, wait for it — it will surely come, and will not tarry.

Many whom I love much in the Lord, may not judge with me in these things. And surely I know that we know not but in part, and therefore can but prophesy in part. But we may be helpers of each other's joy, and so has the Lord appointed it. Nevertheless, let us take heed, brethren, that we be not taught the fear of God by the commandment of men. Let us take heed of obedience in the flesh; but watch that we do what we do in the power of communion with the Lord. And in whatever of enlarged knowledge we are instructed through others, let us have grace to try it all by a conscience exercised before our God, and inquire after truth as in His presence. Be it so with Thy saints, blessed Lord, more and more! Amen.

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Paul's General Epistles.

In the Acts we read the labours of an Evangelist in the Epistles, the instructions of a Teacher, addressed to those who have already been brought in by the evangelist.

I say this, as being the characteristic difference of the two writings; and very suitably, therefore, the Acts of the Apostles comes before, or takes precedence of, the Epistles of the Apostles.

But then again, the epistles have their own distinction, each one of them. And in a general way, it is easy to perceive this, and as far as St. Paul's epistles to different churches go, this I would now do, though very briefly.

In that to the Romans we get a full and orderly writing upon the gospel, that most precious mystery or counsel and way of God, by which He has provided for wretched, self-ruined sinners, displaying His own glory, securing holiness, and excluding boasting, while putting the sinner who believes in Jesus into the highest and dearest relationship to Himself. This is done in Romans 1 - 8. Then, in Romans 9 - 11, we have a wondrous volume on prophetic or dispensational truths; and then, to the end, moral exhortations to the saints, addressing them personally and relatively very largely.

Very suitably does this first of the epistles thus fulfil the office of a teacher. To the quickened ones already brought in, the Spirit, by Paul in this epistle, teaches the way of God more perfectly. This is the Epistle to the Romans.

In the Epistles to the Corinthians, which follow, we are introduced to corruptions in the saints, and to the reproofs, rebukes, and corrections of the Spirit in the apostle.

The Corinthians were a scholastic, reasoning people, more Sadducean than Pharisaic (if I may thus speak of Gentiles in the language of the Jews) in the tendencies of their mind. They were tempted to take advantage of the gifts they enjoyed; by them to exalt themselves, rather than to minister to the edification of their brethren. They had got into a sad state of moral relaxation and speculative discussion of doctrines, rapidly tending to ruin; and had been beguiled by some one who had advantages in the flesh, in his worldly circumstances and conditions, and who was withdrawing their regards away from St. Paul to himself.

This state of things may be discovered in the two epistles to them. And the meeting of this state of things, and the answering of certain questions which they had sent to him (in the curiosity, it would almost seem, of a Corinthian intellect), form the materials of these epistles.

But corruption works variously. The man of God has to look forth from many a watch-tower, if he would know, as he ought to do, all the approaches of the enemy.

Therefore, in Galatia we see a very different form of corruption from that which we have thus seen at Corinth. There was no Judaizing at Corinth — none of the leaven of the Pharisee, as I hinted, but much of that of the Sadducee; yea, and of Herod too, which is worldliness. But among the brethren in Galatia, on the other hand, it was the leaven of the Pharisee that was working, and working powerfully.

The religion of ordinances had been revived among them. The law, in some of its subtle forms, was returned to. A fair show in the flesh was sought. Having begun in the Spirit, they would now be made perfect in the flesh. They were observing days, and months, and times, and years — the rudiments of the world, the elements of the legal economy; and the apostle is afraid of them. He has to labour again for them, that Christ may afresh be everything to them, "formed in them"; and that they may escape from the fascinations and entanglements of a carnal, worldly sanctuary.

In the Epistle to the Ephesians we have another condition of things, quite another. It is not a state of things of comparative ignorance which needed orderly instruction, as we got in the Romans; nor is it a state of moral relaxation, as is contemplated in the Epistle to the Corinthians; nor a state of doctrinal error approaching dereliction of Christ, as in Galatia. All is right, and calm, and undistracted at Ephesus, as far as the epistle assumes , and, consequently, the apostle is free to unfold further and higher truths to the saints there. And this he does. He opens the prerogatives of our calling in Christ, unfolding the mystery of the Church, and addressing the saints as to their duties, and services, and virtue according to that calling, and their relationship one to another in it.

In this Epistle, therefore, we rather see the prophet, the one who, under the Holy Ghost, discloses the deep things of God, and takes this place and measure amid the gifts; as we read, "And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." It was surely all inspiration, but it takes, in this epistle, the form of a prophet.

In the Epistle to the Philippians we get the pastor in Paul. There was a very loving personal link between him and them. Personally, I believe, the Philippians were the nearest to him of any, as John had been to the Lord. Above all others, they had communicated with him, from first to last, during his preaching abroad, and now in his bonds. His heart was very tenderly affected towards them. But he had reason to fear that some breaches had begun amongst them, some personal jealousies, and reserves, and distances (alas, too common to this day!); and he writes to them a pastoral letter with this apprehension on his heart. But, because of his intimacy with them, and the closeness of their fellowship; because of the love that he had to them, and the grace that was in them, he writes to them with marked tenderness and consideration. In no epistle is there such fervent expression of personal attachment.

And being pastoral rather than instructive, there is no order of doctrinal thought in this epistle. It is written after a freer method.

In the Colossians, who come next, we see a people who had been, like the Galatians (in measure, at least), ensnared by Judaizing principles. But with them this was not in so gross a form as with the Galatians. These principles had been withdrawing the saints in Galatia from that simple faith in the Lord Jesus, which as sinners we must have in Him; these same principles were withdrawing the saints at Colosse from using Christ, and going on with Christ in such ways as saints are to do. The apostle, therefore, very seasonably, instructs them in the fulness of Christ; warning them (as was needed), but likewise teaching them their perfection in Him, that they wanted nothing but what they could get in Him; and that, having begun with Him, they ought to go on with Him; being rooted in Him, so ought they to be built up in Him.

This is the pastor and the teacher together (under full inspiration of the Holy Ghost), both warning and instructing. What variety! Surely these Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, and the Colossians, let us learn how various the need of saints may be, how deep the subtleties of their enemy, and how many the watch-towers the Spirit has graciously erected for our use, that we may mount them, and get on vantage ground in the face of the approaches of our adversary! And they further let us learn, that if the Spirit of God be as an evangelist in the Acts, He variously imparts Himself, or fills His vessels in the Epistles, as a Prophet, a Teacher, or a Pastor, according to the necessities of the saints.

We have still, however, the Epistles to the Thessalonians to consider. They stand the last in the series or succession of these general Epistles of St. Paul, or his Epistles to churches, and they have their own character, like each of the others.

In the people to whom they are addressed, we see an eminent, distinguished faith — a faith which had been tested by sufferings for the truth's sake beyond any. Accordingly, they are very encouraging. The apostle, characteristically, is an exhorter as I may call him, and in these Epistles (as Rom. 12 speaks) "waits on exhortation." He encourages the suffering Church of the Thessalonians by speaking very much to them of the coming of the Lord, which is the due, appropriate comfort of those who suffer with Him and for His sake in this evil, revolted world. There is, accordingly, no doctrinal method in these two Epistles. They are written chiefly in the spirit of sympathy, according to the grace of one who was exhorting or encouraging a tried and suffering people. But they convey instruction on this great truth of the coming of the Lord beyond what the Thessalonians had already reached; instruction, too, most fitted to carry on the comforting, sympathizing ministry of an exhorter, such as the apostle is in these Epistles.

He has, however, in the midst of all this, to erect a new watchtower. He has to warn his honoured Thessalonians against allowing "the blessed hope" (the coming of the Lord) to be corrupted or abused among them. For true it is, and no uncommon thing, that the very best things, as well as the very best people (I speak as a man), are still in danger. There were no companies of saints more fresh and promising, and abundant in blessedness, than those in Galatia. They would have plucked out their eyes for Paul. But when he wrote to them, he had to rebuke them sharply, and to tell them to their face that he stood in doubt of them. So, there is no truth more precious for the saint than that which the Thessalonians held, the prospect of the Lord's coming, and the soul's longing for it. But even that was in danger, lest the flesh should take advantage of it and corrupt it, and the saints who held it and loved it become idle, and careless as to present duty and honest, needed industry. So that here, again I say, we have another watch-tower erected, and another warning voice raised in the midst of corruptions by the Shepherd of Israel, Who never slumbers nor sleeps, but eyes His flock night and day.

I have thus taken upon me to look rather rapidly at St. Paul's general Epistles: I mean his Epistles to congregations or churches of saints, and not to individuals, as Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Each of them, I may say again upon this review of them, serves a distinct purpose; but the man of God wants them all, living, as he is to do, by every word that has proceeded out of the mouth of God.

The personality of the writer of these Epistles is apparent in each of them, the attitude of his soul, as I, may speak, formed no doubt by the condition of the Church he was addressing. He is occupying the chair of a Master, while writing to the Romans. He is the aggrieved Spiritual Father, as he addresses himself to the Corinthians. He is the heated, and zealous, and indignant Reprover, as he writes to the Galatians, rescuing and defending a prized and precious treasure, which he saw was in danger from them who should have kept and guarded it. He is on high, seated in a world of Glories, gazing at it and thinking of the love that brought him there, while he writes to the Ephesians. He is the Earnest-hearted Lover of the Philippians, fearful of the least thing that threatened to soil or disturb so loved a people. He is the Anxious Watchman in the midst of the Colossians. And he is the deeply-interested, Sympathizing Counsellor and Comforter, as he is writing his letters to the Thessalonians.

The style and spirit that would suit these different characters, or these different attitudes of soul, may be discovered in the apostle as he thus writes. And all this surely tells us that, through the Spirit, he was alive to his subject, as well as master of it — not a mere penman, but a living one. And this casts me upon the recollection of the words of another which I have greatly enjoyed before now. Speaking of the different scribes, from Moses to John, employed by the Spirit of God for the writing of the Scriptures, he says, "We are far from being unmindful of these human features throughout impressed on the sacred writings. It is with profound gratitude and ever-increasing admiration that we regard this living, actual, dramatic, philanthropic, character which shines with so much power and beauty throughout the Book of God. We have the uncultivated and sublime simplicity of John — the affecting, elliptical, soul-stirring, and argumentative energy of Paul — the fervour and solemnity of Peter — the poetic grandeur of Isaiah — the lyre of David — the ingenious and majestic narratives of Moses — the sententious and royal wisdom of Solomon. Yes, it is all this. It was Peter, Isaiah, Matthew, John, or Moses, but it was God. It is God Who speaks to us; but cast in earthly mould, it is also man. It is man, but it is God also. How greatly does this abounding humanity, and all this personality with which the divinity of Scripture is invested, charm us, reminding us that the Saviour of our souls, Whose touching voice they are, Himself bears a human heart on the throne of God, although seated on high where angels serve and for ever adore Him." And he adds, "Such ought to be the Word of God; like Emmanuel; full of grace and truth; at once in the bosom of God, and in the heart of man; powerful and sympathizing; celestial and human; exalted yet humble; imposing and familiar; God and man."

I much enjoy this, I own. But I will now add only one other thing, at the close of this short word on Paul's Epistles to the churches.

It is after the pattern of Divine grace from the very beginning, to wait in patience upon man. These epistles are a fuller witness of this. The Spirit of God is waiting on the churches found, as they were, in different forms of error and danger, and seeking to recover, correct, and restore them: just as the hand of God was doing in the earlier days of Israel, as we see in the Book of Judges, and again (with the house of David) in 2 Chronicles; and also, as the Lord Jesus Himself had been doing with His generation in the Gospel by St. Matthew, waiting in patient ministry on the worship of the Lord. And thus it is in these epistles. Evil and error are in the churches; but the Spirit by the apostle admonishes, rebukes, instructs, if haply He may restore. The digging and the dunging again goes on. But there is measure even in the patience of God. Righteousness demands this; and so, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, we may see the house, the great house (in some sense the house of God), a ruined and disowned thing. But "the counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations." The vessel is marred on the wheel in the hand of the Potter; but the Potter, in His sovereign right over the clay, makes another vessel as it hath pleased Him.

Note. — Let me add, lest I should be misunderstood, that when I speak of the apostle being in one epistle as a teacher, in another as a pastor, in another as a prophet, and the like. I merely mean that the inspiration, which filled and guided him in every thought and word, gave him. that character on each occasion as was suited to it. He wrote, not as a gifted one merely, but as inspired. That I surely know and own.

Romans.

At the very opening of this Epistle we are told that what God seeks of the sinner is "the obedience of faith." We might religiously judge that love and its services would be more acceptable to Him. But it is neither conformity with law nor the rendering of love that God looks for from us as lost sinners, but "the obedience of faith." And when we think of it, this is the only form of obedience that a sinner can render and God accept. He is honoured as a Saviour by our faith, and this gets Him richer glory than any honour we might have rendered by conformity to His statutes as a Lawgiver, for it owns and honours Him as He is revealed in the grace of the Gospel, and in obeying Him thus we honour Himself. The early chapters of our Epistle speak to us on this great subject,. they deal with faith as it is first awakened in a sinner. And as chapter 1: 5 goes on to tell, this obedience of faith which the sinner receiving the Gospel renders to God, is "for His Name," which surely intimates how His glory is concerned in it, and that it is the most welcome honour that His Name can receive from a ruined sinner who is being led through that reconciliation which is proclaimed in the Gospel back to Himself. And we further learn from these opening words of our Epistle (verse 17) that this faith so exercised possesses itself of the highest dignity that a creature is capable of, that is, "the righteousness of God." The creature can stand in no dignity more marvellous than this.

It is in this connection that we further learn, in Romans 3: 22-26, that the Object upon which faith thus lays hold to obtain this Divine righteousness is "Jesus" and His "blood." A crucified Saviour is ever the object that faith apprehends, and to Whom it clings. We further learn that "the righteousness of God," in which this believing sinner stands, is found "by faith of Jesus Christ," and is "unto all and upon all them that believe." It is very blessed to know this. If God gets His highest glory from a sinner's faith, that sinner gets from God the highest dignity which it is possible for man to possess. It makes him what he is. It sets him in his due form and personality before God. And faith in the blood of Christ apprehends it. Under the eye of faith, God has set forth a propitiation — a mercy-seat. Faith standing there learns that God is just and yet a justifier. His throne is maintained in righteousness by the blood that is sprinkled there. The death of the Son of God has given to that throne all that it demanded, it has accomplished reconciliation in the way of maintaining righteousness while answering for sin. And thus the blessed God in the Gospel of His grace proclaims that a full satisfaction has been found to meet all His just demands on the sinner. Righteousness had called for judgment upon sin, but grace provides the sinner with a shelter in the blood-stained mercy-seat. And faith uses it. It accepts God's gift. The believing sinner pleads His answer and is saved. And thus it is that faith becomes the first link between God and the soul.

This doctrine exposes and humbles us, for it tells how incurably and irrecoverably bad we are in ourselves and under the law. It "excludes boasting," for while it assures us that we are made "the righteousness of God," that we have the place of "children," with present peace and grace and joy, with possession of the love of God in its measureless fulness, it leaves no room for a sinner to boast, for all is of grace. Thus while it confers upon us it also denies us. These are some of the great facts taught us in Romans 1 - 5. All this displays and glorifies God, while it discerns the moral glories of this precious doctrine of faith. The Gospel presents God in the fulness of His combined grace and righteousness to His entire creation in the highest forms of moral glory. It reveals Him as the doer of all the work and the inheritor of all the glory. And it puts Him thus alike before Jews and Gentiles. For in answer to the question "Is He the God of the Jews only!" the word is, Nay, but of the Gentiles also." This truth of justification by faith is never dealt with as a mere scholastic proposition. It is the religion of a convicted sinner's personal immediate confidence in God, enjoyed on a title which God Himself has written out for him.

In Romans 3 - 4 the death of Christ is set forth as accomplishing reconciliation while maintaining righteousness in answering for sin, and the sinner laying hold on this is justified. Romans 5 sets him in peace before God, giving access to a present state of grace and providing a sure hope of glory. It renders a reason why he is able to glory in tribulations on the way; it introduces him to the perfect love of God, and tells of his interest in the present life of Christ beyond death, and it reveals God Himself as the source of his joy.

Romans 6 - 8 tells of the believing sinner's deliverance from sin as master, from the law as husband, and from the flesh as the law of his being. In our unregenerate state sin was our master and we his willing bondmen. But death dissolved the bond and set the captive free. For "he that is dead is freed (justified) from sin." The old master has no more claim. We are no longer his servants. This is the wondrous teaching of Romans 6. And in Romans 7 the believer, as one dead and risen with Christ, is freed from the law as husband. For the law addresses itself to those who are alive in the flesh, but the believer having died with Christ is discharged from its claims and is now acted upon by the virtues of Him to Whom in resurrection he is now united. In Romans 8 he is seen "in Christ," where there is no condemnation; freed from the law of sin and death, no longer "in the flesh," but in Christ, with the Spirit of God dwelling in him, living in triumph, "more than conqueror" through Him in Whom he now stands before God. Thus in this Epistle we have the moral glory of the Gospel of God set forth and proved, with its blessed results to faith evidenced in the present condition of all believing sinners.

It is the purpose of this great Epistle, at least in its doctrinal parts, to set forth the excellencies of God's grace and of that faith in a sinner which apprehends and enjoys the blessings which grace brings.

In Romans 1 - 8 we see the Divine counsel and way of God set forth, in which ruined sinners are brought back to God and set in peace before Him in closest relationship to Himself all in grace. And the language at the close of this section of the Epistle is a triumph of the conscience in virtue of the riches of God's grace and the work of Christ.

In Romans 9 - 11, where we are instructed in the counsels and wisdom of God in His dispensational actings, the delighted and instructed understanding of the saints triumph over the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge. Thus, whether it be the secret of peace which the blood of Christ has purchased and the relationship which grace bestows, or the glory which grace sets before him, all is of God and all of boundless grace.

1 Corinthians.

The saints at Corinth, though richly endowed with knowledge, and though the gifts of the Spirit were exercised abundantly among them, had become "carnal." They were indulging their human mind and tastes. One liked the natural boldness of a certain class of teachers, another admired the softer eloquence of others; they had allowed their natural minds to direct their thoughts and to use their tongues. One was saying, "I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos." All this was "walking as men" and glorying in the flesh. The apostle accordingly exposes the unprofitableness of the flesh and its worthlessness by several witnesses. First, by the Scripture, which says of all its wisdom, "Where is the wise, where is the scribe?" Second, by the Cross of Christ, which when apprehended aright shows the end of the flesh. Third, by the Gospel, which he had preached among them, which showed that the wisdom of the flesh had been proved "foolishness with God." Fourth, by the materials of which God had formed the Church at Corinth — "not many wise, not many noble," of the earth had been called. All this these Grecians, with their natural love of learning, had forgotten. The apostle as a preacher had not come among them after this manner. He had not gratified their fleshly tastes either in the matter or the manner of his ministry among them. His message had been "Christ crucified," which is the end of the flesh. His ministry was not in fleshly wisdom, but in the power of the Spirit of God. For this reason men — the princes of the world, — men in their highest refinement and civilisation, had not received the message. All their "glorying in the flesh" was therefore inconsistent with all that they had heard from him as their "father in Christ." They were indulging the spirit of kings in the earth,. while he who had begotten them through the Gospel was an outcast, and encountering the opposition of those who had the mind in which they were glorying. In all this they had proved that they were indulging their natural tastes and were "walking as men." They needed to be rebuked and restored to a renewed energy of spiritual life from which they had slipped away. They had become morally relaxed also. If the intellectual part of their nature had been indulged, so their moral sense had been relaxed, as chapter 5 informs us. They were resting at ease while sin was in their camp. Achan was there, but no Joshua had wept. They were allowing evil with no Phinehas to act for God in purifying the congregation. All this was evil: it betrayed a low spiritual state and lack of zeal for God's honour among them. In 1 Cor. 6 they manifest how little they were exercising their functions in the Lord and their faculties in the Spirit, in the judgment of their brethren, though in prospect they were called to judge men and angels. In 1 Cor. 7 they had proposed questions which savoured of an inquisitive and intellectual rather than a spiritual people, which the apostle answers in a manner which tells how little they were conducting themselves as a heavenly people living above the level of the world. He reminds them that "the time is short," and that "the fashion of the, world passeth away." In 1 Cor. 8 - 10 the, apostle charges them with a lack of consideration of others, acting in their own right as people speak, and not according to the principles of grace. They were indulging themselves in what their knowledge allowed, without being sufficiently concerned of the claims of love. This was further evidence of a relaxed condition of soul. Knowledge rather than love formed their ways, and this is always a witness of selfish ease and fleshly indulgence, so contrary to the energy of a life in the Spirit. And so in the midst of a solemn exhortation of this subject (1 Cor. 9 - 10) he uses the words, "Wherefore let him that thinketh. he standeth, take heed lest he fall." He calls them to renewed watchfulness and energy in the race, by reminding them that though all run, one receiveth the prize," and charges them to "so run" that they may "obtain" and not be "disapproved" through failure in self-discipline. In chapter 1 Cor. 11 the apostle deals with their way of observing the Lord's Supper. Here again they had become relaxed and self-indulgent, walking according to nature, not waiting for each other, but each eating his own supper, one being hungry another drunken; failing to consider what was due unto the Lord. 1 Cor. 12 - 14 tell how, as a Grecian and intellectual people, another matter had become a snare into which they had fallen. Spiritual gifts had become valued according to their measure of attractiveness rather than for their value for edification. They had been using them for a mere display of power and an occasion of rivalry, thus allowing the enemy to pervert their use. "Tongues" were exercised without regard to their real value for godly edifying. All this was evil, it savoured of the flesh, not of the Spirit. In 1 Cor. 15 they are charged with making the mystery of Resurrection a matter for speculative philosophy. Relaxation of soul and indulgence of liberty of the carnal mind evidence themselves in all this, and call forth the rebuke of the apostle and his arousing exhortation to "awake to righteousness" and return to the better knowledge of God, leaving those evil communications which were corrupting them.

In 1 Cor. 16 he calls them to "quit themselves like men" and act in the energy and graciousness of a better mind according to the law of love. And if Grecian superciliousness tempt them to despise Timothy because of his youth and lack of classic teaching, such as they naturally valued, they are warned not to despise him, for he had higher credentials as one who had been diligent in "the work of the Lord" after the apostle's own example. With marked approval he names the "house of Stephanas," whose members had "addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints" in true energy, — a bright exception to the general relaxed condition of the saints at Corinth.

The Epistle as a whole is most valuable, not only in giving us guidance in conditions that may still arise among saints, but as generally showing how jealous the Spirit is that we walk on in spiritual diligence, not according to the flesh or after the way of the world, but as sanctified ones in Christ, in the confession of His Name as Saviour and Lord.

2 Corinthians.

In the midst of the fears and warnings of the Spirit concerning the Churches, we may observe that He is alarmed for them on several and different grounds, as expressed in different epistles and by different apostles.

1. He specially warns them respecting Judaizing, i.e., religiousness, or the observance of rites and ordinances. This fear is expressed in the letters to Galatia, Colosse, and Philippi.

2. He fears for them respecting the working of an infidel mind, the mind which, corrupted by reasoning, denies mysteries. This is seen in 1 John 4: 1; 2 Peter 3: 3, 4.

3. He fears for them also on the ground of abusing grace, or licentiousness, the practical denial of godliness while boasting in grace and liberty. This is seen in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude.

4. He fears also worldliness.

It is this last feature of fear filling the mind of the Spirit about the saints or Churches, and shaping apostolic ministry, which has just struck me in connection with 2 Corinthians.

This is a distinct character of fear. It is not an apprehension of religiousness, or infidelity, or licentiousness corrupting the Churches; it is formally distinct from each of these. The Grecian style may have exposed the Corinthians specially to a simple worldly attraction, to the pretensions of a man of refinement and station and independence, who had much in the flesh; that is, from nature and from circumstances, that were attractive and showy. This was worldliness.

The fear about Corinth was not respecting religious or Judaizing influence. Neither was it (at least in the second Epistle) from the working of an infidel mind, or from the sports of an unclean and lustful nature, but "the god of this world" was feared by the apostle.

A certain man appears to have gained attention, who had much more both from nature and from circumstances than the apostle; and the saints at Corinth were moved by this. He was, I believe, as modern language speaks, a gentleman. He had a fine person and an independent fortune. He had many advantages of that kind; and the Corinthians were under that evil influence — to some extent they had been beguiled. They were looking on things after the outward appearance. They were suffering a man vaunting of himself, and lording it over them, and taking occasion by some low and worldly advantages he possessed from nature and from circumstances to be somebody.

Such a bad condition the apostle has to contend with. Affection and confidence toward himself had been withdrawn in measure, because he had no such advantages to boast. And surely he was fully purposed not to affect such things at all. It is true, he would be independent as well as the other, but it should arise from his working with his own hand, not from advantages of fortune, as we say. And though he had certain things of which he might boast in the flesh, he would glory rather in his infirmities. He would be "weak in Christ," i.e., in fellowship with Him Who was "crucified in weakness," that all his strength might be spiritual, or resurrection-strength.

The natural advantages which this man had he used, taking to himself the importance and value which attach to such things in the world. And some of the saints were corrupted. But against such association he protests in 2 Cor. 6, "Be ye not unequally yoked," he says. And the manner of this man he exposes more fully, setting his own way forth as contrary to it, in 2 Cor. 10 - 12.

And in doing this, in offering himself as a practical witness of a way different from this man of the world, we may notice these particulars:

1. The apostle refuses to know himself, or to be known by the saints, save according to his measure in the Spirit, and not as he was by nature or in the flesh.

2. He glories only in either his infirmities or in such dignities as separated him from all worldly estimation, as his rapture into paradise; for the world would not understand such honour.

Such an one does the apostle present himself in contradiction of the man who gloried in the flesh. We may know how hard it is to follow him in such a path, in a willingness to be weak that we may be strong; in his decision to know Christ in the weakness of His cross, so that whatever strength he knew might be as of resurrection. (2 Cor. 13: 4)

I dare say some were tempted to undervalue the office or apostleship of Paul, because he had not the advantage in the flesh of other apostles. He had not companied with the Lord in the days of His flesh; and in his own flesh he had a thorn. This may further have exposed him to observation by those who judged after the flesh. But the apostle was willing that his ministry or office should remain unrecommended by anything the world could appreciate. He valued only that power of God, that power in the Spirit which accompanied his ministry, and which was fitted to tell on hearts and consciences, power which linked him with the Lord in life or resurrection.*

*These features in Paul's ministry show how the flesh is now excluded, and all its advantages, from the divine Idea of ministry.

Every symptom of weakness in man's account gathered round the blessed Lord in the day of His crucifixion: desertion and denial by those who should have stood with Him, the enmity of man in every form in which it could have expressed itself, the forsaking of God, all the malice and purpose of Satan. This was the full exhibition of all that was weak, miserable, and despised in the world's account. None were for Jesus, all was against Him, and even nature seemed to join. But Paul was willing that his ministry should be in moral sympathy with His.

Generally, as to this Epistle, I would say, it might distribute itself as follows: —

2 Cor. 1 - 2: 13. In this portion the apostle speaks of his trials in the Gospel, and answers objections made to him because of his not having visited Corinth a second time.

2 Cor. 2: 14 — vii. 4. This is a parenthesis. The apostle presents his ministry in several characteristics of it.

2 Cor. 7: 5 - 16. Here the apostle resumes and pursues the point from which he had departed at 2 Cor. 2: 13. He expresses his joy in the Corinthians, and in the grace that was in them.

2 Cor. 8, 9. This is quite incidental.

2 Cor. 10 - 13. The great and leading purpose of the Epistle occupies these chapters. The apostle contemplates the way of a certain injurious teacher who had acquired influence at Corinth, and he intimates the fruit of that influence; largely, also, exhibiting his own way as a teacher in contradiction of him who was then corrupting the saints.

This may be read as a general analysis of the Epistle, I believe.

I might observe, that the apostle's commendation of the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 7, previous to his large and fervent rebuke of them in 2 Cor. 10 - 13, may remind us of the way of the Spirit in His addresses to the seven Churches in the Revelation; for in each of them there is a beginning with a commendation, and then (when called for) an enlarging in the way of rebuke and condemnation.

Galatians.

I believe that we might shortly describe this Epistle as thus — the "Scriptures" by the ministry of Paul now, as once by the voice of Sarah, casting the bondwoman and her son out of the house of Abraham.

The apostle, in order to this, first proves his warrant. And this he does to perfection in Gal. 1, 2 — showing that he received his Gospel, purely and immediately, from God Himself, in a way that admitted of no human admixture whatever; and that, under the full conscious authority of a Gospel so received, he had already met the bondwoman and her ways in the person of the Apostle Peter at Antioch, and withstood her — thus making proof of his present ministry on a small scale, so to speak; or, like Samson slaying the lion on his way to this Philistine den in Galatia, when he was to meet a host of them.

And beside this, he makes the experience of their own souls, and the voices of Scripture touching Abraham and the law, his further witnesses. He makes them, as it were seal his authority to do this great work in the name of the Lord. (Gal. 3) And further, he shows that the time was now fully come, when the Lord had ripened all His dispensational actings up to this very point of casting out the bondwoman and her son. (Gal. 4: 1-7.) Nothing could be more perfect than a warrant thus delivered, thus verified, thus sealed, and thus countenanced, if I may so speak, by God's own acts. The apostle, therefore, with full ease, and conscious authority, finds himself in company with Sarah in Genesis 21. As she then knew her right, without leave from her husband or apology to anyone, summarily to demand the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from the house, so does Paul here. He shows what the modern or mystic Hagar is — that it is the religiousness of mere nature, or a system of observances and ordinances, either imposed or revived by man in the churches of the saints — that formality of days, and months, and times, and years, which genders the spirit of bondage, and hinders the formation of Christ in the soul, and that spirit of liberty which He ever brings with Him. And the expulsion of this Hagar, this bondwoman, from the house of Abraham, or the churches of the saints, he demands with as full, unsparing decision as ever Sarah demanded the casting out of Hagar the Egyptian and her mocking child. (Gal. 4: 8; Gal. 5: 12)

But, if I may so speak, the energy of the apostle even exceeds that of Sarah. And this is but right. It is right that, as we advance in the unfolded ways and thoughts of God, and get from the time of Gen. 21 to the time of Gal. 5, we should find the energies and demands of the Spirit still more wide and more intense also. We often see this. It was written of old, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself"; but it is written at a later period, "Swear not at all."* So here, the demands of Paul are somewhat larger and more intense than those of Sarah had been. She was satisfied with the dismissal of Hagar and the child, but Paul calls together with that for the removal out of the house of all that belonged to them. He will do what he can to get every vestige of their former residence there effaced. He would fain obliterate every remembrance of them — the very customs they once observed there, their habits and modes of living, and the spirit and tempers which they were nourishing and practising, all these he would have to be gone, as well as themselves. He would even purify the place of the very air their breath and presence had diffused. Not merely the religiousness of the flesh would he peremptorily expel the house, the miserable and beggarly elements which kept the soul in bondage, but the works of the flesh also, its moral ways, its boastings and energies. Yea, and its conceits and high-mindedness too — its despite of a poor overtaken soul, through the vain thought of its own security. Against all this, and more than this, he lifts up his more-than-Sarah voice, knowing no stint to the demand, that the bondwoman, with all that belongs to her, as well as her child, shall be turned out of the churches of the saints, or the modem mystic house of Abraham. And even in addition to this, he would have that house learn and practise the very opposite and contradictory habits — the ways of the Spirit and not of the flesh, the things that become the new creature in Christ, and not what was found inseparable from the flesh. (Gal. 5: 13; Gal. 6: 10.)

*Just as we all know from abundance of cases, the dispensational purposes of God are gradually disclosed more and more perfectly, so the holy demands of the Spirit are more and more fervent and intense. (See an instance of the first of these in Psalm 8 and 1 Cor. 15)

He then gives us another witness of the importance he attached to all this truth, writing this epistle with his own hand. (See Rom. 16: 22.) For the defence of it demands more vigour than its publication. (Verse 11)

He, in the next place, exposes the moral or the interested purposes of those who were leading them back to circumcision or religiousness, and is bold to present himself as one that knew the power of the opposite principle (see Gal. 1: 4; Gal. 6: 14), with all authority, too, as from God, speaking peace to all who clung to that principle. (Verses 12-17.)

And he closes by a suited valediction. For it is their spirit he commends to the grace of the Lord. (Verse 18.)

Such I judge to be the principal details of this Epistle. And, generally, I may say, there is a tone of peculiar decision and fervency in it. The apostle felt as though the citadel itself were in danger. A standard-bearer at Antioch had already well-nigh fainted. He had come, as it were, fresh from that sight, and he must grasp the banner of the Gospel with fresh vigour because of it, and to step into the breach like a man.

It was a moment of deep interest, and he cannot but be alive to it. And though we are not in commission exactly as he was, entrusted with the truth of the dispensation in a special way (1 Cor, 9: 17), yet we are, as in the train of this great ambassador, to be of one mind with him, and give place by subjection, no, not for an hour, if the mine have been laid again that threatens the citadel.

Ephesians.

The mystery of the Church is specially disclosed in the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is there spoken of under two titles, which are exclusively its own. It is "the body of Christ," and "the bride of Christ."

One has strikingly said, "It is not in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in angels themselves, bright witnesses as they are of creative power, that the character and ways of God will be manifested in the ages to come: it is in the new, redeemed creation in Christ, in the Church and by the Church, that God's manifold wisdom will be made known. In the Church, brightest emanation of the Divine mind, masterpiece of God's handiwork, every perfection of light and glory and beauty shall be displayed; otherwise she would be unworthy of her high destiny as the Bride. The depths and heights of the grace and love and power of God will never be known to the heavenly hosts, till they behold the Church, chosen from Adam's ruined and apostate race, not only brought into the closest and sweetest intimacy of sonship to God, but exalted to the highest dignity in heaven, a partaker of the ineffable glory of her risen Head."

Surely these words are good for the use of edifying. But further. In unfolding grace and glory in this Epistle to the Ephesians (which Epistle I would now consider somewhat particularly), we may observe that there is a peculiar accumulation of language, as I may express it, as though the Writer (the Spirit) were conscious of what a theme of peculiar weight and dignity he was treating. We read of "the glory of grace," of "the riches of grace," of "the exceeding riches of grace," of "the praise of His glory," and of "the praise of the glory of His grace." This is the style in which the magnificent secrets of this Epistle are brought out to view. The casket is according to the treasure.

And the sight given of the ascended Lord is in the same style presented to us. It has been observed by another, that St Mark tells us, that our Lord was carried up into heaven. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that He was carried up through the heavens. But this Epistle tells us, that He ascended up far above all heavens. (Mark 16: 19; Heb. 4: 14; Eph. 4: 10) What a varied, wondrous account of Him! But the Ephesian account is the most magnificent — for it gives the Son of Man the very place which is given to God Himself in Deuteronomy 10: 14.

And this accumulation of language, of which I have spoken, is preserved in the second chapter, where the Spirit comes to look at the objects of this high calling, and not, as before, at the character of the calling itself. He takes knowledge of us sinners in two conditions, dead and alienated; dead as in ourselves, alienated as from God — and then He sees us translated into the opposite conditions of life and nearness.. But He accumulates language, in treating of these things, as He had done before. Terms are multiplied, descriptions are repeated elaborately, that all these conditions in which we are presented, and each of them separately, may be apprehended with great emphasis by our souls. The death-estate in which we lay by nature was awfully complete; the life-estate into which we are now brought, is thoroughly, eternally perfect. Our condition of distance from God, in which grace found us, is described to have been such that nothing could pass beyond it — our present condition of nearness to Him is such as the Son Himself alone could have enjoyed, so to say, before us.

But further. The characteristic of the Church's blessing is this — that they are in Christ. Earlier saints, as we have seen, will be heavenly in their destiny; but the Church's calling is heavenly, in and with Christ.

The word "in" abounds there in a remarkable manner — and it is always "in Christ." In the course of the wondrous disclosures there made, we learn that having been quickened together with Him, we are now seated in heavenly places in Him.

Being thus ascended, we are also taught that, there on high, we are blest with all blessings in Him.

And again — we are accepted in Him, the Beloved — made the objects of personal love, as well as blessed with all spiritual blessings.

And again — in Him God has abounded towards us in all wisdom and knowledge, making known to us His thoughts and good pleasure touching ages to come; giving us the place of friends.

Thus is it with us now. But this same Scripture looks forward and backward, and shows us the interest we had "in Christ" before the world was, and what we are to have "in Him" when the world has run its course. Ere the world was, we learn that we were "chosen" in Him, and "predestinated" unto the adoption of children. And when the world shall be over, and dispensations have finished the display of themselves, and closed their wondrous story, we learn that we shall be "heirs" in Him and with Him of that great new system, "the world to come," in which all things shall be gathered together under Him as their Head.

This is a great theme indeed — our eternal portion in Christ, our standing in Him, with the counsels that purposed it ere the world was, the high condition and prerogatives in which it now puts us, and the portion which it will convey to us in the ages to come. And all this excellent estate is ours, simply because we now believe or trust in Him.

But that which had been thus "chosen in Christ" from before the foundation of the world, was "hid in God" till revealed by the Spirit to New Testament prophets. And the revelation of it completed the Word of God. (Col. 1: 25.) It was the closing, crowning disclosure, made specially through St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles. The Church is called into the highest place of dignity, and the revelation of it is in the last, the latest place in the communications of God. Yes. The Church has been revealed the last. The Gentile Apostleship has brought it forth. Though chosen in Christ before the world, and hid in God for ages and from ages, it now stands revealed, the crown of all His purposes, as it is the last of all His communications.

In this Epistle to the Ephesians, the sinner has been already rescued by the blood of Jesus. Sins are forgiven — and the saints, thus beyond judgment, are summoned to listen, till the high calling of the Church in Christ Jesus under the exceeding riches of the grace of God, like the salvation of God at the Red Sea, discloses itself in their hearing. They have but to listen. If they talk of responsibility, this is it; to listen, to accept, to be happy and thankful, because all this is what it is, and the God of all grace is to them what He is. And the Apostle, who teaches them these rich and marvellous secrets, only prays for them, that as they listen, they may have hearts to understand.

His prayers for them, whether in the first or third chapter, give us other samples of that accumulation of language, of which I have already spoken, and which is so expressive of the consciousness of having to deal with themes and thoughts of very peculiar weight and dignity.

As we get in on the fourth chapter, we come into company with something wonderful in its way, like that which we have seen already.

The captivity of man under the hand of the old Serpent, in Genesis 3, was complete. Satan's lie was accepted, man became a sinner, separate from God, and lost: Eden was forfeited, the ground put under a curse, the man and the woman under penalties, and Satan as a liar and a wanderer went about on the face of the earth.

This earliest story of man's captivity is glanced at in Ephesians 4 — as by contrast. The Captor himself with all his host are now made captives (a captive multitude), and by man's Deliverer led in triumph, or made a show of openly, as another kindred Scripture speaks. (Col. 2) But this Deliverer has proved Himself not only mighty after this manner, but glorious. He fills all things. 'He has both descended and ascended — has been in the lower parts of the earth, the grave, the very stronghold of the Captor; and is now far above all heavens. ., And such an One, this Deliverer, mighty and glorious, has taken it upon Him to write the history or secure the fortunes of Satan's old captive. And it is wonderful, as we further read in this chapter. Having wrought the deliverance in the lower parts of the earth, He has now in the highest places, far above all heavens, received gifts for the former victims of the Serpent; and has dispensed them; and through them has endowed them with the richest portions and highest dignities, These endowments have brought the ancient captive of the great enemy to perfection; made him, in a divine, spiritual sense, independent.; given him security against the wiles of the deceiver; and set his resources within himself, through the Holy Ghost given to him. (See verses 8-16)

It may surprise us at first to find such a thing as this — the ruins of man in Genesis 3 thus confronted by the recovery of man in Ephesians 4 — the gain and triumph of the old Serpent there, answered and annulled by his shame and overthrow here. But so it is. And surprise may cease, when we remember that the Epistle to the Ephesians, as we have seen, is the most marvellous exhibition of the results of redemption, which Scripture presents to us. We may, therefore, expect to find Genesis 3 confronted in such an Epistle. It is the special writing on the Church which is "the Body of Christ" and "the Bride of Christ" — the first of these titles telling us that she is set in the very highest Place of honour; the second of them telling us that she is set also in the dearest and most intimate Place of Personal affection and relationship. She is made, moreover, to the creation of God, to principalities and powers in heavenly places, the great witness, the only adequate witness, of grace, glory, and wisdom; of the exceeding riches of grace, of the praise of glory, and of the manifold resources and secrets of wisdom. She is this — and the revelation of her, again we may remember, has completed or filled out and up to its full measure, the Word of God.

It has been observed by another, that the calling of God of old was either of individuals, that they might walk with God; or of a nation (as that of Israel), that they might observe the statutes and do the laws of God their King. But now, the calling of God is into a body. But though this is so, the individuality of the saint is still contemplated; and the Epistle to the Ephesians keeps this in view, addressing us emphatically in our personal individual places, in chapter 5.

This is suited, seasonable truth, at the close of this wondrous Epistle. And surely we ought to know our personal standing, our own individual perfection, ere we occupy ourselves with the calling of the Church or the Body. Accordingly, in another place, the Apostle lets the saints know, that he would speak of such wisdom, the wisdom of these Divine mysteries, only among them that were perfect. (1 Cor. 2: 6.) And so here, in Ephesians we are individually chosen, predestinated, forgiven, accepted, instructed, sealed (according to Eph. 1); and then, we are prayed for, that we may have that spirit of wisdom and revelation which capacitates us to learn our Church-calling, the strength that is leading us, and the glory that we are to reach: "The Church corporately is composed of individual believers; and while viewed in its corporate character, it has relations to Christ which the believer individually has not — for no believer is the Body of Christ or the Bride of Christ — yet, it is in the affections and conscience of the individual believer, that the relations of the Church to Christ are to be recognized and have their effect."

Surely this is so. Individual saints are first perfected, under the given Spirit, and then the Body is edified — as we have in Ephesians 4: 12. The precepts, which we find from Ephesians 4: 17 to Ephesians 6: 9, address us individually; but the Church-state is assumed or contemplated here and there throughout.

And here, let me say, as to precepts, that the calling itself, the grace in which we stand, might direct us, without precepts. This thought is sanctioned by such passages as Titus 2: 11, 12; and 2 Peter 3: 11, 14. The saints in Genesis act without law or precept. Their calling suggested their duties. "How can I do this great wickedness," said one of them, "and sin against God"? The grace in which New Testament saints stand might do the same. Still they are called to listen to precepts — as here in this portion of the Epistle to the Ephesians. But the precepts strikingly honour the doctrines. They commonly either refer to, or tacitly assume, the doctrines; and thus, as I may say, they present themselves as so many expressions of the moral virtue which lies hid in the doctrine.

And further. They let us know that holiness must have a dispensational character. It is not simply moral virtue, such as conscience would suggest: it is not legal righteousness, such as the law might demand: nor is it what John Baptist would have prescribed. It is Christian. The holiness, or the due character, of a saint, is to derive itself out of the Christian calling. It finds its springs and sanctions in Christian truth. It measures itself by that Word which now addresses itself to us, and which delineates our dispensational place and peculiarity. It is the sanctification of the truth, the washing of water by the Word, that is looked for. It is this which gives definite character to the morals which God accepts, and which the Spirit works. And this is what is very much neglected or passed by, but which, to be in the light as God is in the light, must be heeded,

But there is still another thing in this Epistle. There is conflict or wrestling. We see the walk of a saint in Eph. 5, his fight in Eph. 6. His walk lies through the chequered paths of life, the circumstances and relations which make up human history. His fight is with "the wiles of the devil," or with "spiritual wickedness in heavenly places."

These wicked spirits come forth from heavenly places — and they come with lies and deceivableness of infinite variety. 2 Chr. 18 is a direct witness of this. There, a spirit is seen to come forth from heaven with a lie in his mouth; or with a lie which he puts into the mouth of Ahab's false prophets. And that lie leads Ahab to the fatal battle of Ramoth-gilead,

The Serpent, at the beginning, entered the garden as a liar, and with one of his "wiles" ruined the man. (Gen. 3) Satan, with another of them, tempted David to number the people, and led him to a terrible day of retribution. (1 Chr. 21) This same character of a deceiver is recognized in Rev. 12: 9; Rev. 20: 8. And signs and lying wonders and all deceivableness of unrighteousness are spoken of as the working of Satan in 2 Thess. 2: 9-10.

Thus we have wicked spirits in heavenly places exercising "wiles" here in the midst of us.

These wiles, these lies of "the rulers of the darkness of this world," may be multitudinous, such as, infidel suggestions, perversions of truth, devotional human superstitions, confounding of things which dispensationally differ, false calculations touching the world's progress, and the like. How solemn the thought! But how well to be told of these wiles, and thus to be put in preparation for them. Distinct instances of these wiles are again noticed in 2 Cor. 2: 11; 2 Cor. 11: 3; 2 Tim. 2: 26.

It is with these wiles we have to wrestle. In other characters (as when he is a liar or a persecutor) we may have to fall under the enemy. For our fight is not with flesh and blood, as was that of a Joshua or a David. God sent them forth to such conflict, having put armour upon them that was suited to meet flesh and blood. But it is in no wise so now. Not one piece of our armour would do for the battle at Ai, or for the day of the valley of Elah. Our enemies are not the Amorites or the Philistines. It is armour fitted to meet the corrupter of the truth, him who ceaseth not to pervert the right ways of the Lord. (Acts 13: 10) It is, the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.*

*Satan is an accuser of the Brethren in heaven (Job 1; Rev. 12) On earth he is an accuser of God (Gen. 2), and a persecutor of saints (Job 2; Rev. 12) But the Apostle here speaks only of his wiles or deceivings.

The whole age through which we are passing is regarded as "a war," with occasional fights or "evil days" — and therefore the Apostle says to us, "That ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

These "wiles," too, may become "fiery darts." That is: these lies and deceivings which at all times are abroad, may now and again, in some shape or another, be levelled directly and personally at ourselves.

And it is striking to observe what this one Epistle teaches us about these evil principalities and powers. It tells us, that they are Christ's captives, the saint's enemies, with whom he has to wrestle, and the rulers of the world's darkness. (Eph. 4: 8; Eph. 6: 11, 12.)*

*It has been observed by another, that Ephesus is exhibited very specially as having been the scene of those wicked spirits that practise their lies and deceivings. (See Acts 19: 19)

But here I might add (though our Epistle does not suggest it), that the present ruler of the darkness of this world is doomed to take a solemn journey by-and-by. He is to be cast out of heaven where he now is, and act on the earth only. He is then, in season, to be taken from the earth, and put into the bottomless pit. He is then, as taken out of the pit, to be given over to the lake of fire, or his eternal doom. (See Luke 10: 18; Rev. 12, 20)

And this, I may further add, is the very contrary or opposite journey of that of the Lord. The Lord came from the grave as a Conqueror. He had been "death of death and hell's destruction." He returned to the earth, tarrying there for forty days, giving pledges and promises touching His future kingdom here. And then, He ascended to the highest heavens, receiving all power, and sending down the Holy Ghost to dwell in His saints, and prepare them for Himself in the day of exceeding glory, when He shall be displayed as filling all things — according to this same Epistle.

Here we end, save the very conclusion, which has, however, a character in it that I must notice.

The Apostle speaks of himself as "an ambassador in bonds." What another witness was he, then, at that moment, of the character of the world which he had just recognized as under the rule of the powers of darkness? God's ambassador was put in prison by the world into which He had sent him! Does one nation treat the representative of another in this way? Is not the person of an ambassador sacred?

But man's prisoner is God's freeman; and in the care of thoughtful love, from his prison-house he will send messages of sympathy and comfort and encouragement to his loved brethren hundreds of miles away from him beyond the seas.

Philippians.

The Epistle to the Philippians partakes very much of a pastoral character. The link between the Church at Philippi and the apostle was close and tender. He had been with them at the beginning of their spiritual history (Acts 16), and they had continued to communicate with him when he was far distant from them (Phil. 4: 15). They were rich in this peculiar grace and the apostle finds joy in alluding to it, even while he has to warn them against certain symptoms of disunion which he learned were appearing in their midst (Phil. 4: 1-3). He deals with this evil in a manner which expresses his confidence that there was grace among them to overcome it, and this imparts to his way of dealing with it a deeply tender and affectionate tone. And this surely ought to instruct us, that when we see much of the grace of Christ in any fellow-saint we should give him due credit for this, and administer whatever correction or rebuke we believe to be needful in the light of it.

There is no strict order of doctrinal teaching in this Epistle, yet much that is of great value to the saints in displaying the energies of the life of which they were already possessors in Christ (Phil. 1), in setting before them the perfect pattern of that life in the example of the Lord while here among men (Phil. 2), the progress and goal of one in whom that life was acting in full strength and energy (Phil. 3), and the finding in Christ all that the heart seeks of peace and power (Phil. 4), in a world where everything tends to harass the soul.

The saints are here seen in the midst of a "crooked and perverse nation," taking their journey in company with the God of all grace, Who supplies their every need. There are adversaries, and death itself may end their course, but all is well. To live is Christ and to die is gain. The journey may be long or short, but the end is blessed. "Salvation" throughout the Epistle is the full and final deliverance from all evil with a triumphant entrance to that glory into which Christ has already entered. The lowly mind and gracious affections which characterize those whose eyes are upon the perfect example of the humiliation, surrender and subjection witnessed in the Lord are beautifully set forth in Timotheus and Epaphroditus in Phil. 2. The energy that comes from a contemplation of Christ in glory enabling the saint to count all here as dross is seen in Phil. 3.

The resurrection to which Paul looked forward was a resurrection after the manner of the Lord's own. It had qualities peculiar to itself surely. It was a resurrection from the dead, victorious over death. He had the power of it in Himself or by virtue of what He was. He was the First-fruits of a harvest which in due time would follow after its kind. His people, unlike Him Who by this title of First-fruits pledges to them a share in His triumph, have no virtue of it in themselves as He had: it is conferred upon them in infinite grace, they share in its triumph because they "are Christ's." Yet blessed it surely is to know that theirs will be resurrection from or out of the dead as was that of their Lord — a victorious resurrection. This was the apostle's goal, and toward it he pressed on. His eye was on the distant joys, and for them he cast all aside, reaching forth toward them. And heavenly too is the citizenship of the saint. His inheritance is there in the place to which his call had been when he was laid hold of by the Lord in glory. His hope also is there. He looks for the Saviour, Who is the Object of his heart, Who will accomplish by His hand that for which He had in grace been forming the heart of His saint and servant to seek after — to be like and with Himself for ever.

Colossians.

The saints at Colosse had begun well, and their progress had been good, but they were in danger of being led aside by the entrance of Judaizing doctrines and Gentile philosophies from the living Lord and the walk that results from the soul's occupation with Him. The apostle unfolds to them in rich and varied forms the fulness and sufficiency of Christ which is the Divine corrective of such evil. In this Epistle the apostle tells that the special ministry given to him was to "fulfil the Word of God" (Col. 1: 26). To "fill out" the revelation of God. To him it was given to reveal by his ministry the highest of the heavenly mysteries. The revelation of God shines brighter as the progress of the dispensations proceed. Here Christ is seen as Head and Fulness of His body the Church, composed of an out-calling from Jews and Gentiles, to become fellow-members of Christ and fellow-heirs of glory. These had been bosom secrets of God from the beginning, the deepest of all His counsels of grace, but they are now told out. This consummation gave special character to Paul's ministry. He was a minister of the Gospel and also of the Church (Col. 1: 23-25), and this is God's last and highest revelation, the richest in all the counsels of His grace. As Eve was the last of all God's wondrous handiwork in the first creation, so the woman here, the complement of the man (Eph. 1: 23), is the crown of all His work in grace, as the Bride of Rev. 21 will be in glory. And this variegated grace in all its riches is now manifested before principalities and powers in heavenly places, who hear in silent wonder the story of that grace that this outcalling of the Church is now rehearsing.

Col. 1. The glories of Christ shine in all their fulness here. He is pre-eminent everywhere. His Headship and fulness stand prominent, and to these the saints who compose this body, the Church, are especially directed.

Col. 2 tells how the power of the Cross has met everything, that the saint is as one dead, and is thus delivered out of that sphere in which sin and the flesh had their dominion. They are not therefore to (by subjecting themselves to ordinances) make themselves as men still living in the world (verse 20). The "increase of God," which is the source of their nourishment (verse 19), is heavenly and not of earth's philosophies; it is spiritual, not of carnal ordinances and Christ is in them the hope of glory.

Col. 3 tells of a people raised with Christ, Who is Head and character of a new creation. As such they are to seek things above, and their conduct is to be according to their calling, which provides the power for such a path. The precepts of this chapter bear their witness to their heavenly calling and character of the saints, for they express the moral virtue that is in the doctrine, so that they glorify it. The boldness that is to mark the way of the saints is to be according to the heavenly position: it is to be boldness suited to the dispensation. In former times it would have been defilement for a Jew to eat with a Gentile, now all are one in Christ, and the one Spirit from Whom all fruit is derived pervades all.

Col. 4. Earthly relations as well as the springs of moral conduct are all to be purified and governed, by these heavenly truths dwelling and operating in the saints. The servant renders his service to the Lord and the master finds his pattern and example in his "Master in heaven." All this is in honour of the doctrine of the Epistle, and in the hands of the Spirit are the expression of its moral virtue.

1 and 2 Thessalonians.

The apostle's first entrance to Thessalonica is recorded in Acts 17, where, as the result of his Gospel ministry, a people are found gathered as a Church in the assurance of God's salvation, and to the hope of the return of His Son from heaven (1 Thess. 1: 9). In the midst of many trials and persecutions they were serving the living and true God, to Whom they had turned from idols, and the report of their faith had gone forth through all that region. But having been forced suddenly away from this newly-planted Church by the enmity and opposition of the Jews, he manifests a special concern for them, and as a true pastor his heart is much moved toward them. Timothy had been sent to comfort them concerning their faith (1 Thess. 3: 2), and to strengthen them against the wiles of the tempter who was seeking to alarm and seduce them from the truth. With little to help and much to test them, they seem to have fallen under the power of two misapprehensions of the truth as taught by the apostle, one concerning their brethren who had fallen asleep, and the other concerning themselves who were alive. The former is especially dealt with in the first Epistle, the latter in the second. The return of Timothy to the apostle, brought the intelligence of their fears regarding those who had fallen asleep, that they might miss the joys awaiting those who would be found alive and waiting at the coming of the Son from heaven. To remove this anxiety and to impart a fuller revelation on the subject, the apostle writes to inform them that all the saints, whether sleeping or alive, would share the triumph of that day, and be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air (2 Thess. 4: 13-18), and to be with Him where He is.

The Second Epistle was drawn from him to remove another anxiety which had arisen among them touching the living saints, either from an imperfect, understanding of his first Epistle or from false suggestions or misrepresentations made by others. They feared that the saints living on earth when the "day of the Lord" was present would be involved in its judgments which the Scriptures inform us will characterise that period. To this the second Epistle makes reply by telling them that the day of the Lord could not come until the "man of sin" is revealed and the full apostasy from the truth is manifested (2 Thess. 2: 1-10). The distinction between the coming of the Son of God to the air with a shout for His people, to bring all, dead and living, of this heavenly household to His Father's house, and His return with them "in flaming fire" (2 Thess. 1: 7), as Son of Man and Minister of God's righteous wrath upon the world of the ungodly. These are the main subjects of these precious Epistles, with much to quicken faith and sustain hope while God's long-suffering lingers and the Gospel goes forth, bringing into the garner its sheaves for the heavenly harvest, with solemn warnings to saints as to watchfulness and walk, while the already working leaven of the coming apostasy is all around them.

The Pastoral Epistles.

The Epistles to Timothy and Titus, while written to individual servants of Christ, have a special value to us of these times, in setting forth the character and principles of true service in the Church of God. For whatever changes time has wrought, the counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations. The Spirit here gives His counsels to furnish those who serve in God's house, into which disorders and dangers were, even at this early time, advancing. Here are truths to preserve those whose feet are in the path, and to correct and recover such as have departed from it. There are errors and evils, but the Spirit by the apostle here admonishes and rebukes in order that He may restore, while He watches in patience. But if His instructions and admonitions are unheeded, the Lord may deal in chastisement as well as rebuke (Rev. 3: 19) with those who are still the objects of His love.

1 Timothy.

In 1 Tim. 1 the apostle is very earnest in magnifying the grace of God. Salvation is said to be all of this. He writes of God as Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope. The honours of each of the Persons of the Godhead he knew well how to maintain in their due place. Here it is God revealing Himself as Saviour, and this revelation of God is here associated with the blessing of the creature. The soul that receives His salvation as made known in the Gospel is blessed, but where refused that soul is unblessed: it is "without God" (Eph. 2: 12), and will be judged as one who knows Him not (2 Thess. 1: 9).

In verses 8-10 the apostle turns to the law and its use. It is not for salvation: its place is not in the Church, but outside in the world, there doing its appointed work. And the saint who is within, looks out from the place of security upon the evil and sees the law at work among those who are named as acting in contrariety to the Gospel of the blessed God. The apostle — thus declares the law to be "good" and doing a needed work in its own sphere, but when he turns to the Gospel his heart bums, and his spirit breaks forth over it as "the glorious Gospel of the blessed" — or as it is in the original" the happy God." It is as Giver that God is presented in the Gospel, and it gladdens His heart to give, for it was of the mind and heart of God that the Lord Jesus spake when He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

In verses 12-16, he magnifies the mercy that met him in his guilt as an ignorant and insolent sinner, — as in Phil. 3 he had disclaimed all trust in his own righteousness and in the fleshly advantages he had acquired, — his salvation being all of grace and his righteousness in Christ alone. In verse 17, he looks into the distant future and seems to catch a glimpse of the inbringing of his own nation — of whose conversion his own was the pattern — and as he sees them brought in, his spirit breaks forth in a beautiful doxology, "Now unto the King Eternal," — not now only "God our Saviour," but as King on His rightful throne reigning. It is good for the soul to follow on in such a blessed path, beginning with grace and ending in glory.

1 Tim. 2. The way into the house having been made clear in chapter 1, the ordering of that house and the occupations of those who are in it follow here, for it is after we reach the inside that we breathe its atmosphere and learn our responsibilities to others who are there. First, it is acceptable as well as comely with "God our Saviour" to pray for "all men," for it is the will of God that all should be saved. And there is one Mediator — not for the Jew alone, but for all — "between God and men," whose ransom avails for all. Then the woman is set forth as a figure of the Church in her subjection to Christ as Lord, learning in all subjection and ordering herself becomingly in this position.

1 Tim. 3 gives the character and order of all service in this house of God, for where the habitation of God is, all must be according to His mind, for even redeemed man is not left to determine his ways as a worshipper or a servant. All is provided for by the Owner of the house. Willingness in worship is always right and acceptable to God, but wilfulness He will not suffer (Lev. 10: 1, 2; 1 Cor. 11: 28-32). The last verse of this chapter sets forth the "mystery of godliness," God manifest in the flesh, — in His mission to our earth to form a link with a redeemed and called people whom He might draw up after Him to His glory. "justified in spirit" tells of that which belonged to Christ alone. He was personally pure and spotless, but we can only be justified by His blood (Rom. 5: 9). "Seen of angels." What a sight for them to look on and learn (1 Peter 1: 12), but they could but gaze. We are the subjects of His redeeming work, and our interests are bound up with it and with Him, as now "received up into glory."

1 Tim. 4 - 6. Here, grave departures from the faith in its purity, and from godliness in its integrity and simplicity, are foreseen and provided for. In some it is by giving heed to "seducing spirits" (1 Tim. 1) who seek to corrupt the truth, and in others by the perverse teachings of men of corrupt minds who are destitute of the truth altogether (1 Tim. 6: 5). Amid these pravities, the saint is called to walk in purity, keeping that which he has from God (the doctrine which is according to godliness), living unspotted and unrebukable, in view of the appearing of the Lord (1 Tim. 6: 14), Who will fully estimate the worth of such service and reward it accordingly.

2 Timothy.

In the time of the active labours of the apostle, "the mystery of iniquity" (2 Thess. 2: 7), and the leaven of evil doctrine which had been introduced (Gal. 5: 9) secretly at an early period, were already manifesting to his anointed eye the varied forms of corruption which were to spread themselves abroad. It is to instruct and guard Timothy in the midst of these, that his second Epistle is written. He deals especially with the features of "the last days" (2 Tim. 3: 1), and warns Timothy as if he were already in the midst of them. This has a special value to all who walk amid the fully-developed corruptions now spread throughout Christendom. The opening words are very affecting, full of personal affection. Timothy was his true child in the Gospel. He had been his faithful co-worker too, as a son with a father (Phil. 2: 19-22), and was now standing as a witness for God and the truth amid abounding corruptions. The heart of the apostle goes forth in great warmth toward his "dearly beloved son." He had not allowed his personal sorrow, nor the disappointments which had come from the Churches whose welfare he carried as a care upon his heart daily, to shut itself up. No indeed. His affection was as great and earnest as before, and if he cannot spend it over those who in earlier years had claimed it, he will let it flow toward this true labourer for God.

There may have been the temptation with Timothy to despond, to regard all as hopeless. It is a common temptation in a day of relaxation. But Timothy is not to yield to this. He has a gift from God, and he is to stir it up for use, doing what service he can in the midst of existing conditions. He had the example of the apostle and the full expression of his confidence in that faith of which he was the steward, and of the Lord's testimony he was not to be ashamed come what may.

In 2 Tim. 2 he proceeds to encourage and arm him for his service and conflict. He had already read to him in 2 Tim. 1 his title to confidence in the power that would preserve him and bring all to final victory in the day of His power and glory, even as at His resurrection He had abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. Here in 2 Tim. 2: 1, he is to be "strong in grace" and at the same time to accustom himself to "endure hardship" as a soldier on service, and to go on labouring in patience and in hope, not expecting to see the full fruitage until the day of harvest, remembering that the Lord as David's Seed received His reward in resurrection, a truth which the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus denied. For if "the resurrection was past already," then the "form of godliness" might well be the religion of a corrupt church which had embraced the world. It was a time of religious corruption and of man's infidelity and independency, casting off all fear of God and reverence of His Word to do his own will and walk in his own path. In the midst of these conditions, it remained for Timothy to "study," to show himself as one approved of God, "rightly dividing the Word of truth." He was to hold fast to the doctrine which he had learned and to make full use of the Holy Scriptures which he had known since his childhood and proved in his salvation, and which were sufficient to furnish him in all his service. It only remained for the apostle, now at the end of his course, with the crown full in view, awaiting martyrdom, to give his last counsels with due solemnity and set his hope on view of the coming day of recompense before God's servant and steward with a fine closing testimony to the Lord's faithfulness which had continued toward him to the end.

Titus.

In this brief Epistle, the order and ministries of the house of God, with the moral characteristics becoming all who belong to it, are set in due place. This outward form was derived from the Holy Ghost, whose presence was also its power. It is a happy thing when form and power are thus found together, and when the inworking of the Spirit in the Church gives it its outward form ordered by the "truth which is according to godliness" as the apostle here speaks. When these things become separated, the outward form will in the eyes of some be held in honour with little of the power which ought to accompany it. The "spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind" will preserve from this. And yet the doors of this house of God are to be jealously guarded, its avenues kept clean, and its order and ministries regulated according to the will of Him Who dwells therein. If any of the guests in this house of the Lord act contrary to the law or holiness of the house, they must be dealt with, for all must be according to the mind of the Lord of the house. Each servant is to know his own proper service under the distribution or gift he has received, and use all for the edification and help of fellow members of the household.

Hebrews.

In this Epistle, the Spirit opens the heavens and shows us Christ ascended and seated on the right hand of the throne of God. It is the great witness of God's acceptance of Christ. It sets forth this fact, establishing it — as it were in the mouth of many great and august witnesses. Other and earlier testimonies had been borne to this in the rent veil at the moment of His death and in His resurrection from the tomb and the gift of the Holy Ghost, which followed in their seasons. Here the Spirit gives His crowning testimony to His acceptance in heaven in such characters as answer our necessities. He displaces as it were one after another to show the superiority of Christ and to display the varied glories that He bears as glorified there.

In Hebrews 1 and 2 the Spirit displaces prophets and angels to let in Christ. In Hebrews 3 and 4 He displaces Moses and Joshua, and in Hebrews 5 and 6 Aaron. In Hebrews 8 and 9 the old covenant and the former sanctuary, with its services are set aside, to bring in His sacrifice and its abiding value for His people. And having thus introduced Him, the Spirit fixes our gaze upon Him there for ever, for He has no successor.

In Hebrews 1 He is seen seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high as the Purger of our sins, and as the Heir of all, and His inheritance is seen as already standing in the power of redemption, shared by Him with His joint-heirs who are, as Hebrews 2: 10 assures us, being led on by Him to His glory in which they are to share. As Redeemer, He had charged Himself with their burdens, and now He leads them on, charging Himself with their blessings, having respect to them in all their ways, until they are brought to the sharing of the inheritance as joint heirs with Himself, to sit with Him in the sovereignty of all things in the world to come as chapter 2: 10 speaks. And His people have already been "made meet" (Col. 1: 12) to share that inheritance by Himself as their "Sanctifier" (Heb. 2: 11). In all His glories they are seen with Him, from first to last. They are henceforth seen as joint-heirs with Him in every character and glory that He bears.

In Hebrews 3 he is shown as the Apostle speaking to us from God, of whom Moses was the type (Deut. 34: 10). He was distinguished from all other prophets by God speaking to him face to face, and having access to all His house as a servant. But the "Son" is in fullest and deepest intimacy with all His counsels, and has the most perfect fellowship with Him in all His works and ways in heavenly and earthly things. He is the owner of an abiding house, the giver of an eternal rest, and a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. He is in the sanctuary above to transact the business of His people for ever, for His priesthood is established in the power of an endless life.

His sacrifice (Heb. 9 - 10) is seen to be of eternal value, and being so, it brings perfection to the worshippers and sets them for ever in the presence of God. In Hebrews 12 He is received and seated in heaven as the Author and Finisher of faith. Thus one after another is superseded by Christ, and having introduced Him the Spirit closes His delightful task by leaving Him before us, fixing our gaze upon Him as One to continue before our souls for ever, — "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and for ever."

The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ

The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

J G Bellett.

Introduction.

It is the Moral Glory, or, as we speak, the character of the Lord Jesus, on which I meditate in these pages. All went up to God as a sacrifice of sweet savour. Every expression of Himself in every measure, however small, and in whatever relationship it was rendered, was incense. In His Person (but surely there only) man was reconciled to God. In Him God recovered His complacency in man, and that too with unspeakable gain; for in Jesus, man is more to God than He would have been in an eternity of Adam innocency.

But in this Meditation on the Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus, it is most surely but a small part of that wondrous subject I affect to have reached. I may give occasion to fruitful thoughts in the souls of others, and that will be good.

The Lord's Person I assume — God and man in one Christ. His Work I also assume; that suffering service, or blood-shedding, accomplished on the Cross, whereby reconciliation is perfected, and wherein it is preached for the acceptance and joy of faith.

A Short Meditation on the Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"And when any will offer a meat-offering, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon; and he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests; and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord." — Lev. 2: 1, 2.

The glories of the Lord Jesus are threefold — personal, official, and moral. His personal glory He veiled, save where faith discovered it, or an occasion demanded it. His official glory He veiled likewise; He did not walk through the land as either the Divine Son from the bosom of the Father, or as the authoritative Son of David. Such glories were commonly hid, as He passed on in the circumstances of life day by day. But His moral glory could not be hid. He could not be less than perfect in every thing —  it belonged to Him, it was Himself. From its intense excellency, it was too bright for the eye of man; and man was under constant exposure and rebuke from it. But there it shone, whether man could bear it or not. It now illuminates every page of the four evangelists, as it once did every path which the Lord himself trod on this path of ours.

It has been said of the Lord — "His humanity was perfectly natural in its development." This is very beautiful and true. Luke 2: 52 would verify this. There was nothing of unnatural progress in Him: all was orderly increase. His wisdom kept pace with His stature, or age. He was the child first, then the man. By-and-by, as a man (God's Man in the world), He will testify of the world that its works are evil, and be hated by it; but as a child (a child after God's heart, as 1 may say), He will be subject to His parents, and under the law, and as one perfect. In such conditions He grew in favour with God and man.

But though there was progress in Him, as we thus see, there was no cloud, or perversion, or mistake; in this He distinguished Himself from all. His mother pondered things in her heart; but cloud and indistinctness, nay, darkness itself, beset her mind, and the Lord had to say to her, "How is it that ye sought Me?" But with Him, progress was but one form of moral beauty — His growth was orderly and was seasonable; and, I may add, that as "His humanity was perfectly natural in its development," so was His character entirely human in its expressions: all that displayed it was common to man, as I may say.

He was the tree planted by the rivers of waters  that bringeth forth his fruit in his season (Psalm 1); and all things are only beautiful in their season. The moral glory of the child Jesus "shines in its season and generation; and when He becomes a man, the same glory only gets other seasonable expressions. He knew when to own the claims of His mother, when she made them; when to resist them, though she made them; when to recognize them unsought (Luke 2: 51; Luke 8: 21; John 19: 27). And, as we afterwards track Him, He knew Gethsemane in season, or according to its character; and the Holy Mount in its season, winter and summer, to His spirit. He knew the well of Sychar, and the road which led Him to Jerusalem for the last time. He trod each path, or filled each spot, in that mind that was according to the character it bore under God's eye. And so on occasions which called for still more energy. If it be the defilement of His Father's house, He will let zeal consume Him; if it be His own wrong at the hand of some Samaritan villagers, He will suffer it, and pass on.

And all was perfect in its combinations, as well as in its season. He wept as He was reaching the grave of Lazarus, though He knew that He carried life for the dead. He who had just said, "I am the resurrection and the life," wept. Divine power would leave human sympathies free to take their full course.

And it is assemblage, or combination of virtues, which forms moral glory. He knew, as the apostle speaks, "how to abound and how to be abased;" how to use moments of prosperity, so to call them, and also times of depression. For, in His passage through life, He was introduced to each of these.

Thus, He was introduced for a moment to His glory; and a very bright moment it was. I allude to the transfiguration. He was high in His honours there. As the sun, the source of all brightness, there He shone; and such eminent ones as Moses and Elias are there, taking of His glory from Him, and in it shining with Him. But as He descended the hill, He charged those who had been with Him, "the eye-witnesses of His majesty," not to speak of it. And when the people, on His reaching the foot of the hill, ran to salute Him (Mark 9: 15), —  His person still reflecting, I believe, though faintly, the glory which it had lately borne, — He does not linger among them to receive their homage, but at once addresses Himself to His common service; for He knew "how to abound." He was not exalted by His prosperity. He sought not a place among men, but emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation, quickly veiled the glory that He might be the servant; the girded, not the arrayed One.

And it was thus with Him a second time, after He had become the risen Jesus, as we may see in John 20. He is there in the midst of His disciples, in such a glorious character as man had never borne or witnessed, and never could. He is there as the Conqueror of death, and the Spoiler of the grave. But He is not there — though in such glories — to receive the congratulations of His people, as we speak, and as one naturally would, who was finding Himself returned to the bosom of friends and kinsfolk, after toil, and danger, and victory. Not that He was indifferent to sympathy: He sought it in season, and felt the want of it when He did not get it. But He is now, risen from the dead, in the midst of His disciples, rather as a visitor for a day, than as in a triumph. He is rather teaching them their interest, and not displaying His own, in the great things which had just been accomplished.

This was using a victory indeed, as Abraham knew how to use his victory over the confederate kings, a harder thing, as some have said, than to gain it. This, again, was knowing "how to abound," how "to be full."

But He knew "how to be abased," also. Look at Him with the Samaritan villagers in Luke 9. At the outset of that action, in the sense of His personal glory, He anticipated His being "raised up," as He actually was afterwards (Mark 16: 19; 1 Tim. 3: 16; the Greek word is the same); and in the common, well-known style of one who would have it known that a person of distinction was coming that way, He sends messengers before His face. But the unbelief of the Samaritans changes the scene. They would not receive Him. They refused to cast up a highway for the feet of this glorious one, but forced Him to find out for Himself the best path He could, as the rejected One. But He accepts this place at once, without a murmur in His heart. He becomes again (borrowing the word from Matt. 2.) the Nazarene, seeing He was refused as the Bethlehemite, and He fills this new character on this side of the Samaritan village, as perfectly as He had filled the other character on the other side of it.

Thus He knew "how to be abased," and just so do we again see Him in Matt. 21. He enters the city as Son of David. All that could set Him off in that dignity surrounds and accompanies Him. He is in His earthly honour now, as He had been in His heavenly glory on the holy hill It was His without robbery; and when the moment demanded it, He can wear it. But the unbelief of Jerusalem now, as the unbelief of Samaria before, changes the scene, and He who had entered the city as her king has to leave it, to seek a night's lodging, so to speak, where best He could find it. But there He is, outside Jerusalem, as before He had been outside the Samaritan village, knowing "how to be abased."

What perfection! If the darkness comprehend not the light of His personal or official glory, His moral glory shall only find occasion to shine the brighter. For there is nothing in morals or in human character finer than this combination of willing degradation in the midst of men, and the consciousness of intrinsic glory before God. We see it in some of the saints beautifully. Abraham was a willing stranger in the midst of the Canaanites all his days, not having a foot of land, nor seeking to have it; but when occasion served, he would take headship even of kings, conscious of his dignity in God's sight, according to God's own counsel. Jacob would speak of his pilgrimage, of his few and evil days, making himself nothing in the reckoning of the world; but he would at the same moment bless him who at that time was the greatest man on the earth, conscious that, under God, and before him, he was "the better," the greater man of the two.

David would ask for a loaf of bread, and ask for it without shame. But, with all that, he would accept the homage due to a king, receiving the tribute of his subjects, as in the person of Abigail. Paul was bound with a chain, a prisoner in the palace, and would speak of his bonds; but at that same moment he would let the whole court and high estate of the Roman world know, that he knew himself to be the blest man, the only blest man, in the midst of them.

It is this combination of willing degradation before man, and conscious glory before God, that gets its highest, brightest, nay (when I consider who he was), its infinite illustration in our Lord.

And there is still further moral beauty in this knowing how to abound, and how to be abased, how to be full, and how to suffer need; for it tells us that the heart of him who has learnt that lesson is upon the end of the journey, rather upon the journey itself. If the heart be on the journey, we shall not like these accidents and difficulties, the rough places and the hilly places; but if it be on the end, it will in proportion overlook such things. It is surely a secret rebuke to some of us to trace all this.

But there are other combinations in the Lord's character that we must look at. Another has said of Him, "He was the most generous and accessible of men." We observe in His ways a tenderness and a kindness never seen in man, yet we always feel that He "was a stranger." How true this is! He was "a stranger here" — a stranger as far as revolted man was filling the place, but intimately near as far as misery or need demanded Him. The distance He took, and the intimacy He expressed, were perfect. He did more than look on the misery that was around Him, He entered into it with a sympathy that was all His own; and He did more than refuse the pollution that was around Him, — He kept the very distance of holiness itself from every touch or stain of it. See Him as exhibiting this combination of distance and intimacy in Mark 6. It is an affecting scene. The disciples return to Him after a long day's service. He cares for them. He brings their weariness very near to Him. He takes account of it, and provides for it at once, saying to them, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." But, the multitude following Him, He turns with the same readiness to them, acquainting Himself with their condition; and having taken knowledge of them, as sheep that had no shepherd, He began to teach them. In all this we see Him very near to the rising, varied need of the scene around him, whether that need be the fatigue of the disciples, or the hunger and ignorance of the multitude. But the disciples soon resent His attention to the multitude, and move Him to send them away. This, however, will in no wise do for Him. There is immediate estrangement between Him and them, which shortly afterwards expresses itself by His telling them to get into the ship while He sent the multitude away. But this separation from Him only works fresh trouble for them. Winds and waves are against them on the lake; and then in their distress He is again near at hand to succour and secure them!

How consistent in the combination of holiness and grace is all this. He is near in our weariness, our hunger, or our danger. He is apart from our tempers and our selfishness. His holiness made Him an utter stranger in such a polluted world; His grace kept Him ever active in such a needy and afflicted world. And this sets off His life, I may say, in great moral glory; that though forced, by the quality of the scene around Him, to be a lonely One, yet was He drawn forth by the need and sorrow of it to be the active One. And these activities were spent on all kinds of persons, and had therefore to assume all kinds of forms. Adversaries, — the people, a company of disciples who followed Him (the twelve), and individuals; these kept Him not only in constant, but in very various activity; and He had to know, as surely He did to perfection, how to answer every man. And beside all this, we see Him at times at the table of others; but it is only that we may still notice further various perfection. At the table of the Pharisees, as we see Him occasionally, He is not adopting or sanctioning the family scene, but being invited in the character which He had already acquired and sustained outside, He is there to act in that character. He is not a guest simply, under the courtesy and hospitality of the master, and therefore He can rebuke or teach. He is still the Light, and will act as the Light; and thus He exposes darkness within doors as He did abroad. (Luke 7: 11).

But if He thus entered the house of the Pharisee again and again, in the character of a teacher, and would then, acting as such, rebuke the moral condition of things which He found there, He entered the house of the publican as a Saviour. Levi made Him a feast in his own house, and set publicans and sinners in His company. That is, of course, objected to The religious rulers find fault, and then the Lord reveals Himself as a Saviour, saying to them, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; but go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Very simple, but very striking, and full of meaning, this is. Simon the Pharisee objected that a sinner should enter his house and approach the Lord Jesus; Levi the publican provided such as these to be the fellow-guests of the Lord Jesus. And accordingly, the Lord in one house acts as a reprover, in the other, discloses Himself in the rich grace of a Saviour.

But we are to see Him at other tables still. We may visit Him in Jericho and Emmaus. (See Luke 19 and Luke 24) It was desire that received Him on each of these occasions; but desire differently awakened — awakened, I mean, under different influences. Zaccheus had been but a sinner, a child of nature, which is, as we know, corrupt in its springs and its activities. But he had been just at that moment under the drawings of the Father, and his soul was making Jesus its object. He wished to see Him, and that desire being commanding, he had pressed his way through the crowd, and climbed up into a sycamore tree, if he might but just see Him as He passed by. The Lord looked up, and at once invited Himself into his house. This is very peculiar, — Jesus is an uninvited, self-invited guest in the house of that publican at Jericho!

The earliest strivings of life in a poor sinner, the desire which had been awakened by the drawings of the Father, were there in that house ready to welcome Him; but sweetly and significantly He anticipates the welcome, and goes in — goes in, in full, consistent, responsive character, to kindle and strengthen the freshly-quickened life, till it break forth in some of its precious virtue, and yield some of its own good fruit. "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." At Emmaus, desire had been again quickened, but under different conditions. It was not the desire of a freshly-drawn soul, but of restored saints. These two disciples had been unbelieving. They were returning home under a sorrow that Jesus had disappointed them. The Lord rebukes them shortly after He joined them on the road, but so orders His words as to kindle their hearts. When their walk together ends at the gate of their dwelling, the Lord makes as though He would go further. He would not invite Himself as He had done at Jericho. They were not in the moral state which suggested this, as Zaccheus had been; but, when invited, He goes in — goes in just to kindle further the desire which had here invited Him — to gratify it to the full. And so He does; and they are constrained by their joy to return to the city that night, late as it was, to communicate it to their fellows.

How full of various beauty all these cases are! The guest in the house of Pharisees, the guest in the house of publicans, the guest in the house of disciples, — the invited and the uninvited guest in the person of Jesus, sits in His place, in all perfection and beauty. I might instance Him as a guest at other tables; but, I will now look only at one more. At Bethany, we see Him adopting a family scene. Had Jesus disallowed the idea of a Christian family, He could not have been at Bethany, as we see He was. And yet, when we get Him there, it is only some new phase of moral beauty that we trace in Him. He is a friend of the family, finding, as we find to this day among ourselves, a home in the midst of them. "Now Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus," are words which bespeak this. His love to them was not that of a Saviour, or a Shepherd, though we know well He was each of these to them. It was the love of a family friend. But though a friend, an intimate friend, who might whenever He pleased find a welcome there; yet He did not interfere with the arrangements of the house. Martha was the housekeeper, the busy one of the family, useful and important in her place; and Jesus will surely leave her where He finds her. It was not for Him to alter or settle such matters. Lazarus may sit by the side of the guests at the family table, Mary may be abstracted and withdrawn as in her own kingdom, or into the kingdom of God within her, and Martha be busy and serving. Be it so. Jesus leaves all this just as He finds it. He who would not enter the house of another unbidden, when entered into the house of those sisters and brother will not meddle with its order and arrangements, and in full moral comeliness this is. But if one of the family, instead of carrying herself in her family place, step out of it to be a teacher in His presence, He must and will resume His higher character, and set things right divinely, though He would not interfere with or touch them domestically. (Luke 10: 38-42)

What various and exquisite beauty! Who can trace all His paths? The vulture will have to say, it is beyond even the reach of his eye. And if no human eye can fully see the whole of this one object, where is the human character that does not aid in setting off its light by its own shadows and imperfections? We none of us think of John, or of Peter, or of the rest of them, as hard-hearted or unkind. Quite otherwise. We feel that we could have entrusted them with our griefs or our necessities. But this little narrative in Mark 6, to which I referred, shows us that they are all at fault, all in the distance, when the hunger of the multitude appealed to them, threatening to break up their ease; but, on the contrary, that was the very moment, the very occasion, when Jesus drew near. All this tells us of Him, beloved. "I know no one," says another, "so kind, so condescending, who is come down to poor sinners, as He. I trust His love more than I do Mary's, or any saint's; not merely His power as God, but the tenderness of His heart as man. No one ever showed such, or had such, or proved it so well — none has inspired one with such confidence. Let others go to saints or angels, if they will; I trust Jesus' kindness more." Surely, again I say, this is so — and this occasion in Mark 6, betraying the narrow-heartedness of the best of us, such as Peter and John, but manifesting the full, unwearied, saving grace of Jesus, verifies it. But further: there are in Him combinations of characters, as well as of virtues or graces. His relationship to the world, when He was there, exhibits this. He was at once a Conqueror, a Sufferer, and a Benefactor. What moral glories shine in such an assemblage! He overcame the world, refusing all its attractions and offers; He suffered from it, witnessing for God against its whole course and spirit; He blessed it, dispensing His love and power continually, returning good for evil. Its temptations only made Him a conqueror; its pollutions and enmities only a sufferer; its miseries only a benefactor. What a combination! What moral glories shine in each other's company there!

The Lord illustrated that word that is among us, "in the world, but not of the world" — a form of words which, I suppose, has been derived from what He Himself says in John 17: 15: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." He illustrates this condition all through His life; for He was ever in the world, active in the midst of its ignorance and misery, but never of it, as one that shared its hopes or projects, or breathed its spirit. But in John 7 I believe He is eminently seen in this character. It was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, the crowning joyous time in Israel, the antepast of the coming kingdom, the season of ingathering, when the people had only to remember that they had been in other days wanderers in a wilderness, and dwellers in a camp. His brethren propose to Him to take advantage of such a moment, when "all the world," as we speak, was at Jerusalem. They would have Him make Himself important, make Himself, as we again speak, "a man of the world." "If thou do these things," they say, "show thyself to the world." He refused. His time had not then come to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. He will have His kingdom in the world, and be great to the end of the earth, when His day comes; but as yet He was on His way to the altar, and not to the throne. He will not go to the feast to be of the feast, though He will be in it; therefore, when He reaches the city at this time, we see Him in service there, not in honour, not working miracles as His brethren would have had Him, that He might gain the notice of men; but teaching others, and then hiding Himself under this, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me."

Very peculiar and characteristic indeed all this in And all this was some of the moral glory of the Man, the perfect Man, Jesus, in His relation to the world. He was a conqueror, a sufferer, and a benefactor — in the world, but not of it. But with equal perfectness do we see Him at times distinguishing things, as well as exhibiting these beautiful combinations. Thus, in dealing with sorrow, which lay outside, as I may express it, we see tenderness, the power that relieved; but in dealing with the power of disciples, we see faithfulness as well as tenderness. The leper in Matt. 8 is a stranger. He brings his sorrow to Christ, and gets healing at once. Disciples, in the same chapter, bring their sorrow also, their fears in the storm; but they get rebuke as well as relief. "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" He says to them. And yet the leper had but little faith, as well as the disciples. If they said, "Lord, save us, we perish;" he said, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." But they are rebuked, while he is not, just because there was a different thing before the mind of the Lord, and justly so. It was simply sorrow in the one case; it was the soul as well as the sorrow in the other. Tenderness, unmixed tenderness, was therefore His answer to the one; faithfulness must form part of the other. The different relationship to Him, of disciples and strangers, at once accounts for this, and may show how perfectly He distinguished things that came very near each other, but still were not the same. But further, as to this perfection. Though He Himself rebuke, He will not allow others lightly to do it. As in earlier days, Moses may be humbled by the Lord, but the Lord will not allow Miriam and Aaron to reproach him. (Num. 11, 12.) Israel in the wilderness will be chastened again and again by the hand of God, but in the face of Balaam, or any other adversary, He will be as one that has not seen iniquity in His people, and will not suffer any enchantment to prevail against them. So the Lord Jesus will beautifully and strikingly step in between the two disciples and the rebuking ten (Matt. 20.), and though He sent a word of warning and admonition to John the Baptist, as in secret (such a word as John's conscience alone might understand), He turns to the multitude to speak of John only with commendation and delight. And still further, as to this grace in distinguishing things that differ. Even in dealing with His disciples, there did come a moment when faithfulness can be observed no longer, and tenderness alone is to be exercised. I mean in the hour of parting, as we see in John 14 & 16. It was then "too late to be faithful." The moment would not have admitted it. It was a time which the heart claimed as entirely belonging to itself. The education of the soul could not go on then. He opens fresh secrets to them, it is true, secrets of the dearest and most intimate relationships, as between them and the Father; but there is nothing that is to be called rebuke. There is no such word as, "O ye of little faith!" or "How is it that ye do not understand?" A word that may sound somewhat like that, is only the discharging of a wound which the heart had suffered, that they might know the love He had for them. This was the sacredness of the sorrow of a moment of parting, in the perfect mind and affection of Jesus; and we practise it ourselves in some poor manner, so that we are at least able to enjoy and admire the full expression of it in Him. "There is a time to embrace," says the preacher, "and there is a time to refrain from embracing." This is a law in the statute-book of love, and Jesus observed it.

But again. He was not to be drawn into softness, when the occasion demanded faithfulness, and yet He passed by many circumstances which human sensibilities would have resented, and which the human moral sense would have judged it well to resent. He would not gain His disciples after the poor way of amiable nature. Honey was excluded from the offering made by fire, as well as leaven. The meat offering had none of it (Lev. 2: 11); neither had Jesus, the true meat offering. It was not the merely civil, amiable thing, that the disciples got from their Master. It was not the courtesy that consults for the ease of another. He did not gratify, and yet He bound them to Him very closely; and this is power. There is always moral power when the confidence of another is gained without its being sought; for the heart has then become conscious of the reality of love. "We all know," writes one, "how to distinguish between love and attention, and that there may be a great deal of the latter without any of the former. Some might say, attention must win our confidence; but we know ourselves that nothing but love does." This is so true. Attention, if it be mere attention, is honey, and how much of this poor material is found with us! and we are disposed to think that it is all well, and perhaps we aim no higher than to purge out leaven, and fill the lump with honey. Let us be amiable, perform our part well in the courteous, well-ordered social scene, pleasing others, and doing what we can to keep people on good terms with themselves, then we are satisfied with ourselves and others with us also. But is this service to God? Is this a meat offering? Is this found as part of the moral glory of perfect man? Indeed, indeed it is not. We may naturally judge, I grant, that nothing could do it better or more effectually; but still it is one of the secrets of the sanctuary, that honey was not used to give a sweet savour to the offering

Thus, in progress, in reasonableness, in combinations, and in distinctions, how perfect in moral glory and beauty were all the ways of this Son of Man!

The life of Jesus was the bright shining of a candle. It was such a lamp in the house of God as needed no golden tongs or snuff-dishes. It was ordered before the Lord continually, burning as from pure beaten oil. It was making manifest all that was around, exposing and reproving; but it ever held its own place uncondemned.

Whether challenged by disciples or adversaries, as the Lord was again and again, there is never an excusing of Himself. On one occasion disciples complain, "Master, carest thou not that we perish ?" But He does not think of vindicating the sleep out of which this challenge awakes Him. On another occasion they object to Him, "The multitude throng thee, and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?" But He does not need this inquiry, but acts upon the satisfaction of it. At another time Martha says to Him, "Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died." But He does not excuse His not having been there, nor His delaying for two days in the place where He was; but instructs Martha in the wondrous character which His delay had given to that hour.

What a glorious vindication of His delay that was! And thus it was on every like occasion; whether challenged or rebuked, there is never the recalling of a word, nor the retracing of a step. Every tongue that rises in judgement against Him, He condemns. The mother rebukes Him in Luke 2; but instead of making good her charge, she has to listen to Him convicting the darkness and error of her thoughts. Peter takes upon him to admonish Him: "This be far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee." But Peter has to learn, that it was Satan himself that in Peter prompted the admonition. The officer in the palace of the High Priest goes still further, correcting Him, and smiting Him on the cheek. But he is convicted of breaking the rules of judgment, in the very face and place of judgment.

All this tells us of the way of the perfect Master. Appearances might have been against Him at times. Why did He sleep in the boat when winds and waves were raging? Why did He loiter on the road when Jairus's daughter was dying? or why did He tarry where He was when His friend Lazarus was sick in the distant village of Bethany? But all this is but appearance, and that for a moment. We have heard of these ways of Jesus, this sleep, this loitering, and this tarrying, but we also see the end of Jesus, that all is perfect. Appearances were against the God of Job in patriarchal days. Messenger after messenger seemed too much, unrelenting, and inexorable; but the God of Job had not to excuse Himself, nor has the Jesus of the evangelists.

Therefore, when we look at the Lord Jesus as the lamp of the sanctuary, the light in the house of God, we find at once that the tongs and snuff-dishes cannot be used. They are discovered to have no counterpart in Him. Consequently, they who undertook to challenge or rebuke Him when He was here, had to go back rebuked and put to shame themselves. They were using the tongs or snuffers with a lamp which did not need them, and they only betrayed their folly; and the light of the lamp shone the brighter, not because the tongs had been used, but because it was able to give forth some fresh witness (which it did on every occasion) that it did not need them.

And from all these instances we have the happy lesson, that we had better stand by, and let Jesus go on with His business. We may look and worship, but not meddle or interrupt, as all these were wrong in their day — enemies, kinsfolk, and even disciples. They could not improve the light that was shining; they had only to be gladdened by it, and walk in it, and not attempt to trim or order it. Let our eye be single, and we may be sure the candle of the Lord, set on the candlestick, will make the whole body full of light.

But I pass on. And I may further observe, that as He did not excuse Himself to the judgment of man in the course of His ministry, as we have now seen, so in the hour of His weakness, when the powers of darkness were all against Him. He did not cast Himself on the pity of man. When He became the prisoner of the Jews and of the Gentiles, He did not entreat them or sue to them. No appeal to compassion, no pleading for life is heard. He had prayed to the Father in Gethsemane, but there is no seeking to move the Jewish high priest or the Roman governor. All that He says to man in that hour, is to expose the sin with which man, whether Jew or Gentile, was going through that hour.

What a picture! Who could have conceived such an object! It must have been exhibited ere it was described, as has been long since observed by others. It was the perfect Man, who once walked here in the fulness of moral glory, and whose reflections have been left by the Holy Ghost on the pages of the evangelists. And next to the simple, happy, earnest assurance of His personal love to ourselves (the Lord increase it in our hearts!) nothing more helps us to desire to be with Him, than this discovery of Himself. I have heard of one who, observing His bright and blessed ways in the Four Gospels, was filled with tears and affections, and was heard to cry out, "O that I were with Him! "

If one may speak for others, beloved, it is this we want, and it is this we covet. We know our need, but we can say, the Lord knows our desire.

The same preacher whom we quoted before, says, "There is a time to keep, and a time to cast away." (Ecc. 3: 6.) The Lord Jesus both kept and cast away, in the due season.

There is no waste in the services of the heart or the hand that worships God, be they as prodigal as they may. "All things come of thee," says David to the Lord, "and of thine own have we given thee."

The cattle on a thousand hills are His, and the fulness of the earth. But Pharaoh treated Israel's proposal to worship God as "idleness," and the disciples challenge the spending of three hundred pence on the body of Jesus as "waste." But to give the Lord His own, the honour or the sacrifice, the love of the heart, the labour of the hands, or the substance of the house, is neither idleness nor waste. It is chief work to render to God.

But here I would linger for a moment or two.

Renouncing Egypt is not idleness, nor is the breaking of a box of ointment on the head of Christ waste; though we thus see, that a certain kind of reckoning among the children of men, and even at times (and that too frequent) among the saints of God, would charge these things as such. Advantages in life are surrendered, opportunities of worldly promise are not used, because the heart has understood the path of companionship with a rejected Lord.

But this is "idleness" and "waste," many will say: the advantages might have been retained by the possessor, or the opportunities might have been sought and reached, and then used for the Lord. But such persons know not. Station, and the human, earthly influence that attaches to it, is commended by them, and treated almost as "a gift to be used for profit, and edification and blessing." But a rejected Christ, a Christ cast out by men, if known spiritually by the soul, would teach another lesson.

This station in life, these worldly advantages, these opportunities so commended, are the very Egypt which Moses renounced. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

The treasures of Egypt were not riches in his esteem, because he could not use them for the Lord. And he went outside of them, and the Lord met him there, and used him afterwards, not to accredit Egypt and its treasures, but to deliver His people out of it.

I follow this a little here, for it is, I feel, important to us.

All this renunciation, however, must be made in the understanding and faith of a rejected Lord; it will otherwise want all its fine, and genuine, and proper character. If it be made on a mere religious principle, as that of working out a righteousness or a title for ourselves, it may well be said to be something worse than idleness or waste. It then betrays an advantage which Satan has got over us, rather than any advantage we have got over the world. But if it be indeed made in the faith and love of a rejected Master, and in the sense and intelligence of His relation to this present evil world, it is worship.

To serve man at the expense of God's truth and principles is not Christianity, though persons who do so will be called "benefactors." Christianity considers the glory of God, as well as the blessing of man; but as far as we lose sight of this, so far shall we be tempted to call many things waste and idleness which are really holy, intelligent, consistent, and devoted service to Jesus. Indeed, it is so. The Lord's vindication of the woman who poured her treasure on the head of Jesus tells me so (Matt. 26.). We are to own God's glory in what we do, though men may refuse to sanction what does not advance the good order of the world, or provide for the good of our neighbour. But Jesus would know God's claims in this self-seeking world, while He recognized (very surely, as we may know), His neighbour's claim upon Himself.

He knew when to cast away, and when to keep. "Let her alone," He said of the woman who had been upbraided for breaking the box of spikenard on Him; "she hath wrought a good work on me." But after feeding the multitudes He would say, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."

This was observing the Divine rule, "There is a time to keep, and a time to cast away." If the prodigal service of the heart or hand in worship be no waste, the very crumbs of human food are sacred, and must not be cast away. He who vindicated the spending of 300 pence on one of these occasions, on the other would not let the fragments of three loaves be left on the ground. In His eyes, such fragments were sacred. They were the food of life, the herb of the field, which God had given to man for his life. And life is a sacred thing. God is the God of the living. "To you it shall be for meat," God has said of it, and therefore Jesus would hallow it. "The tree of the field is man's life," the law had said, and accordingly had thus prescribed to them that were under the law — "When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down to employ them in the siege: only the trees that thou knowest are not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down" (Deut. 20). It would have been waste, it would have been profanity, to have thus abused the food of life, which was God's gift. And Jesus in like purity, in the perfectness of God's living ordinance, would not let the fragments lie on the ground. "Gather up the fragments that remain," He said, "that nothing be lost."

These are but small incidents; but all the circumstances of human life, as He passes through them, change as they may, or be they as minute as they may, are thus adorned by something of the moral glory that was ever brightening the path of His sacred, wearied feet. The eye of man was incapable of tracking it; but to God it was all incense, a sacrifice of sweet savour, a sacrifice of rest, the meat offering of the sanctuary.

But again. The Lord did not judge of persons in relation to Himself, — a common fault with us all. We naturally judge of others according as they treat ourselves, and we make our interest in them the measure of their character and worth. But this was not the Lord. God is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. He understands every action fully. In all its moral meaning He understands it, and according to that He weighs it. And, as the image of the God of knowledge, we see our Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of His ministry here, again and again. I may refer to Luke 11. There was the air of courtesy and good feeling towards Him in the Pharisee that invited Him to dine. But the Lord was " the God of knowledge" and as such He weighed this action in its full moral character.

The honey of courtesy, which is the best ingredient in social life in this world, should not pervert His taste or judgment. He approved things that are excellent. The civility which invited Him to dinner was not to determine the judgment of Him who carried the weights and measures of the sanctuary of God. It is the God of knowledge that this civility has on this occasion to confront, and it does not stand, it will not do. O how the tracing of this may rebuke us! The invitation covered a purpose. As soon as the Lord entered the house, the host acts the Pharisee, and not the host. He marvels that his guest had not washed before dinner. And the character he thus assumes at the beginning shows itself in full force at the end. And the Lord deals with the whole scene accordingly; for He weighed it as the God of knowledge. Some may say, that the courtesy He had received might have kept Him silent. But He could not look on this man simply as in relation to Himself. He was not to be flattered out of a just judgement. He exposes and rebukes, and the end of the scene justifies Him. "And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many things, laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him."

Very different, however, was His way in the house of another Pharisee, who in like manner had asked Him to dine. (Luke 7) For Simon had no covered purpose in the invitation. Quite otherwise. He seemed to act the Pharisee too, silently accusing the poor sinner of the city, and his guest for admitting her approach. But appearances are not the ground of righteous judgments. Often the very same words, on different lips, have a different mind in them. And therefore the Lord, the perfect weighmaster according to God, though He may rebuke Simon, and expose him to himself, knows him by name, and leaves his house as a guest should leave it. He distinguishes the Pharisee of Luke 7 from the Pharisee of Luke 11, though He dined with both of them. So we may look at the Lord with Peter in Matthew 16. Peter expresses fond and considerate attachment to his Master: "This be far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee." But Jesus judged Peter's word's only in their moral place. Hard indeed we find it to do this when we are personally gratified. "Get thee behind me, Satan," was not the answer which a merely amiable nature would have suggested to such words. But again, I say, our Lord did not listen to Peter's words simply as they expressed personal kindness and goodwill to Himself. He judged them, he weighed them, as in the presence of God, and at once found that the enemy had moved them; for He that can transform Himself into an angel of light is very often lurking in words of courtesy and kindness. And in the same way the Lord dealt with Thomas in John 20. Thomas had just worshipped Him. "My Lord and my God," he had said. But Jesus was not to be drawn from the high moral elevation that He filled, and from whence He heard and saw everything, even by words like these. They were genuine words, words of a mind which, enlightened of God, had repented toward the risen Saviour, and, instead of doubting any longer, worshipped. But Thomas had stood out as long as he could. He had exceeded. They had all been unbelieving as to the resurrection, but he had insisted that he would be still in unbelief till sense and sight came to deliver him. All this had been his moral condition; and Jesus has this before Him, and puts Thomas in his right moral place, as He had put Peter. "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Our hearts in such cases as these would have been taken by surprise. They could not have kept their ground in the face of these assaults, which the good will of Peter and the worship of Thomas would have made upon them. But our perfect Master stood for God and His truth, and not for Himself. The ark of old was not to be flattered. Israel may honour it, and bring it down to the battle, telling it, as it were, that now in its presence all must be well with them. But this will not do for the God of Israel. Israel falls before the Philistines, though the ark be thus in the battle; and Peter and Thomas shall be rebuked, though Jesus, still the God of Israel, be honoured by them.

Angels have their joy over the repentance of sinners. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." It is happy to have this secret of heaven disclosed to us, and to read one illustration of it after another, as we do in Luke 15.

But there is something beyond this. The joy there, though in heaven, is public. It utters itself, and has companionship. Very proper that it should be so; very proper that the whole house should share it, and find it a common joy. But there is something beyond this. There is the joy of the Divine bosom, as well as this joy of heaven. John 4: 27-32 gives it to us, as Luke 15 gives us the public joy of heaven. And this joy of the Divine bosom, I need not say, is the deeper thing. It is full, silent, and personal. It asks not to be raised or sustained by others. "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," is the language of the heart of Christ, as He tasted this joy. The glory was filling the house, so that the ministers of the house must stand by for a time. The Shepherd had but just brought home the stray one of the flock, having laid it on His shoulders rejoicing, and as yet the joy was all His own. The household had not been called to rejoice with Him, when the woman left Him a saved and happy sinner. Disciples felt the character of the moment. They would not trespass. The fat reserved for the altar, the richest portion of the feast, "the food of God," was spread, and the disciples were silent, and stood apart. This was a wondrous moment — not many like it. The deep, unuttered joy of the Divine bosom is known here, as the public ecstatic joy of heaven is known in Luke 15.

But He that could be thus feasted was weary betimes, and hungry, and thirsting. This is seen in the same chapter, John 4; as again in Mark 4. But there is this difference in the two cases: He finds sleep for His relief and restoration in Mark 4. He is independent of it in John 4. And why was this? In Mark 4. He had gone through a day of toil, and in the evening He was weary, as nature will be after labour. "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening." (Ps. 104) Sleep is then provided for him, to restore him to his service when morning returns. Jesus proved all this. He was asleep on the pillow in the boat. In John 4 He is weary again, hungry and thirsty too He sits at the well, like a tired traveller, waiting till the disciples came from the neighbouring village with food. But when they come, they find Him feasted and rested, and that too without food, or drink, or sleep. His weariness had had another refreshment than what sleep would have brought Him. He had been made happy by fruit to His labour in the soul of a poor sinner. The woman had been sent away in the liberty of the salvation of God. But there had been no woman of Samaria in Mark 4, and He has therefore to use the pillow in His weariness.

But how true all this is to the sensibilities of our common humanity! We all understand it. The Lord's heart was merry, as I may say, in John 4; but there was nothing to make it merry in Mark 4. And we are taught to know (and our experience sets to its seal that the word is true) "that a merry heart doeth good like medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Prov. 17: 22.) So that the Master can say in the one case, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," while in the other, He will use the pillow which care for His weariness had provided.

How perfect in all its sympathies was the humanity the Son had assumed! Surely, indeed, it was the common humanity, apart from sin.

"Touched with a sympathy within,

He knows our feeble frame."

But again. There is a temptation in the time of confusion to cast up all as hopeless and gone; and to say, it is endless and needless to be still distinguishing. All is in disorder and apostacy; why then attempt to distinguish?

But this was not the Lord. He was in the confusion, but not of it, as He was in the world, but not of it, as we said before of Him. He met all sorts of people, in all sorts of conditions, heaps upon heaps, where all should have been compact together; but He held His even, narrow, unsoiled and undistracted way through it all. The pretensions of the Pharisee, the worldliness of the Herodian, the philosophy of the Sadducee, the fickleness of the multitude, the attempts of adversaries, and the ignorance and infirmities of disciples, were moral materials which He had to meet and answer every day.

And then the condition of things, as well as the characters of persons, exercised Him; the coin of Caesar circulating in Immanuel's land; partition walls all but in ruins; Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean, confounded, save as religious arrogance might still retain them after its own manner. But His one golden rule expressed the perfectness of His passage through all — "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." The remnant in the day of captivity, a like day of confusion, carried themselves beautifully, distinguishing things that differed, and not hopelessly casting all up. Daniel would advise the king, but not eat his meat: Nehemiah would serve in the palace, but not suffer the Moabite or the Ammonite in the house of the Lord: Mordecai would guard the king's life, but would not bow to the Amalekite: Ezra and Zerubbabel would accept favours from the Persian, but not Samaritan help nor Gentile marriages: and the captives would pray for the peace of Babylon, but would not sing Zion's songs there. All this was beautiful; and the Lord, in His day, was perfect in this remnant character. And all this has a voice for us; for ours is a day, in its character of confusion, not inferior to these days of the captives, or of Jesus. And we, like them, are not to act on the hopelessness of the scene, but know still how to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

All His moral beauty becomes a pattern to us. But then we see Him stand in God's relationship to evil also, and that is a place which, of course, we never could fill. He touched the leper, and He touched the bier, and yet He was undefiled. He had God's relationship to sin. He knew good and evil, but was in Divine supremacy over it; knowing such things as God knows them. Had He been other than He was, these touches of the bier and of the leper would have defiled Him. He must have been put outside the camp, and gone through the cleansing which the law prescribed. But nothing of this kind do we see in Him. He was not an unclean Jew; He was not merely undefiled, He was undefileable; and yet, such was the mystery of His person, such the perfection of the Manhood in company with the Godhead in Him, that the temptation was as real in Him as was the undefileableness.

But we pause. Our place towards much of this needed, though mysterious and deeply precious truth, is to receive it and worship, rather than to discuss and analyse it. [His death, I may here take occasion to say, was the perfecting of His moral glory, of which I speak. (Phil. 2.) Of course, I know it was a great deal more than that also. But, among other things, it was that.] It is happy, however, to one's own spirit, to mark the yearnings of some souls, who give you the impression that it is Himself that is before them. We ofttimes traffic with truths in such wise as in the end leaves with us a rebuking conviction that we did not reach Himself, though so occupied. We find out that we had been loitering in the avenue.

The Lord was "poor, yet making rich," — "having nothing, and yet possessing all things." These high and wondrous conditions were exhibited in Him, in ways that were and must have been peculiar — altogether His own. He would receive ministry from some godly women out of their substance, and yet minister to the need of all around Him out of the treasures of the fulness of the earth. He would feed thousands in desert places, and yet be Himself an hungered, waiting for the return of His disciples with victuals from a neighbouring village. This is "having nothing, and yet possessing all things." But while thus poor, both needy and exposed nothing that in the least savoured of meanness is ever seen attaching to His condition. He never begs, though He have not a penny; for when He wanted to see one (not to use it for Himself) He had to ask to be shown it. He never runs away, though exposed, and His life jeoparded, as we speak, in the place where He was. He withdraws Himself, or passes by as hidden. And thus, again, I may say, nothing mean, nothing unbecoming, full personal dignity attaches to Him, though poverty and exposure were His lot every day.

Blessed and beautiful! Who could preserve under our eye such an Object, so perfect, so unblemished, so exquisitely, delicately pure, in all the minute and most ordinary details of human life! Paul does not give us this. None could give it to us but Jesus, the God-Man. The peculiarities of His virtues in the midst of the ordinariness of His circumstances tell us of His Person. It must be a peculiar Person, it must be the divine Man, if I may so express Him, that could give us such peculiarities in such common-place conditions. Paul does not give us anything like it, again I say. There was great dignity and moral elevation about him, I know. If any one may be received as exhibiting that, let us agree that it was he. But his path is not that of Jesus. He is in danger of his life, and he uses his nephew to protect him. Again, his friends let him down the wall of the town in a basket. I do not say he begs or asks for it, but he acknowledges money sent to him. I say not how Paul avowed himself a Pharisee in the mixed assembly, in order to shelter himself; or how he spake evil of the high priest that was judging him. Such conduct was morally wrong; and I am speaking here only of such cases as were, though not morally wrong, below the full personal and moral dignity that marks the way of Christ. Nor is the flight into Egypt, as it is called, an exception in this characteristic of the Lord; for that journey was taken to fulfil prophecy, and under the authority of a divine oracle.

But all this is really, not only moral glory, but it is a moral wonder — marvellous how the pen that was held by a human hand could ever have delineated such beauties. We are to account for it, as has been observed before and by others, only by its being a truth, a living reality. We are shut up to that blessed necessity. Still further, as we go on with this blessed truth, it is written: "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." Our words should prove themselves as thus, always with grace, by ministering good to others, "grace to the hearers." This, however, will often be in the pungency of admonition or rebuke; and at times with decision or severity, even with indignation and zeal; and thus they will be "seasoned with salt," as the Scripture speaks. And having these fine qualities, being gracious and yet salted, they will bear witness that we know how to answer every man.

Among all other forms of it, the Lord Jesus illustrated this form of moral perfectness. He knew how to answer every man, as with words which were always to his soul's profit, whether men would hear, or whether they would forbear, but at times seasoned, nay, seasoned highly with salt.

Thus, in answering inquiries, He did not so much purpose to satisfy them, as to reach the conscience or the condition of the inquirer.

In His silence, or refusal to answer at all, when He stood before the Jew or the Gentile at the end, before either the priests, or Pilate, or Herod, we can trace the same perfect fitness as we do in His words or answers; witnessing to God, that at least One among the sons of men knew "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak."

Great variety in His very tone and manner also presents itself in all this; and all this variety, minute as it was as well as great, was part of this fragrance before God. Sometimes His word was gentle, sometimes peremptory; sometimes He reasons; sometimes He rebukes at once; and sometimes conducts calm reasoning up to the heated point of solemn condemnation; for it is the moral of the occasion He always weighs.

Matthew 15 has struck me as a chapter in which this perfection, in much of its various beauty and excellency may be seen. In the course of it, the Lord is called to answer the Pharisees, the multitude, the poor afflicted stranger from the coasts of Tyre, and His own disciples, again and again, in their different exposure of either their stupidity or their selfishness; and we may notice His different style of rebuke and of reasoning, of calm, patient teaching, and of faithful, wise, and gracious training of the soul: and we cannot but feel how fitting all this variety was to the place or occasion that called it forth. And such was the beauty and the fitness of His neither teaching nor learning, in Luke 2, but only hearing and asking questions. To have taught then would not have been in season, a child as He was in the midst of His elders. To have learnt would not have been in full fidelity to the light, the eminent and bright light, which He knew He carried in Himself; for we may surely say of Him, "He was wiser than the ancients, and had more understanding than His teachers." I do not mean as God, but as One "filled with wisdom," as was then said of Him. But He knew in the perfection of grace how to use this fulness of wisdom, and He is, therefore, not presented to us by the evangelist in the midst of the doctors in the temple at the age of twelve, either teaching or learning; but it is simply said of Him, that He was "hearing and asking questions." "Strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God upon Him," is the description of Him then, as He grew up in tender years; and when a Man, conversing in the world, His speech was always with grace, seasoned with salt, as of one who knew how to answer every man. What perfection and beauty suited to the different seasons of childhood and manhood!

And further. We find Him, besides this, also in various other conditions. At times He is slighted and scorned, watched and hated by adversaries, retiring, as it were, to save His life from their attempts and purposes. At times He is weak, followed only by the poorest of the people; wearied, too, and hungry and athirst, debtor to the service of some loving women, who felt as though they owed Him everything. At times He is compassionating the multitude in all gentleness, or companying with His disciples in their repasts or in their journeying, conversing with them as a man would with his friends. At times He is in strength and honour before us, doing wonders, letting out some rays of glory; and though in His person and circumstances nothing and nobody in the world, a carpenter's son, without learning or fortune, yet making a greater stir among men, and that, too, at times in the thoughts of the ruling ones on earth, than man ever made.

Childhood, and manhood, and human life in all its variousness, thus gives Him to us. Would that the heart could hold Him! There is a perfection in some of the minute features that tell of the Divine hand that was delineating them. Awkward work would any penman, unkept, unguided by the Spirit, have made of certain occasions where these strokes and touches are seen. As when the Lord wanted to comment on the current money of the land, He asked to be shown it, and does not find it about Himself. Indeed, we may be sure He carried none of it. Thus, the moral beauties of the action, flowed from the moral perfection of His condition within.

He asked His disciples in the hour of Gethsemane, to watch with Him; but He did not ask them to pray for Him. He would claim sympathy. He prized it in the hour of weakness and pressure, and would have the hearts of His companions bound to Him then. Such a desire was of the moral glory that formed the human perfection that was in Him; but while He felt this and did this, He could not ask them to stand as in the Divine presence on His behalf. He would have them give themselves to Him, but He could not seek them to give themselves to God for Him. Thus, He asked them again, I say, to watch with Him, but He did not ask them to pray for Him. When shortly or immediately afterwards, He linked praying and watching together, it was of themselves and for themselves He spoke, saying, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Paul could say to his fellow-saints, "Ye also helping together by prayer to God for us: pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience." But such was not the language of Jesus. I need not say, it could not have been; but the pen that writes for us such a life, and delineates for us such a character, is held by the Spirit of God. None other than the Spirit could write thus.

He did good, and lent, hoping for nothing again. He gave, and His left hand did not know what His right hand was doing. Never in one single instance, as I believe, did He claim either the person or the service of those whom He restored and delivered. He never made the deliverance He wrought a title to service. Jesus loved, and healed, and saved, looking for nothing again. He would not let Legion, the Gadarene, be with Him. The child at the foot of the mount, He delivered back to his father. The daughter of Jairus He left in the bosom of her family. The widow's son at Nain He restores to his mother. He claims none of them. Does Christ give, in order that He may receive again? Does He not (perfect Master!) illustrate His own principle — "Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again"? The nature of grace is to impart to others, not to enrich itself: and He came, that in Him and His ways, it might shine in all the exceeding riches and glory that belong to it. He found servants in this world; but He did not first heal them, and then claim them. He called them, and endowed them. They were the fruit of the energy of His Spirit, and of affections kindled in hearts constrained by His love. And sending them forth, He said to them, "Freely ye have received, freely give." Surely there is something beyond human conception in the delineation of such a character. One repeats that thought again and again. And very happy it is to add, that it is in the very simplest forms this moral glory of the Lord shines forth at times — such forms as are at once intelligible to all the perceptions and sympathies of the heart. Thus He never refused the feeblest faith, though He accepted and answered, and that too with delight, the approaches and demands of the boldest.

The strong faith, which drew upon Him without ceremony or apology, in full immediate assurance, was ever welcome to Him; while the timid soul, that approached Him, as one that was ashamed and would excuse itself, was encouraged and blessed. His lips at once bore away from the heart of the poor leper the one only thing that hung over that heart as a cloud. "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," said he. "I will; be thou clean," said Jesus. But immediately afterwards the same lips uttered the fulness of the heart, when the clear, unquestioning faith of the Gentile centurion was witnessed, and when the bold, earnest faith of a family in Israel broke up the roof of the house where He was, that they might let down their sick one before Him.

When a weak faith appealed to the Lord, He granted the blessing it sought, but He rebuked the seeker. But even this rebuke is full of comfort to us; for it seems to say, "Why did you not make freer, fuller, happier use of me?" Did we value the Giver, as we do the gift, — the heart of Christ as well as His hand, this rebuke of weak faith would be just as welcome as the answer to it.

And if little faith be thus reproved, strong faith must be grateful. And therefore we have reason to know what a fine sight was under the eye of the Lord, when, in that case already looked at, they broke up the roof of the house in order to reach Him. It was indeed, right sure I am, a grand spectacle for the eye of the Divine and bounteous Jesus. His heart was entered by that action, as surely as the house in Capernaum was entered by it.

We see glories and humilities in our Redeemer; we do indeed; for we need each.

The One who sat on the well in Sychar, is He who now sits on high in heaven. He that ascended is He that descended. Dignities and condescensions are with Him; — a seat at the right hand of God, and yet a stooping to wash the feet of His saints here. What a combination! No abatement of His honours, though suiting Himself to our poverty: nothing wanting that can serve us, though glorious, and stainless, and complete in Himself.

Selfishness is wearied by trespass and importunity. "He will not rise because he is his friend; but because of his importunity he will rise and give him as much as he needeth." Thus it is with man, or selfishness; it is otherwise with God, or love; for God, in Isaiah 7, is the contradiction of man in Luke 11.

It is the unbelief, that would not draw on Him, that refused to ask a blessing, and get it with a seal and a witness, that wearies God — not importunity, but, as I may say, the absence of it. And all this divine blessedness and excellency, which is thus seen in the Jehovah of the house of David in Isaiah 7 reappears in the Lord Jesus Christ of the Evangelists, and in His different dealing with weak faith and full faith.

All these things that we are able to discover, bespeak His perfections; but how small a part of them do we reach!

We are aware in how many different ways our fellow-disciples try and tempt us, as, no doubt, we do them. We see, or we fancy we see, some bad quality in them, and we find it hard to go on in further company with them. And yet in all this, or in much of it, the fault may be with ourselves, mistaking a want of conformity of taste or judgment with ourselves, for something to be condemned in them.

But the Lord could not be thus mistaken; and yet He was never "overcome of evil," but was ever "overcoming evil with good," — the evil that was in them with the good that was in Himself. Vanity, ill-temper, indifference about others, and carefulness about themselves, ignorance after painstaking to instruct, were of the things in them which He had to suffer continually. His walk with them, in its ways and measure, was a day of provocation, as the forty years in the wilderness had been. Israel again tempted the Lord, I may say, but again proved Him. Blessed to tell it; they provoked Him, but by this they proved Him. He suffered, but He took it patiently. He never gave them up. He warned and taught, rebuked and condemned them, but never gave them up. Nay; at the end of their walk together, He is nearer to them than ever.

Perfect and excellent this is, and comforting to us The Lord's dealing with the conscience never touches His heart. We lose nothing by His rebukes. And He who does not withdraw His heart from us when He is dealing with our conscience, is quick to restore our souls, that the conscience, so to express it, may be enabled soon to leave His school, and the heart find its happy freedom in His presence again. As expressed in that hymn which some of us know —

"Still sweet 'tis to discover

If clouds have dimm'd my sight,

When pass'd, Eternal Lover,

Toward me, as ever, thou'rt bright."

And I would further notice, that in the characters which, in the course of His ministry, He is called to take up (it may be for only an occasion, or a passing moment), we see the same perfection, the same moral glory, as in the path He treads daily As, for instance, that of a Judge, as in Matt. 23, and that of an Advocate or Pleader in Matt 22. But I only suggest this: the theme is too abundant. Every step, word, and action, carries with it a ray of this glory; and the eye of God had more to fill it in the life of Jesus, than it would have had in all eternity of Adam's innocence It was in the midst of our moral ruin Jesus walked; and from such a region as that, He has sent up to the throne on high, a richer sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour than Eden, and the Adam of Eden, had it continued unsoiled for ever, would or could have rendered. Time made no change in the Lord. Kindred instances of grace and character in Him, before and after His resurrection, give us possession of this truth which is of such importance to us. We know what He is this moment, and what He will be for ever from what He has already been — in character as in nature — in relationship to us, as well as in Himself, "the same yesterday, today, and for ever." The very mention of this is blessed. Sometimes we may be grieved at changes, sometimes we may desire them. In different ways we all prove the fickle, uncertain nature of that which constitutes human life. Not only circumstances, which are changeful to a proverb, but associations, friendships, affections, characters, continually undergo variations which surprise and sadden us. We are hurried from stage to stage of life; but unchilled affections and unsullied principles are rarely borne along with us, either in ourselves or our companions. But Jesus was the same after His resurrection as He had been before, though late events had put Him and His disciples at a greater distance than companions had ever known, or could ever know. They had betrayed their unfaithful hearts, forsaking Him and fleeing in the hour of His weakness and need: while He for their sakes had gone through death — such a death as never could have been borne by another, as would have crushed the creature itself. They were still but poor, feeble Galileans, — He was glorified with all power in heaven and on earth.

But these things worked no change; "nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," as the apostle speaks, could do that. Love defies them all, and He returns to them the Jesus whom they had known before. He is their companion in labour after His resurrection, nay, after His ascension. as He had been in the days of His ministry and sojourn with them. This we learn in the last verse of Mark. On the sea, in the day of Matt. 14, they thought that they saw a spirit, and cried out for fear; but the Lord gave them to know that it was He Himself that was there, near to them, and in grace, though in Divine strength and sovereignty over nature. And so in Luke 24, or after He was risen, He takes the honey-comb and the fish, and eats before them, that with like certainty and ease of heart they might know it was He Himself. And He would have them handle Him, and see; telling them, that a spirit had not flesh and bones, as they might then prove that He had.

In John 3 He led a slow-hearted Rabbi into the light and way of truth, bearing with him in all patient grace. And thus did He again in Luke 24, after that He was risen, with the two slow-hearted ones who were finding their way home to Emmaus.

In Mark 4 He allayed the fears of His people ere He rebuked their unbelief. He said to the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still," before He said to the disciples, "How is it that ye have no faith?" And thus did He, as the risen One, in John 21. He sits and dines with Peter, in full and free fellowship, as without a breach in the spirit, ere He challenges him and awakens his conscience by the words, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?"

The risen Jesus, who appeared to Mary Magdalene, the evangelist takes care to tell us, was He who in other days had cast seven devils out of her — and she herself knew the voice that then called her by her name, as a voice that her ear had long been familiar with. What identity between the humbled and the glorified One, the healer of sinners and the Lord of the world to come! How all tell us, that in character as in divine personal glory, He that descended is the same also that ascended. John, too, in company with his risen Lord, is recognized as the one who had leaned on His bosom at the supper. "I am Jesus," was the answer from the ascended place, the very highest place in heaven, the right hand of the throne of the majesty there, when Saul of Tarsus demanded, "Who art thou, Lord?" (Acts 9.) And all this is so individual and personal in its application to us. It is our own very selves that are interested in this. Peter, for himself, knows his Master, the same to him before and after the resurrection. In Matt. 16 the Lord rebukes him; but shortly after takes him up to the hill with Him, with as full freedom of heart as if nothing had happened. And so with the same Peter, — in John 21 he is again rebuked. He had been busy, as was his way, meddling with what was beyond him. "Lord, what shall this man do?" says he, looking at John, — and his Master has again to rebuke him "What is that to thee?" But again, as in the face of this rebuke, sharp and peremptory as it was, the Lord immediately afterwards has him, together with John in His train, or in His company up to heaven. It was a rebuked Peter who had once gone with the Lord to the holy mount: and it is a rebuked Peter, the same rebuked Peter, who now goes with the Lord to heaven; or, if we please, to the hill of glory the mount of transfiguration, a second time. [Some seem to judge that it was deep love in Peter to John, that led him to ask the Lord about him. I deny that.]

Full indeed of strong consolation is all this. This is Jesus our Lord, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; the same in the day of His ministry, after His resurrection, now in the ascended heavens, and so for ever. And as He sustains the same character, and approves Himself by the same grace after as before the resurrection, so does He redeem all His pledges left with His disciples.

Whether it be on His own lips, or on the lips of His angels, it is still now as then, since He rose as before He suffered, "Fear not." He had spoken to His disciples before of giving them His peace; and we find He does this afterwards in the most emphatic manner. He pronounces "peace" upon them in the day of John 20; and having done so, shows them His hands and His side; where, as in symbolic language, they might read their title to a peace wrought out and purchased for them by Himself, His peace, entirely His own, as procured only by Himself, and now theirs by indefeasible, unchangeable title.

In earlier days, the Lord said to them, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" and now in risen days, in the days of the risen Man, in possession of victorious life, He imparts that life to them in the most full and perfect measure of it, breathing on them, and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost."

The world was not to see Him again, as He had also said to them; but they were to see Him. And so it comes to pass. He was seen of them for forty days, and He spake to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. But this was all in secret: the world has not seen Him since the hour of Calvary, nor will they, till they see Him in judgment.

As a humbler, lowlier witness of His full fidelity to all His pledges, we may observe, He meets His people in Galilee as He had promised them. As a larger expression of the same, I may also observe, He takes them to the Father in heaven, as He had also promised them, sending a message to them, that He was ascending to His Father and to their Father, to His God and to their God. And thus, whether it was in our Galilee on earth, or in His own home in heaven, that His presence had been pledged to them, both are alike made good to them. And well may we meditate on the condescendings, the faithfulness, the fulness, the simplicity, the greatness, the elevation, of all that forms and marks His path before us. The Lord had very much to do with Peter, beyond any of the disciples while He was ministering in the midst of them, and we find it the same after He rose from the dead. Peter is the one to occupy, as I may say, the whole of the last chapter in John. There the Lord carries on with him the gracious work He had begun ere He left him, and carries it on exactly from the point where He left it. Peter had betrayed special self-confidence. Though all should be offended, yet would not he, he said; and though he should die with his Master, he would not deny Him. But his Master had told him of the vanity of such boasts, and had told him also of His prayer for him, so that his faith should not fail. And when the boast was found to have been indeed a vanity, and Peter denied his Lord, even with an oath, his Lord looked on him, and this look had its blessed operation. The prayer and the look had availed. The prayer had kept his faith from failing, but the look had broken his heart. Peter did not "go away," but Peter wept, and "wept bitterly." At the opening of this chapter, we find Peter in this condition — in the condition in which the prayer and the look had put him. That his faith had not failed, he is enabled to give very sweet proof; for as soon as he learns that it was his Lord who was on the shore, he threw himself into the water to reach Him; not, however, as a penitent, as though he had not already wept, but as one that could trust himself to His presence in full assurance of heart. And in that character his most blessed and gracious Lord accepts him, and they dine together on the shore. The prayer and the look had thus already done their work with Peter, and they are not to be repeated. The Lord simply goes on with His work thus begun, to conduct it to its perfection. Accordingly, the prayer and the look are now followed by the word. Restoration follows conviction and tears. Peter is put into the place of strengthening his brethren, as his Lord had once said to him; and also into the place of glorifying God by his death, a privilege he had forfeited by his unbelief and denial.

This was the word of restoration, following the prayer which had already sustained Peter's faith, and the look which had already broken his heart. He had in the day of John 13 taught this same loved Peter, that a washed man need not be washed again, save only his feet; and exactly in this way He now deals with him. He does not put him again through the process of Luke 5, when the draught of fishes overwhelmed him, and he found out that he was a sinner; but He does wash his soiled feet. He restores him, and puts Himself in His due place again. (John 21: 15-17.)

Perfect Master! the same to us yesterday, to-day and for ever; the same in gracious, perfect skill of love, going on with the work He had already begun, resuming, as the risen Lord, the service which He had left unfinished when He was taken from them, resuming it at the very point, knitting the past to the present service, in the fullest grace and skill!

And a little further still, as to His redeeming His pledges and promises. There was a very distinguished one which He gave them after He had risen. I mean, what He calls "the promise of the Father," and "power from on high." This promise was made to them in the day of Luke 24, after He had risen, and it was fulfilled to them in the day of Acts 2, after He had ascended and was glorified .

Surely this only continues the story and the testimony of His faithfulness. All witness for Him, — His life ere He suffered, His resurrection intercourses with His disciples, and now what He has done since He ascended, — that no variableness neither shadow of turning is found in Him.

And I would not pass another instance of this, which we get again in Luke 24. The risen Lord there recognises the very place in which He had left His disciples in His earlier instructions. "These are the words," says He, "which I spake unto you when I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." He thus reminds them that He had already told them, that Scripture was the great witness of the Divine mind, that all found written there must surely be accomplished here. And now what does He do? That which is the simple, consistent following out of this His previous teaching. "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." His power now knits itself with His instructions before. He is making good in them what He had already communicated to them. [To our comfort, I may add, that after He had risen, He never once reminded His disciples of their late desertion of Him in the hour of His sorrow]

But even further, in some sense, the very style and spirit of this intercourse with His disciples during that interval of forty days is still the same. He knows them then by name, as He had before. He manifests Himself to them by the same methods. He was the host at the table, though bidden there only as a guest, a second time, or after, as before, His resurrection (John 2; Luke 24); and in the deep sense and apprehension of their souls they treat His presence as the same. On returning to Him at the well of Sychar in John 4, they would not intrude, but tread softly. And so on their reaching Him after the draught of fishes, in John 21, they tread softly again, judging a second time, from the character of the moment, that their words must be few, though their hearts were filled with wonder and joy.

What links, tender and yet strong, are thus formed between Him who has been already known to us in the daily walks of human life, and Him who is to be known to us for ever! He came down first into our circumstances, and then He takes us unto His. But in ours we have learnt Him, and learnt Him for ever. This is a very happy truth. Peter witnesses it to us. I have looked at this scene already with another intent. I must now give it a second look.

At the draught of fishes in Luke 5, or before the resurrection, Peter was convicted. The fisherman Peter, in his own eyes, became the sinner Peter. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." The draught of fishes (giving proof that the stranger who had asked for the loan of his boat was the Lord of the fulness of the sea) had brought Peter, in spirit, into the presence of God, and there he learnt himself. We never, indeed, learn that lesson anywhere else. But the Lord at that moment, as from the glory, spoke comfortably to him. He had said, "Fear not," and Peter was at ease. The glory or the presence of God had now a home for him as well as conviction, and Peter is in full quietness of heart before the Lord. And accordingly, at the second draught of fishes, in John 21, after the resurrection, Peter was still at ease, and had only to practice the lesson which he had already learnt. And he does so. He experiences the presence of the Lord of glory to be a home for him. He proves in himself, and witnesses to us, that what he had learnt of Jesus he had learnt for ever. He did not know the Stranger on the shore to be Jesus; but when John revealed that fact to him, the Stranger was a stranger to him no more but the sooner and the nearer he could get to Him the better.

What further consolation is this! If it be joy to know that He is the same, whether here or there, —  whether in our world or in His own world, — in our ruined circumstances, or in His own glorious circumstances, — what further joy is it to see one of ourselves, as Peter was, experiencing the blessedness of such a fact in his own spirit!

Jesus — the same, indeed — faithful and true! All the pledges He had given them ere He suffered, He makes good after He rose: all the character He had sustained in the midst of them then, He sustains now.

The Lord was continually giving, but He was rarely assenting. He made great communications where He found but little communion. This magnifies or illustrates His goodness. There was, as it were, nothing to draw Him forth, and yet He was ever imparting. He was as the Father in heaven, of whom He Himself spoke, making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending His rain on the just and the unjust. This tells us what He is, to His praise — what we are, to our shame.

But He was not only thus, as the Father in heaven, the reflection of such a One in His doings, but He was also in this world as "the unknown God," as Paul speaks. The darkness did not comprehend Him; the world, neither by its religion nor its wisdom, knew Him. The rich aboundings of His grace, the purity of His kingdom, the foundation and title upon which the glory He sought in such a world as this alone could rest, were all strangers to the thoughts of the children of men. All this is seen in the deep moral mistakes they were continually making. When, for instance, the multitude was exceedingly hailing the King and the kingdom in His person, in Luke 19, "Master, rebuke thy disciples," the Pharisees say. They would not brook the thought of the throne belonging to such a One. It was presumption in Him, Jesus of Nazareth as He was, to allow the royal joy to surround Him. They knew not — they had not learnt — the secret of true honour in this false, fallen world of ours. They had not learnt the mystery of "a root out of a dry ground," nor had they in spirit perceived " the arm of the Lord." (Isa. 53.) It was where His own Spirit led, that discoveries were made of Him, and such are very sweet, and various, too, in their measure.

In Mark 1 His ministry, in its grace and power, is used by many. People under all kinds of diseases come to Him, congregations listen to Him, and own the authority with which He spake. A leper brings his leprosy to Him, thereby apprehending Him as the God of Israel. In different measures, there was then some knowledge of Him, either who He was, or what He had; but when we enter Mark 2, we get knowledge of Him expressing itself in a brighter, richer way: we get samples of the faith that understood Him; and this is the deeper thing.

The company at Capernaum, who bring their palsied friend to Him, understand Him, as well as use Him; understand Him, I mean, in Himself, in His character, in the habits and tastes of His mind. The very style in which they reach Him to get at Him tells us this. It was not approaching as though they were reserved, and doubtful, and overawed. It was more: "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me" — a thing more welcome to Him, more according to the way that love would have us take. They ask no leave, they use no ceremony, but they break up the roof of the house, that they may reach Him; all this telling us that they knew Him as well as used Him; knew that He delighted in having His grace trusted and His power used by our necessities without reserve. So Levi, shortly afterwards, in the same chapter. He makes a feast and seats publicans and others at it, in company with Jesus. And this, in like manner, tells us that Levi knew Him. He knew whom he entertained, as Paul tells us he knew whom he believed.

This knowledge of the Lord is truly blessed! It is divine! Flesh and blood does not give it, His kinsfolk had it not. They said of Him, when He was spending Himself in service, "He is beside himself." But faith makes great discoveries of Him, and acts upon such discoveries. It may seem to carry us beyond due bounds at times, beyond the things that are orderly and well measured; but in God's esteem it never does. The multitude tell Bartimeus to hold his peace, but he will not; for he knows Jesus as Levi knows Him.

It is His full work that we are not prepared for, and yet therein is its glory. He meets us in all our need, but, at the same time, He brings God in. He healed the sick, but He preached the kingdom also. This, however, did not suit man, Strange this may appear, for man knows full well how to value his own advantages. He knows the joy of the restored nature. But such is the enmity of the carnal mind against God, that if blessing come in company with the presence of God, it will not receive a welcome. And from Christ, it could not come in any other way. He will glorify God as well as relieve the sinner. God has been dishonoured in this world, as man has been ruined in it — self-ruined; and the Lord, the repairer of the breach, is doing a perfect work — vindicating the Name and truth of God, declaring His kingdom and its rights, and manifesting His glory, just as much as He is redeeming and quickening the lost, dead sinner.

This will not do for man. He would be well taken care of himself, and let the glory of God fare as it may. Such is man. But when, through faith, any poor sinner is otherwise minded, and can indeed rejoice in the glory of God, very beautiful is the sight. And we see such a one in the Syro-Phoenician. The glory of the ministry of Christ addressed itself to her soul brightly and powerfully. Apparently, in spite of her grief, the Lord Jesus asserts God's principles, and, as a stranger, He passes her by. "I am not sent," He says, "but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel . . . It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs." But she bows, she owns the Lord as the steward of the truth of God, and would not for a moment suppose that He would surrender that trust (the truth and principles of God) to her and her necessities. She would have God be glorified according to His own counsels, and the servant of the divine good pleasure, be it to herself as it may. "Truth, Lord," she answers, vindicating all that He had said; but, in full consistency with it, she adds, "yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs."

All this is lovely — the fruit of divine light in her soul. The mother in Luke 2 is quite below this Gentile woman in Mark 7. She did not know that Jesus was to be about His Father's business, but this stranger knew that that was the very business He was always to be about. She would let God's way, in the faithful hand of Christ, be exalted, though she herself were thereby set aside, even in her sorrows.

This was knowledge of Him indeed; this was accepting Him in His full work, as One who stood for God in a world that had rebelled against Him, as well as for the poor worthless sinner that had destroyed himself.

It is not well to be always understood. Our ways and habits should be those of strangers, citizens of a foreign country, whose language and laws, and customs are but poorly known here. Flesh and blood cannot appreciate them, and therefore it is not well with the saints of God when the world understands them.

His kinsfolk were ignorant of Jesus. Did the mother know Him when she wanted Him to display His power, and provide wine for the feast? Did His brethren know Him when they said to Him, "If thou do these things, show thyself to the world." What a thought! an endeavour to lead the Lord Jesus to make Himself, as we say, "a man of the world!" Could there have been knowledge of Him in the hearts which indited such a thought as that? Most distant, indeed, from such knowledge they were, and therefore it is immediately added by the evangelist, "for neither did his brethren believe in him." (John 7) They understood His power, by not His principles; for, after the manner of men, they connect the possession of power or talents with the serving of a man's interest in the world.

But Jesus was the contradiction of this, as I need not say; and the worldly-minded kindred in the flesh could not understand Him. His principles were foreign to such a world. They were despised, as was David's dancing before the ark in the thoughts of a daughter of king Saul.

But what attractiveness there would have been in Him for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit! This is witnessed to us by the apostles. They knew but little about Him doctrinally, and they got nothing by remaining with Him — I mean nothing in this world. Their condition in the world was anything but improved by their walking with Him; and it cannot be said that they availed themselves of His miraculous power. Indeed, they questioned it rather than used it. And yet they clung to Him. They did not company with Him, because they eyed Him as the full and ready storehouse of all provisions for them. On no one occasion, I believe we may say, did they use the power that was in Him for themselves. And yet, there they were with Him, — troubled when He talked of leaving, and found weeping when they thought they had indeed lost Him.

Surely, we may again say, What attractiveness there must have been in Him, for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit or drawn by the Father! And with what authority one look or one word from Him would enter at times! We see this in Matthew. That one word on the Lord's lips, "Follow me!" was enough. And this authority and this attractiveness was felt by men of the most opposite temperaments. The slow-hearted, reasoning Thomas, and the ardent, uncalculating Peter, were alike kept near and around this wondrous centre. Even Thomas would breathe in that presence the spirit of the earnest Peter, and say under force of this attraction, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Shall we not say, What will it be to see and feel all this by and by in its perfection! when all gathered from every clime, and colour, and character, of the wide-spread human family — all nations, kindreds, peoples, and tongues, are with Him and around Him in a world worthy of Him! We may dwell, in memory, on these samples of His preciousness to hearts like our own, and welcome them as pledges of that which, in hope, is ours as well as theirs.

The light of God shines at times before us, leaving us, as we may have power, to discern it, to enjoy it, to use it, to follow it. It does not so much challenge us or exact of us; but, as I said, it shines before us, that we may reflect it, if we have grace. We see it doing its work after this manner in the early church at Jerusalem The light of God there exacted nothing. It shone brightly and powerfully; but that was all. Peter spoke the language of that light, when he said to Ananias, "While it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? " It had made no demands upon Ananias, it simply shone in its beauty beside him or before him, that he might walk in it according to his measure. And such, in a great sense, is the moral glory of the Lord Jesus. Our first duty to that light is to learn from it what He is. We are not to begin by anxiously and painfully measuring ourselves by it, but by calmly. and happily, and thankfully learning Him in all His perfect moral humanity. And surely this glory is departed! There is no living image of it here. We have its record in the evangelists, but not its reflection anywhere.

But having its record, we may say, as one of our own poets has said,

"There has one Object been disclosed on earth

That might commend the place: but now 'tis gone:

Jesus is with the Father."

But though not here, beloved, He is just what He was. We are to know Him as it were by memory; and memory has no capacity to weave fictions; memory can only turn over living truthful pages. And thus we know Him for His own eternity. In an eminent sense, the disciples knew Him personally. It was His person, His presence, Himself, that was their attraction. And if one may speak for others, it is more of this we need. We may be busy in acquainting ourselves with truths about Him, and are may make proficiency that way; but with all our knowledge, and with all the disciples' ignorance, they may leave us far behind in the power of a commanding affection towards Himself. And surely, beloved, we will not refuse to say, that it is well when the heart is drawn by Him beyond what the knowledge we have of Him may account for. It tells us that He Himself has been rightly apprehended. And there are simple souls still that exhibit this; but generally it is not so. Now-a-days, our light, our acquaintance with truth, is beyond the measure of the answer of our heart to Himself. And it is painful to us, if we have any just sensibilities at all, to discover this.

"The prerogative of our Christian faith," says one, "the secret of its strength is this, that all which it has, and all which it offers, is laid up in a Person. This is what has made it strong, while so much else has proved weak; that it has a Christ as its middle point, that it has not a circumference without a centre; that it has not merely deliverance, but a deliverer; not redemption only, but a redeemer as well. This is what makes it fit for wayfaring men. This is what makes it sunlight, and all else, when compared with it, but as moonlight; fair it may be, but cold and ineffectual, while here the light and the life are one." And again he says, "And, oh, how great the difference between submitting ourselves to a complex of rules, and casting ourselves upon a beating heart, between accepting a system, and cleaving to a person. Our blessedness — and let us not miss it — is, that our treasures are treasured in a Person, who is not for one generation a present teacher and a living Lord, and then for all succeeding generations a past and a dead one, but who is present and living for all." Good words, and seasonable words, I judge indeed, I may say these are.

A great combination of like moral glories in the Lord's ministry may be traced, as well as in His character. And in ministry we may look at Him in relation to God, to Satan, and to man. As to God, the Lord Jesus, in His own person and ways, was always representing man to God, as God would have him. He was rendering back human nature as a sacrifice of rest, or of sweet savour, as incense pure and fragrant, as a sheaf of untainted firstfruits out of the human soil. He restored to God His complacency in man, which sin or Adam had taken from Him. God's repentance that He had made man (Gen. 6: 6) was exchanged for delight and glory in man again. And this offering was made to God in the midst of all contradictions, all opposing circumstances, sorrows, fatigues, necessities, and heart-breaking disappointments. Wondrous altar! wondrous offering! A richer sacrifice it infinitely was, than an eternity of Adam's innocency would have been. And as He was thus representing man to God, so was He representing God to man.

Through Adam's apostacy, God had been left without an image here; but now He gets a fuller, brighter image of Himself than Adam could ever have presented. Jesus was letting, not a fair creation, but a ruined, worthless world — know what God was, representing Him in grace, and saying, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." He declared God. All that is of God, all that can be known of "the light" which no man can approach unto, has now passed before us in Jesus.

And again, in the ministry of Christ, looked at in relation to God, we find Him ever mindful of God's rights, ever faithful to God's truth and principles, while in the daily, unwearied actions of relieving man's necessities. Let human sorrow address Him with what appeal it may, He never sacrificed or surrendered any thing that was God's to it. "Glory to God in the highest," was heard over Him at His birth, as well as, "on earth goodwill to man;" and according to this, God's glory, all through His ministry, was as jealously consulted, as the sinner's need and blessing were diligently served. The echo of those voices, "Glory to God," and "Peace on earth," was, as I may express it, heard on every occasion. The Syro-phoenician's case, already noticed, is a vivid sample of this. Till she took her place in relation to God's purposes and dispensations, He could do nothing for her; but then, everything.

Surely these are glories in the ministry of the Lord Jesus, in the relations of that ministry to God.

Then as to Satan. In the first place, and seasonably and properly so, the Lord meets him as a tempter. Satan sought in the wilderness to impregnate Him with these moral corruptions which he had succeeded in implanting in Adam and the human nature. This victory over the tempter was the needed righteous introduction to all His works and doings touching Him. It was, therefore, the Spirit that led Him up to this action. As we read, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil." Ere the Son of God could go forth and spoil the house of the strong man, he must bind him. (Matt. 12: 29) Ere he could "reprove" the works of darkness, he must show that He had no fellowship with them. (Eph. 5: 2) He must withstand the enemy, and keep him outside Himself, ere He could enter his kingdom to destroy his works.

Jesus thus silenced Satan. He bound him. Satan had to withdraw as a thoroughly defeated tempter. He could not get anything of his into Him; he rather found that all that was there was of God. Christ kept outside all that which Adam, under a like temptation, had let inside; and having thus stood the clean thing, He can go, under a perfect moral title, to reprove the unclean.

"Skin for skin," the accuser may have to say of another, and like words that charge and challenge the common corrupted nature; but he had nothing to do, as an accuser of Jesus, before the throne of God. He was silenced.

Thus His relationship to Satan begins. Upon this, He enters his house and spoils his goods. This world is that house, and there the Lord, in ministry, is seen effacing various and deep expressions of the enemy's strength. Every deaf or blind one healed, every leper cleansed, every work under His repairing hand, of whatsoever sort it was, was this. It was a spoiling of the goods of the strong man in his own house. Having already bound him, He now spoiled his goods. At last he yields to Him as the One that had "the power of death." Calvary was the hour of the power of darkness. All Satan's resources were brought up there, and all his subtlety put forth; but he was overthrown. His captive was his conqueror. By death, He destroyed him that had the power of it. He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The head of the serpent was bruised; as another has said, that "death and not man was without strength."

Thus Jesus the Son of God was the bruiser of Satan, as before He had been his binder and his spoiler. But there is another moral glory that is seen to shine in the ministry of Christ, in the relation it bears to Satan. I mean this: He never allows him to bear witness to him. The testimony may be true, and, as we say, flattering, good words and fair words, such as, "I know thee who thou art, the holy One of God," but Jesus suffered him not to speak. For His ministry was as pure as it was gracious. He would not be helped in His ministry by that which He came to destroy. He could have no fellowship with darkness, in His service, any more than in His nature. He could not act on expediency, therefore rebuke and silencing of him was the answer he got to his testimony. [As far as the Lord's ministry in the Gospel goes in relation to Satan, He is simply, as we have now seen, his binder, his spoiler, his bruiser. In the Apocalypse, we follow Him in further relations to the same adversary. There we see Him "casting him down from heaven;" then, in due season, "putting him in the bottomless pit;" and afterwards leaving him in "the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone." Rev. 12 & 20 We thus track His conquest over him, from the wilderness of the temptation to the lake of fire.] Then as to man, the moral glories which show themselves in the ministry of the Lord Jesus, are bright and excellent indeed.

He was constantly relieving and serving man in all the variety of his misery; but He was as surely exposing him, showing him to have a nature fully departed from God in revolt and apostacy. But further; He was exercising him. This is much to be considered, though perhaps not so commonly noticed. In His teaching, He exercised people in whatever relation to Himself they stood; disciples or the multitude, or those who brought their sorrows to Him, or those who were friendly, as I may call them, or those who as enemies were withstanding Him. The disciples He was continually putting through exercises of heart or conscience, as He walked with them and taught them. This is so common that it need not be instanced. The multitude who followed Him He would treat likewise. "Hear and understand," He would say to them, thus exercising their own minds, as He was teaching them.

To some who brought their sorrows to Him He would say, "Believe ye that I can do this?" or such like words. The Syro-phoenician is an eminent witness to us how He exercised this class of persons.

Addressing the friendly Simon in Luke 7, after telling him the story of the man who had two debtors, "Tell me," says He, "therefore, which of them will love him most?"

The Pharisees, His unwearied opposers, He was in like manner constantly calling into exercise. And there is such a voice in this, such a witness of what He is. It tells us that He was not performing summary judgment for them, but would fain lead them to repentance: and so, in calling disciples into exercise, He tells us that we learn His lessons only in a due manner, as far as we are drawn out, in some activity of understanding, heart, or conscience, over them. This exercising of those He was either leading or teaching is surely another of the moral glories which marked His ministry. But further: in His ministry towards man we see Him frequently as a reprover, needfully so, in the midst of such a thing as the human family; but His way in reproving shines with excellency that we may well admire. While He was rebuking the Pharisees, whom worldliness had set in opposition to Him, He uses a very solemn form of words: "He that is not with me is against me." But when He is alluding to those who owned Him and loved Him, but who needed further strength of faith or measure of light, so as to be in full company with Him, He spake in other terms: "He that is not against us is for us."

We notice Him again in this character in Matt. 20, in the case of the ten and the two brethren. How does He temper His rebuke because of the good and the right that were in those whom He had to rebuke? And in this He takes a place apart from His heated disciples, who would not have had their two brethren spared in any measure. He patiently, sifts over the whole material, and separates the precious from the vile that was in it.

So He is heard again as a reprover in the case of John, forbidding any to cast out devils in His name, if they would not walk with them. But at that moment John's spirit had been under chastening. In the light of the Lord's preceding words, he had been making discovery of the mistake he had committed, and he refers to that mistake, though the Lord Himself had in no way alluded to it. But this being so, John having already a sense of his mistake, and artlessly letting it tell itself out, the Lord deals with it in the greatest gentleness. (Luke 9: 46-50).

So as to the Baptist: the Lord rebukes him with marked consideration. He was in prison then. What a fact that must have been in the esteem of the Lord at that moment! But he was to be rebuked for having sent a message to his Lord that reproached Him. But the delicacy of the rebuke is beautiful. He returns a message to John which none but John himself could estimate: "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." Even John's disciples, who carried the message between him and the Lord, could not have understood this. Jesus would expose John to himself, but neither to His disciples nor to the world.

So further, His rebuke of the two of Emmaus and of Thomas after the resurrection, each had its own excellency. Peter, both in Matt. 16 and 17, has to meet rebuke; but the rebuke is very differently ministered on each occasion.

But all this variety is full of moral beauty; and we may surely say, whether His style be peremptory or gentle, sharp or considerate; whether rebuke on His lips be so reduced as to be scarcely rebuke at all, or so heightened as almost to be the language of repulse and disclaimer; still, when the occasion is weighed, all this variety will be found to be but various perfections. All these His reproofs were "earrings of gold, and ornaments of fine gold," whether hung or not upon "obedient ears" (Prov. 25: 12.) "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head." (Psalm 141: 5.) Surely the Lord gave His disciples to prove this.

Conclusion.

I have now traced some of the features of the moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He represented man to God — man as he ought to be, and God rested in Him.

This moral perfection of the man Christ Jesus, and God's acceptance of Him, was signified by the meat-offering, that cake of fine flour, which was baked either in oven, pan, or frying-pan, with its oil and its frankincense. (Lev. 2)

When the Lord Jesus was here, and thus manifested as man to God, God's delight in Him was ever expressing itself. He grew up before Him in human nature, and in the exhibition of all human virtues; and He needed nothing at any one moment to commend Him but Himself, just as He was. In His person and ways, man was morally glorified, so that when the end or perfection of His course came, He could go "straightway" to God, as the sheaf of first-fruits of old was taken directly and immediately, just as it was, out of the field, needing no process to fit it for the presence and acceptance of God. (Lev. 23: 10) The title of Jesus to glory was a moral one. He had a moral right to be glorified; His title was in Himself. John 13: 31, 32, is the blessed setting forth of this in its due connection. "Now is the Son of Man glorified," the Lord there says, just as Judas had left the table; for that action of Judas was the sure precursor of the Lord's being taken by the Jews, and that was the sure precursor of His being put to death by the Gentiles. And the cross being the completeness and perfection of the full form of moral glory in Him, it was at this moment He utters these words, "Now is the Son of Man glorified." Then He adds, "and God is glorified in him."

God was as perfectly glorified then as the Son of Man was, though the glory was another glory. The Son of Man was glorified then, by His completing that full form of moral beauty which had been shining in Him all through His life. Nothing of it was then to be wanting, as nothing from the beginning up to that late hour had ever mingled with it that was unworthy of it. The hour was then at hand when it was to shine out in the very last ray that was to give it its full brightness. But God was also glorified then, because all that was of Him was either maintained or displayed. His rights were maintained, His goodness displayed. Mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, were alike and equally either satisfied or gratified. God's truth, holiness, love, majesty, and all beside, were magnified in a way, and illustrated in a light, beyond all that could ever have been known of them elsewhere. The cross, as one has said, is the moral wonder of the universe.

But then again the Lord adds, "If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself; and shall straightway glorify Him." This is His recognition of His own title to personal glory. He had already perfected the full form of moral glory through life and in death. He had also vindicated God's glory, as we have seen. Therefore it was but a righteous thing that He should now enter on His own personal glory. And this He did when He took His place in heaven, at the right hand of the Majesty there, as in company with God Himself, and all that at once, or "straightway."

God's work as Creator had been quickly soiled in man's hand. Man had ruined himself; so that it is written: "God repented that He had made man." (Gen. 6) A terrible change in the Divine mind, since the day when God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was "very good"! (Gen. 1) But in the Lord Jesus, the Divine complacency in man was restored.

This was blessed! and the more acceptable, as we may say, from the previous repentance. It was more than first enjoyment, it was recovery after loss and disappointment; and that, too, in a way exceeding the first. And as the first man, upon his sin, had been put outside creation as I may say, this Second Man (being, as He also was, "the Lord from heaven,") upon His glorifying of God, was seated at the head of creation, as at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Jesus is in heaven as a glorified Man, because here on earth God had been glorified in Him as the obedient One in life and death. He is there indeed in other characters. Surely we know that. He is there as a Conqueror, as an Expectant, as the High Priest in the tabernacle, which God has pitched, as our Forerunner, and as the Purger of our sins. But He is there also, in the highest heavens glorified, because in Him God had been here on earth glorified.

Life and glory were His by personal right, and by moral title. One delights to dwell on such a truth, to repeat it again and again. He never forfeited the garden of Eden. Truly indeed did He walk outside it all His days, or amid the thorns and briers, the sorrows and privations of a ruined world. But this He did in grace. He took such a condition upon Him; but He was not exposed to it. He was not, like Adam, like us all, on one side of the cherubim and the flaming sword, and the tree of life and the garden of Eden, on the other. In His history, instead of angels keeping Him outside or beyond the gate, when He had gone through His temptation, they come and minister to Him. For He stood where Adam failed and fell. Therefore, man as He was, verily and simply man, He was this distinguished Man. God was glorified in Him, as in all beside He had been dishonoured and disappointed.

In one sense, this perfectness of the Son of Man, this moral perfectness, is all for us. It lends its savour to the blood which atones for our sins. It was as the cloud of incense, which went in to the presence of God, together with the blood, on the day of atonement. (Lev. 16)

But, in another sense, this perfection is too much for us. It is high, we cannot attain to it. It overwhelms the moral sense, as far as we look at it in the recollection of what we ourselves are, while it fills us with admiration, as far as we look at it as telling us what He is. The personal judicial glory, when displayed of old, was overwhelming. The most favoured of the children of men could not stand before it, as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; and Peter and John experienced the same. And this moral glory, in like manner exposing us, is overwhelming.

Faith, however, is at home in the presence of it. The god of this world blinds the mind to the apprehension and joy of it; but faith welcomes it. Such are the histories of it here among men. In the presence of it, Pharisees and Sadducees together asked for a sign from heaven. The mother, through vanity, mistakes it, and the brethren of the Lord through worldliness. (John 2: 7.) Disciples themselves are under constant rebuke from it. The oil olive beaten for this light was too pure for any; but it was ever burning in the sanctuary, or "before the Lord." The synagogue at Nazareth strikingly lets us learn the unpreparedness of man for it. They owned the gracious words which proceeded out of the Lord's lips; they felt the power of them. But quickly a strong current of nature's corruption set in and withstood this movement in their hearts, and overcame it. God's humbled, self-emptied witness, in the midst of a proud, revolted world, was discovered; and this would not do for them. Let "Joseph's son" speak as He may, good words and comfortable words, He will not be accepted — He is a carpenter's son. (Luke 4) It is wonderful — wonderful witness of the deep inlaid corruption. Man has his amiabilities, his taste, his virtues, his sensibilities, as this scene at Nazareth in Luke 4 may tell us. The "gracious words" of Jesus raised a current of good feeling for a moment; but what was it all, and where was it all, when God tested it? Ah! beloved, we may still say, in spite of this, our amiability and respectability, our taste and emotions, that in us (that is, in our flesh) "dwelleth no good thing."

But again, I say, faith is at home with Jesus. Can we, I ask, treat such an One with fear or suspicion? Can we doubt Him? Could we have taken a distant place from Him who sat at the well with the woman of Sychar? Did she herself take such a place? Surely, beloved, we should seek intimacy with Him. The disciples, who companied with Him, have to learn their lessons again and again. We know something of this. They had to make discovery of Him afresh, instead of enjoying Him as already discovered. In the 14th of Matthew they had to cry out, "Of a truth, thou art the Son of God." This was discovering Him afresh. Had their faith been simple, they would have slept in the boat with Him. What a scene it was, to their shame and His glory! They spoke insultingly or reproachfully to the Lord, as though He was indifferent to their danger: "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" He awoke at the sound of their voice, and at once set them in safety. But then, He rebukes them, not however for the injustice their hard words had done Him, but for their want of faith.

How perfect was this! How perfect, surely, was everything; and each in its generation! — the human virtues, the fruits of the anointing that was on Him, and His divine glories. The natures in the One Person are unconfused; but the effulgence of the divine is chastened, the homeliness of the human is elevated. There is nothing like this, there could be nothing like this, in the whole creation. And yet the human was human, and the divine was divine, Jesus slept in the boat: He was man. Jesus quelled the winds and the waves: He was God.

This moral glory must shine. Other glories must give place till this is done. The Greeks, who had come to worship in Jerusalem at the feast, enquire after Jesus, desiring to see Him. This savoured of the kingdom, or of the royal glory of the Messiah. It was a sample of that day, when the nations shall come up to the city of the Jews, to keep holy day; and when, as King in Zion, He shall be Lord of all, and God of the whole earth.

But there was a secret deeper than this. It needs a juster sense of God's way, than simply to be expecting a kingdom. The Pharisees needed that, when in Luke 17, they asked the Lord when the kingdom should appear. He had to tell them of another kingdom, which they did not apprehend —  a kingdom within, a present kingdom, which had to be entered and known, ere the glorious manifested kingdom could appear. The disciples needed it in Acts 1, when they asked their Lord if He would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel. He had to tell them also of another thing, ere the restoration could take place; that they were to be gifted by the Spirit, for testimony to Him all the world over.

So here in John 12. The Lord lets us know that moral glory must precede the kingdom. He will surely shine in the glory of the throne by and by, and the Gentiles shall then come to Zion, and see the King in His beauty; but ere that could be, the moral beauty must be displayed in all its fulness and unsulliedness. And this was His thought now, when the Gentiles had inquired after Him. "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified." This was His moral glory, as we have said before, John 13: 31, 32. It had been shining all through His ways, from His birth hitherto; His death was to be the completeness of it; and therefore the hour was then at hand, when it was to shine out in the last ray that was to form it, and give it perfection. The Lord thus supplies or introduces on this occasion, as He did, as we have seen, in Luke 17 and in Acts 1, the truth, the additional truth, which needs the richer, juster sense of God's ways to apprehend. The moral glory must be fully displayed, ere Messiah can show Himself in royal glory to the ends of the earth.

It is, however, His and His only. How infinitely distant from one's heart is any other thought! When the heavens opened, in Acts 10, the sheet was seen descending ere Peter was commanded to have fellowship with it, or ere it ascended and was lost or hid again on high. The contents of it had to be cleansed or sanctified. But when the heaven was opened in Matt. 3, Jesus on earth needed not to be taken up to be approved there, but voices and visions from on high, sealed and attested Him just as He was. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

And when the heavens were opened again, as in Matt. 27, that is, when the veil of the temple was rent in twain, all was finished, nothing more was needed, the work of Jesus was sealed and attested just as it then was. An opened heaven at the beginning, shone out in full acceptance of His person; an opened heaven at the end, shone out in acceptance of His work.

And let me close in saying, that it is blessed and happy, as well as part of our worship, to mark the characteristics of the Lord's way and ministry here on the earth, as I have been seeking in measure to do in this paper; for all that He did and said, all His service, whether in the substance or the style of it, is the witness of what He was, and He is the witness to us of what God is. And thus we reach God, the blessed One, through the paths of the Lord Jesus, in the pages of the evangelists. Every step of that way becomes important to us. All that He did and said was a real, truthful expression of Himself, as He Himself was a real, truthful expression of God. And if we can understand the character of His ministry, or read the moral glory that attaches to each moment and each particular of His walk and service here on earth, and so learn what He is, and thus learn what God is, we reach God, in certain and unclouded knowledge of Him, through the ordinary paths and activities of the life of this divine Son of Man.

"The Lamb of God."

Blessed the Jesus Whom we know

In love's unwearied paths below,

Tracked by evangelists when here,

Is He Who is ascended there;

And faith still knows Him as the same,

And reads with confidence His Name.

God's glory shone in that blest face,

In power, dignity, and grace.

'Twas not the light of Sinai's brow,

Which made all Israel to withdraw;

There was not there a single beam,

However dazzling it might seem,

Which told the heart to get a veil

To hide it, lest it faint and fail.

"Master, where dwellest Thou?" they say,

And, gladly bidden, there they stay;

And in that new, though holy ground,

A dwelling-place their spirits found.

Conscience another set apart

In converse with his wakened heart;

But for the fig-tree's shade is given

Jesus, and then an opened heaven.

"Come see a Man that told me all,"

Was a convicted sinner's call;

And those who at her bidding come,

Like her, with Him soon find their home.

E'en she for whom the angry hill

Would yield its stones to stone and kill,

The accursed, condemned, and guilty one,

Remains at ease with Him alone.

Thus 'mid our ruins once it shone,

'Mid its own glories now 'tis known;

But we can bear it brightest there,

Since we have learnt it dearly here.

Lord, I desire to trace Thee more

Than e'er mine eye has done before;

Each passage of Thy life to be

A link between my soul and Thee!

For we shall see Thee as Thou wert

When every utterance of Thine heart,

Through all Thy works of love divine,

Made all our need and sorrow Thine.

And we shall see Thee as Thou art,

And in Thine image bear our part,

In glory Thou, in glory we,

Bright in the heavenly majesty!

No part of Thy blest life below

But in its fulness I shall know,

Retouched by Thee, regained by me,

In realms of immortality!

With burning hearts we'll then rejoice

In echoes of that well-known voice,

Which to two burning hearts of old

Did mysteries of grace unfold:

The voice that stilled bold nature's strife,

The voice that called the dead to life,

Which said in sympathy, "I will,"

And spake in power, "Peace, be still."

The hand that touched disease away,

And proved the sinking Peter's stay;

That raised the widow's child, and then

To her fond arms gave back again;

The hand that washed the feet all clean,

Speaking the heart that beat within;

The lifted hand that blessed them here

When parting, but to bless them there.

The arms which still are what they were

When little children's home was there.

The bosom, too, the same as when

John the beloved leaned thereon.

How changes wrought no change in Thee,

The same from first to last we see;

In life and resurrection Thou,

Jesus! wert one both then and now.

In sweetest, gentlest forms of grace,

Amid Thine own Thou took'st Thy place;

The draught of fishes on the shore

Bespoke Thee risen as before;

And the spread table told of One,

The same, past, present, and to come.

Fed in the wilderness of old,

The camp of God nor bought nor sold,

But stores of heaven were oped each morn,

And angels' food, or heaven's corn,

Conveyed on dew, supplied the place —

Grand, gorgeous miracle of grace!

And Thou, Lord Jesus, in Thy day,

Again didst food in deserts lay;

Yet not in grandeur of the past,

But dearer — what shall ever last —

'Twas Thine own heart that felt the need,

'Twas Thine own hand the bread supplied.

'Twas Thine own lips the blessing breathed —

Heart, hand, and lips the service weaved.

These were Thy sympathies with us

And we shall ever know Thee thus.

'Twas joy to Thee, while here on earth,

To mark the progress of that birth

Which leads poor sinners into light

Forth from the gloom of nature's night.

'Twas joy to Thee while here on earth,

To hail the bold approach of faith,

The faith that reached Thee through the crowd,

Or, though forbidden, cried aloud.

For love delighteth to be used.

Faith's earnest thoughts are ne'er refused:

And this same joy and love in Thee,

We know unchanged eternally.

The look, the sigh, the groan, the tear,

Which marked Thy spirit's pathway here,

We own them still, O Lord in Thee,

Thy mind, Thy heart, Thy sympathy!

Of Calvary I speak not here;

Blood sealed our only title there:

It has its own peculiar place

Amid the mysteries of grace.

But the loved home at Bethany,

And neighbouring, lone, Gethsemane,

Poor Nazareth and Bethlehem,

And faithless, proud Jerusalem,

The mount, the wilderness, the sea,

The villages of Galilee,

The gate of Nain, and Sychar's well,

The coasts of Sidon all will tell

The One Who travelled here before,

And tell us we need ask no more,

But stand, with welcome, soon to be

At home for ever, Lord, with Thee!

Thus, memory knows Thee, through the Word,

In all Thy ways and doings, Lord!

And memory no fiction weaves,

But turns to truthful, living leaves,

The footprints of a real past,

Which shine, and hold for ever fast.

'Tis not descriptive words of Thee,

But illustrations clear we see;

God's glory in Thy face portrayed —

Bright, living likeness without shade.

Those who see Thee the Father see —

Wondrous and priceless mystery!

The heavens Creator-glory tell,

His power and Godhead they reveal;

But these are hints by which we frame

Some of the secrets of His name:

But all He is, by sinners known,

In one blest Image He has shown.

We have not here to guess and spell,

We read in lines, fair, bright, and full;

We read it in our Saviour's face,

And, now, all doubts and searchings cease.

The sinner looks, wayfaring men,

The poor, and babes and sucklings then;

All learn Thee as Thou art and wert,

And thus Thou art for ever learnt.

Whate'er of Thine has once been shown,

The same is, sure, for ever known:

Thy virtues, like Thyself, all fair,

No seed of change or loss is there:

Each feature of Thy heart and mind

For ever shineth, in its kind:

"Because 'tis Thine," makes this all plain,

It must be still, for it has been:

Jesus the same, and ours for ever —

No strength of hell this bond can sever.

But this we pray — for know we well

The world's and nature's dangerous spell, —

"Let no fair hope of human joy

The fond, desirous heart employ!

Let not the creature now repair

The breaches of each passing year!

With lamps still trimmed, and virgin love

Teach us to wait Thee from above;

As bridal children, fasting here,

Till Thou, the Morning Star, appear,

To share with us that earliest light,

Day's harbinger, so lone and bright;

Pledging, ere long, a world new-born,

Times of refreshing, like the morn."

Thus may our hopes and fears be past,

And with Thyself our lot be cast!

Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard,

What Thou in glory hast prepared

For him who loves and waits for Thee

In Thine own world with Thee to be;

With Thee, Who art no stranger here,

Though we as yet be strangers there.

Witnesses for God

Witnesses for God

In Dark and Evil Times

J. G. Bellett.

Being studies and meditations on the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

Judah's Captivity in Babylon.

The Babylonish Captivity, considered as an era in the progress of Divine dispensations, was most important and significant. We may well treat it as a very principal station in our journey along that path of light and wisdom which is cast up in Scripture for God's wayfaring men to tread, and tarry there for a little and look around us.

We may speak of it, generally, as the great conclusive judgment upon the people of Israel in Old Testament times; but it was preceded by a long series of other judgments of an inferior or less weighty character. And it is well to trace them shortly, that we may be moved and humbled by such a sight as they afford us of the incompetence and unfaithfulness of man under every condition of stewardship and responsibility.

These judgments began, I may say, by the retirement of Moses for forty years in the land of Midian. Israel, then in Egypt, lost their deliverer, because they knew not that by his hand God would redeem them, as we read in Acts 7: 25.

After they left Egypt, and got into the wilderness on their way to Canaan, they were doomed or judged for another forty years to wander there, because they did not receive the report of the Spies, but disesteemed the Promised Land.

When they have reached Canaan and are settled as a nation there, they are for renewed iniquity chastised again and again by the hand of their neighbours, but at length are more signally judged by being put under the tyranny of King Saul (see Hosea 13: 11).

In process of time they flourish into a kingdom: God gives them the choicest of His people, the man after His own heart, to reign over them. This was one of God's gifts; Saul had been one of His judgments. The reigns of David and Solomon were the exhibition of strength and honour in Israel. But, the house of David becoming reprobate, judgment visits it by the revolt of the Ten Tribes.

The kingdom of the Ten Tribes is thus erected — erected as a judgment upon the house of David, as the kingdom of Saul had afore been raised in judgment on the nation of Israel. But that kingdom of the Ten Tribes proving reprobate in that day, judgment visits them (carrying Israel captive) by the king of Assyria.

The house of David, during this time, was borne with. As a dismantled thing, having but two tribes instead of twelve as its inheritance, it still provokes the anger of the Lord; and then judgment visits Judah by the hand of the Chaldean, as before judgment had visited Israel by the hand of the Assyrian. Judah is a captive in Babylon. So this, as I said, was the great conclusive judgment upon the people of God during the times of the Old Testament. The Lord God of Israel had linked His Name and His glory with the house of David, and with the city of Jerusalem; and when that house had fallen and that city was spoiled, judgment in that measure and at that time had completed its work.

Our business from henceforth is with the captives of Judah and Babylon: Israel in Assyria are lost sight of. They are not kept in view by the Spirit of God. They are called "backsliding Israel," as a people whose distinctness, for the present, is lost and gone; but the prophets of God anticipate their future, and we can foresee that they will be manifested, and brought home, and set in their place again in honour and beauty.

Ere looking at the captives of Judah in Babylon, I would consider the new conditions in which all things are set by the captivity itself. The glory (the symbol of the Divine presence), the Gentile, and the Jew, are all affected by it, and at once enter into new conditions.

The glory leaves the earth, and goes to heaven. It had been with Israel from the days of Egypt until now. It had seated itself in the chariot-cloud, and led Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness; and then it seated itself in the sanctuary between the cherubim. Israel was the place or people of its dwelling upon the earth. But now, as was seen by Ezekiel, it takes its leave of the earth for heaven, or for the mountain (Ezek. 1-11).

The Gentiles become supreme in the time of Judah's captivity. The sword is formally and solemnly put into the hand of the Chaldean by God Himself; and subjection to him, as ordained to be chief in political or imperial authority in the world, is demanded by God for him. But the glory does not accompany the sword. Chaldea is not the seat of theocracy; divine worship is not established there.

The people of Israel become strangers on the earth. "Ichabod," the glory is departed, in a more fearful sense than ever, becomes true of them. They are ruined for the present, as a nation once set in glory, honour, strength, and independency. Judah is a captive and stranger.

Such are the new conditions into which all have now entered — the glory, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel.

But here I must notice — for it is a subject full of interest and value to our souls — that there is character unfolded in each of these, by reason of their new conditions.

The glory shows itself most graciously reluctant to leave its ancient dwelling-place. We learn this from the early chapters of Ezekiel; the glory is there seen in uneasy restless action, as I may say. The time had come for its leaving Jerusalem, and it feels the sorrow of such a moment. It passes and repasses between the threshold of the house, which still connected it with the temple, and the wings of the cherubim, which were waiting to bear it away; and this is a sight of deep mysterious consolation. What a secret does it carry to our hearts! The holiness, which must depart, could not cool the love which would fain, if it could, remain, and what a shadow of the Jesus of the Evangelists this is! Israel could not be the rest of either the glory or Jesus. They were polluted; but the glory will linger on the threshold, and Jesus will weep, as He turns His back on the city. Nor will the glory seek any other place on the earth. It had chosen Zion for its rest; and if its rest there be disturbed, it will leave the earth; it will be faithful to Israel, though Israel grieve it and send it away. These are the perfections that give character to the glory, as I may speak, in this the day of its departure from Jerusalem — the day of Judah's captivity in Babylon.

The Gentiles, in this same day, betray a far different sight. No moral beauty distinguishes them — altogether otherwise. They become proud. Elevation under God's hand lifts them up in their own esteem. They have no care for the sorrows of God's people, but avail themselves of their depression, and rise, all they can, upon their ruins. Ezekiel shows us, as we have already seen, the moral or the character of the departing glory, as Daniel shows us the profane haughtiness of the Gentiles in this same day. It becomes intolerable, as we know, and ends in judgment.

The people of Israel, now humbled, are exercised. Ps. 137 is a breathing which speaks a very gracious state of the soul, in the midst of the captives at the waters of Babylon; and such men as Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, among the returned, and such as Esther and Mordecai, among the dispersion, tell us of a generation or a remnant in character beyond what may have been commonly known in Israel; and thus, as is common with men, prosperity did moral mischief to the Gentile at this time, while depression and trial worked healthfully for the Jew.

This interval of a captivity must, however, come to a close. The rod of the tribe of Judah could not be broken till Shiloh came (Gen. 49). To fulfil this promise, rehearsed in various ways as it was again and again by the prophets, Judah must return out of captivity, and be at home, to receive, if they will, the promised Messiah — the One who, as we see in Ezekiel, had left them, with such reserve and reluctance.

A return is therefore accomplished; and it is marked by much of the fruit of that healthful exercise, which I have already observed as giving character to the captives. There was nothing of the same glory as that which marked their earlier return from the land of Pharaoh. In that respect the exodus from Babylon was a thing very inferior to the exodus from Egypt. There was no rod of power to do its marvels; no mystic cloud-conductor; no mediator standing in intimacy with the Lord for the people; no supplies from the granaries in heaven. But there was the energy of faith on the journey; and spirits awake to the presence of God, His mind, His will, His glory, and His sufficiency for them.

This return, however, was not universal; nor, even as far as it extended, was it simultaneous. There was still the dispersion, as well as the returned captives. The books of the captives — Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, give us something of the story of each. Mordecai was of the dispersion; and of those who returned, some came at an earlier moment, like Zerubbabel; others afterwards, like Ezra at one time, and Nehemiah at another.

But I would inquire, Under what warrant or authority were the captives in Babylon enabled to make a return? It will be said, and justly, that God had so purposed and promised it by the mouth of His servant Jeremiah. He had declared that, when the captivity had numbered seventy years, it should end; and, according to this, Daniel, who lived through the whole age of the captivity, but never returned to Jerusalem, made his supplication for this promised mercy, just as the seventy years were drawing near to their close. The return, we therefore fully own, is to be dated, so to speak, from the sovereignty and counsels of God. The great source of it lies there. But there was a secondary and more immediate warrant for it, the occasion of it, as we speak; and this is, as clearly, seen in the decree of Cyrus, the king of Persia: a decree which he passed in the very first year of his reign, or as soon as God had transferred the sword from the hand of the Chaldean into his hand.

Babylon, which had been the captor, was not given the honour of being the deliverer of Israel. This honour was reserved for another, and such another as was as distinctly named by the prophets of God, as the period of seventy years had been named.

Cyrus is mentioned in Isa. 44 and 45; his own very name appears there, and had been there two or three hundred years ere he was born. And he is mentioned as the one who was to be the builder of the Temple at Jerusalem. We cannot say that it was so, but we may suggest that he heard of this amazing fact from some of the captives; and if he did, was it not the instrument by which the Lord stirred up his spirit? And enough, and more than enough, it was to put him upon that great and generous action which he accomplished, and the record of which closes the Books of Chronicles, and opens the Book of Ezra.*

*It has been reported that Alexander, the Grecian, was shown the prophecy of Daniel, which respected himself. Cyrus, the Persian, may in like manner have been shown this prophecy of Isaiah.

We may rather wonder at his not doing more, if he ever had a sight of those divine oracles, than at his doing so much. We might expect that he would himself have become a proselyte; for Isaiah there lets him know, that it was none other than the God of that people (who were then his subjects, and, as I may say, his captives), who had gone before him to clear his way to conquest and dominion.

But be this so or not, his decree, as we know, was the immediate cause, and the full authority for their return.

Further, however, as to this great event and era, the times of the Gentiles, as the Lord Himself speaks, began with the Babylonish captivity; the Gentiles then became supreme, as we have already said, one kingdom succeeding another. And these times of the Gentiles continue still. The return from Babylon has made no difference as to this; for that event left Gentile supremacy unaffected. But these times will end in the judgment of the Apocalyptic beast, and his confederates (Rev. 19), when the stone cut out without hands smites the image.

And we may further say, as to Israel, that this captivity worked a reformation among them. From that time to the present "the unclean spirit," as the Lord Himself also speaks, has been "out." Idolatry has not been practised since then; but though the Jewish house be thus emptied and swept, it is not furnished with its true wealth and ornament.* Messiah has not been accepted; and, in principle, Israel have returned to Babylon, where they will remain, till the day of redemption and the kingdom under the grace and power and presence of the Lord Jesus.

*By and by, the unclean spirit is to return, and, bringing other unclean spirits with him more wicked than himself, perfect the apostacy of the Jew, and lead him to judgment again.

TheCaptives Returned to Jerusalem.

Ezra 1 - 4

When we enter the Book of Ezra, we begin the story of the returned captives; we see them in their circumstances, and in their behaviour; and from both one and the other we gather instruction.

In much of their condition we read much of our own: and from their behaviour, we are either taught, or encouraged, or warned. As we trace their story, we may well be struck by the resemblance it has to our own; so that, from moral kindredness in their condition and ours, we may call them our brethren in something of a special sense.

Having accomplished their journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, we find them at once in much moral beauty; they use what they have, they do what they can, but they do not assume or affect what they have not and what they cannot. They have the word, and they use it. They do their best with the genealogies, so as to preserve the purity of the priesthood and the sanctuary; but they do not affect to do what the Urim and the Thummim would enable them to do, for they have it not.

This is beautiful; they do not refuse to do what they can, because they cannot do all that they would. Their measure they will use, and not quarrel with it because it is small. And yet they stretch not themselves beyond it, but wait till another comes with a further and more perfect measure.

They are quick to raise an altar to the God of Israel. They need not build their Temple first. An altar will do for burnt-offerings and for the Feast of Tabernacles; and, as a revived people, as a people consciously standing on holy ground again, on the mystic day, the first day of the seventh month, they raise their altar and begin their worship.

This was very fine. It was as the instinct that prompted Noah, as soon as he got out of the ark, to offer his sacrifices; or, as that of David, as soon as he reached the throne, to look after the ark of God.

Israel raised no altar in Egypt — they must go into the wilderness ere they could offer a sacrifice or keep a feast to the Lord. Egypt was the place of the flesh, and of judgment; and deliverance out of it must be accomplished, ere God could duly receive worship at their hand. And so in Babylon: Israel raised no altar there. One might open his window, and pray towards Jerusalem; three or four might make common prayer for mercy and wisdom; in a day of perplexity, they may all together hang their harps upon willows, refusing to sing the songs of Zion there; but they raised no altar in that land of the uncircumcised. But now again in Jerusalem the altar is built, and sacrifices rendered; worship is restored, as Israel is revived. The two things which God has joined together, the glory of His Name and the blessing of His people, are at once seen in the returned captives.

But, further, as soon as the foundation of the Temple is laid, a strange thing is heard — that which could not but be a discord of harsh sounds in the ear of nature, a harmony of hallowed voices in the ear of God and of faith. There are weepings and cries for sorrow, there are shoutings for joy. But, weighed in the balances, all this was harmony; for all was real, all was "to the Lord."

As some observed a day, and some might once refuse to observe it, and this may appear to be disorder; but each doing what they did "to the Lord," the highest order was maintained (see Rom. 14): the Spirit so esteems it.

There is, however, more than this. There is real confusion, and that in abundance, as well as this apparent occasional discord. The condition of things is incurably intricate and confused. What a godly Jew must have felt, when he found himself again in the land where David had conquered, where Solomon had reigned, where the glory had dwelt, and the priesthood unto Jehovah had waited on its service!

Such an one may, at that moment, have given the first look at himself; and he would have had to recognise in himself a strange sight in the land where he then found himself, the subject of a Gentile power. Next, looking at his brethren, he would have to say, that some of them were with him, but some were still far away among the uncircumcised; and then, taking a wider gaze at the people of the land, he would have to see a seed of corruption, half Jew, half heathen, in the place which had once been shared among the seed of Abraham, and them only!

What sights were these! What needed light and energy to deal with and act upon this strange mass of difficulties and contradictions! But that light and energy are beautifully found amongst them. They who had maintained their Nazariteship in Babylon would keep it, if need be, in Judea; they who would not eat the king's meat there, will not have Samaritan alliance in the building of the Temple here. And they distinguish things that differ; they know the Persian, and they know the Samaritan: bowing to the sword and authority of the one, as set over them by ordination of God; and refusing the proffered aid of the other, as being themselves untrue to the God of their fathers.

This is like an anticipation of the Lord's own judgment to returned captives in His day; "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And it reminds me of their fathers in the wilderness, where they knew the Edomite and the Amorite in their different relations to them; as here, their children know the Samaritan and the Persian. They do nothing in a spirit of rebellion. They will be subject to the "powers that be," as knowing them "ordained of God." But religious impurity they repudiate. It is full of instruction, all this, and very pertinent to present conditions among ourselves. These things, or the principles which are found and involved in them, re-appear among the saints of this day.

Faith still recognises that "salvation" is the  ground of "worship" (John 4). That is, that while we are in the flesh, God gets nothing from us; that the place of discipline, such as Babylon was to Israel, is to witness only the service and the rendering of harps hung on willow trees.

Faith still uses the written word in all things; it affects nothing beyond its measure; while it does what it can according to its measure. It does not cast away what it has, because it has not more. It does not say, "There is no hope," and sit idle, because power in certain forms of glory does not belong to us; but it will not imitate power, or fashion the image of what is now departed. And it waits for the day when all will be set in eternal order and beauty, by the presence of Him who is the true light and perfection, and who will settle all things in the kingdom according to God.

Faith, likewise, still listens with a different ear from that of nature. As I have already alluded to it, so here again, I may say, that Rom. 14, like Ezra 3, tells us that that which is discordance in the ear of flesh and blood is harmony in the ear of God.

And surely, I may add, faith still recognises confusion. If we see it in Israel in the day of Ezra, we see it among the saints and churches in the day of 2 Tim.; and the day of 2 Tim. was but the beginning of the present long day of Christendom, or of "the great house." Strangely inconsistent elements surround us, as they did the returned captives. Gentile supremacy in the land; the offered aid, and then the bitter enmity, of Samaritans; some of God's Israel still in Babylon, while others have returned to Jerusalem. All this did not afford them stranger, more singular or anomalous materials, to distinguish and act upon, than the present great house of Christendom, with its clean and unclean vessels, some to honour, and some to dishonour, affords to us.

We may, however, be encouraged as well as instructed by these captives. For, while ancient glory and strength are not seen among them, Urim and Thummim lost, ark of covenant gone, the mystic rod and the cloudy pillar no more known and seen; yet was there more energy and light, and a deeper exercise of spirit, in the returned from Babylon, than in the redeemed from Egypt.

Ezra 5 - 6.

This is so, indeed, as we have seen.

We soon find, however, that we have more to say, but if we be instructed and encouraged by the returned captives, so surely may we be warned by them. They need a revival, though now returned to Jerusalem, as they needed it, when they were still in Babylon.

The decree of Artaxerxes had stopped the building of the Temple. Nature, or the flesh, takes advantage of this: and the captives begin to adorn their own houses, as soon as they get leisure, and are free of their labour in building the Lord's house.

What a warning this is! It has been said, that it is easier to gain a victory than to use it. We may conquer in the fight, but be defeated by the victory. The returned Jews had gained a victory, when they refused the offers and the alliance of the Samaritans. They were right to resent any help which would have compromised their holiness. But they now abuse the victory. The Samaritans had got a decree from the Persian king to stop the building of the Temple; and the leisure thus generated becomes a snare to the remnant. They use it in ceiling and adorning their own houses: very natural; but very humbling to think of it. Abraham had done far better than this. With his trained servants he gains the day in his encounter with the confederated kings; but then one victory leads to another, for he refuses the offers of the king of Sodom immediately afterwards. But here leisure conquers those who had but lately conquered the Samaritans. This was more like David, if unlike Abraham. David fought his way nobly from the day of the lion and the bear to the day of the throne; but he betrays relaxation, carelessness of heart, on the very first occasion which occupies him as a king. David puts the ark of God on a new cart drawn by oxen!

"Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?" says the convicting, rebuking Spirit by the prophet Haggai.

This is humbling and yet a healthful warning. Our hearts well understand this — how nature takes quick and earnest advantage of these its opportunities. But though the captives be led under Persian rule, yet the Spirit of God is unbound, and can revive His ancient grace in sending His prophets to them. For this was His ancient grace. This had been His well-known way all along, from before the day of king Saul, till after the day of king Zedekiah, i.e., from the first of the kings of Israel to the last, from 1 Sam. 1 to 2 Chr. 36. All along that course of time, generation after generation, prophets had been sent again and again to rebuke, to instruct, or to encourage kings and their people. Samuel, and Nathan, and Gad, Shemaiah, Jahaziah, and Azariah, Elijah and Elisha, with others, had thus ministered while Israel was a nation; and now Haggai and Zechariah are sent, as kindred prophets with them, to the returned captives: the sweet witness that the old form of the grace of God towards His people was still to be in use, that they might know, in every age and in all conditions, that they were not straitened in Him.

God did not come forward to establish them on the original footing. To do so would not have been morally suitable, either with respect to the position in which the people stood with God, or with regard to a power which He had established among the Gentiles, or with a view to the instruction of His own people in all ages, as to the government of God. This is very just. Things are left, as the hand of God in government had put them. The Gentile is still supreme in the earth; nor does the glory return to Israel. The throne of David is not raised up from the dust, nor is Urim and Thummim given again, nor the ark of the covenant; but the Spirit is not gone from His place of service. He raises up prophets, as in other days when the throne of David was in Jerusalem, and the temple and its priesthood in their glory and beauty.

It would be profitable to mark the way in which these prophets conducted their ministry in reviving the returned captives; but this I do not here. The house, however, is again attended to under their word; the zeal of the people revives; their faith and service live again; and in about four years, from the second year of Darius, when Haggai and Zechariah began to prophesy, to the sixth, when the house was finished, they work with renewed earnestness.

The dedication of the house then takes place. And this is a beautiful witness of the moral state of the remnant. It is but little they can do — little indeed — but they do it. Solomon had slain 22,000 oxen and 124,000 sheep at the dedication of the first house, while the returned captives can only render a few hundred bullocks and rams and lambs. But they do what they can; and who will say, that the mite of that earlier widow was not more than all the offerings of their richer forefathers? They did what they could, without blushing for their poverty. "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee." There is preciousness in such feebleness, something specially acceptable in such sacrifices — when "in a time of affliction, the abundance of joy and deep poverty abound unto the riches of liberality."

And then they keep their passover; they can do this, and they will do it. The house they can dedicate, and the feast they can keep, and they will; and priests and Levites are alike purified now, as they had not been in the royal time of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29: 34; Ezra 6: 20). So that indeed we may say, though the want of all manifested glory, such as shone in the days of Solomon, may be marked here, yet is there more attractive moral grace and power; just as the exodus from Babylon, some twenty years before, had been marked in contrast with the exodus from Egypt. There are features in the second exodus and in the dedication, features of personal beauty, which had not so appeared in the brighter, far brighter, days of Egypt and of Solomon.

Ezra 7 - 10.

As we enter these chapters, we have passed an interval of about sixty years, and are in company with a new generation of captives, and are about to witness a second exodus from Babylon.

This portion of the book gives us the story of Ezra himself. It consists of two parts: his journey from Babylon (Ezra 7, 8); his work at Jerusalem (Ezra 9, 10).

We find him, in each of these, eminently a man of God. He is in ordinary circumstances; no miracle distinguishes the action; no display of glory or of power accompanies it; nor have we the inspiration which filled the prophets Haggai and Zechariah on the last revival, as we saw in Ezra 5, 6. All is ordinary: his resources are only what ours in this day are, the word and the presence of God. But he used them, and used them well and faithfully throughout. Ere he began to act, he prepared his heart to seek the Lord; he had meditated on His statutes, till his profiting, as we may surely say, appears to all of us. And as soon as he begins to act, and all through to the very end, we see him in much communion and in secret with the Lord. And he will carry the word of God through every difficulty and hindrance.

He leads home from Babylon to Jerusalem a comparatively small remnant; but he exercises a spirit of faith and obedience in no common measure.

In starting on the journey he is careful to preserve the sanctity of holy things. In such a spirit had Jehoiada the priest acted, as he was bringing back Joash to the kingdom. He would not sacrifice the purity of the house of God to any necessity of the times (2 Chr. 23). And so now, in leading his remnant back to Jerusalem, Ezra will not sacrifice the sanctity of the vessels of the house to any hindrance or difficulty of his day. He will look out for the Levites to bear them home, though this may delay him on the banks of the Ahava for twelve days. He is far above king David in all this. David, in an hour when he might have commanded the resources of a kingdom, did not keep the book of God open before him, but hastily set the ark of God on a new cart. But Ezra is as one who has the word of God ever before him; and, though in the zeal of David takes care against the haste and heedlessness of David (1 Chr. 13).

It is very sweet to see a saint thus in weakness of circumstances, with nothing but ordinary resources, so carrying himself before God, and through his services and duties.

And further, as we next see him, he is one that will not take a backward step. He had boasted of the God of Israel to the king of Persia, and he will not now (beginning a perilous journey) ask help of him, gainsaying in act the confession of his lips. He will get strength from God by fasting, rather than from the king by asking.

There are beautiful combinations in all that we have now traced in this dear man. He used God's word and God's presence; richly instructed as a scribe, he was much in secret with the Lord. He was a diligent, meditative student at home, but he was energetic and practical and self-devoting abroad. He would not go behind his conscience or sacrifice the word of God to any difficulty or hindrance; and if his confession did for a moment go beyond his faith, and he found himself not quite up to the place he had been put in, he will wait on God to have his heart strengthened, and not timidly or idly let his confession be reproached.

And yet all his circumstances were as ordinary as ours of this day. He had God's word and God's presence, as I have said; and so have we. But that was all: he had not even the inspiration of a Haggai or a Zechariah to encourage him. It was simply the grace of God in the power of the Spirit, awakening a saint to fresh service by the word.

If other portions of the story of the returned captives have instructed and encouraged and warned us, surely, we may now say, this may well humble us. In Ezra's condition, how coldly and how feebly are our souls exercised in his spirit of earnest service and secret communion!

The journey was accomplished, the second exodus from Babylon is performed, and Jerusalem is reached by Ezra and his companions without any mischief or loss by the way. The good hand of their God was with them, and proved itself enough without help from the king. The treasures were all delivered in the Temple, as they had been weighed and numbered at the Ahava. All that, in the days of Noah, had gone into the ark came out safe and sound. Not a grain falls to the ground of such treasures at any time; and here all arrive at Jerusalem that had left Chaldea.

In due time Ezra had to look around him in Jerusalem. He meets what he was but little prepared for; and the sight is overwhelming. Decline among the returned captives had set in rapidly, and corruption had worked wonderfully. What a sight for the spirit of such a man! Ezra blessedly illustrates "the godliness of weeping for other men's sins" — a Christ-like affection, indeed; and the sample of it in this man of God may well further humble some of us.

Israel had again married the daughter of a strange god. The holy seed had mingled themselves with the people of the land. The Jew had joined affinity with the Gentile.

To maintain anything of purity in the progress of a dispensation, reviving power has to be put forth again and again; and a fresh separation to God and His truth has to take place under that reviving virtue. So it is now with Ezra at Jerusalem. But we here pause for a moment, to consider some divine principles. When sin entered, and the creature and the creation became defiled, the Lord God had to set up a witness to Himself, that there was now a breach between Himself and that which had been the work of His hands, and the representative of His glories. The ordinance of clean and unclean did this service at the beginning (Gen. 8: 20).

In the progress of His ways we find two other operations of His of like character: — I mean, His judgments and His call. He separated defilement from Himself and His creation by judgment in the day of the Flood, about to make the earth the scene of His presence and government in the new or post-diluvian world. But when that world defiled itself like the old world, He distinguished between clean and unclean by calling Abraham to Himself, to the knowledge of Him and a walk with Him apart from the world. And these are samples of what He has ever since been doing, and is doing now, and will do still.

Separation from evil is, in a great sense, the principle of communion with Him. The truth, the knowledge of God, life in Christ, is the positive ground, means, or secret of communion, surely; but separation from evil must accompany that. For if we meet the Blessed One Himself, we must meet Him in conditions suited to His presence.

Ezra soon finds that the returned captives had practically forgotten all this. They had mingled themselves with the people of the land. They were involved again in that evil from which the call of God had separated them. They were defiled. For sanctification is by "the truth;" the washing of water is "by the word;" and, if holiness be not according to God's word, and God's word as He applies it at the time, or dispensationally, it has no divine quality. There is no Nazaritism in it, no separation to God. The children of the captivity had been marrying, and giving in marriage, with the Gentiles. Ezra sets himself to the work of reformation, and does so in the same spirit in which he had set himself to be for God before his journey, and on his journey. And this is what we have very specially to mark in Ezra. He was, personally, so much the saint of God, as well as a vessel gifted and filled. This shows itself in Ezra more than in any who had served among the captives before him. He was a vessel that had, indeed, purged itself for the Master's use; for the reformation in Jerusalem is accomplished in the like zeal as the journey from Babylon; and the blessing of God awaits upon it. There is no miracle; no displayed glory; no mighty energy bespeaking extraordinary divine presence: nothing is seen out of the common measure, or beyond ordinary resources. Service is, if done and rendered according to the written word, for the glory of the God of Israel, and in the spirit of worship and communion. It is but a sample of what service with us at this day might be, and, as we may add, ought to be. Ezra, throughout, does not listen to expediency, or yield to a difficulty, or refuse diligence and toil; he maintains principles, and carries the word of God through every hindrance.

Deeply do I believe, that the saints of God in this our day may read the story of the returned captives, as very good for the use of edifying; and find plenty to instruct, to encourage, to warn, and to humble them.

"How precious is the book divine

By inspiration given!

Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine

To guide us on to heaven."

The Builders of the Wall.

Nehemiah 1 - 6

It is after an interval of twelve years from the time of Ezra's action, that Nehemiah appears. He was a captive still in Babylon (or Persia, the same thing, in principle), while Ezra was doing good service to the Lord at Jerusalem. But, connected as he was with the palace of the Persian king, he may not have been free to take part with the movement or revival in Ezra's day — or, it may be, he was not then quickened by the Spirit, so as to do so.

He represents a fresh revival; and all is in increased weakness. He is not a prince of the house of David, like Zerubbabel, nor a priest of the family of Aaron, like Ezra. He is, as we speak, a layman; cup-bearer to the king.

There is something, however, in all this, that magnifies the grace that was in him. The burdens of his brethren have power to detach him from the Persian palace, as they had once separated Moses from the Egyptian. No miracle distinguishes these days of returned captives, but there are many witnesses of fine moral energy among them.

Ezra had been a scribe, as well as a priest. He was a meditative, worshipping student of God's Word; for he found the springs and the guide of his energy in that word. Nehemiah was not that. He was a practical man, a man in the business of everyday life, amid the circumstances and relations which make up human history. But he was of an earnest spirit, like Ezra, and he took what he heard, as Ezra had taken what he read, and dealt with it in the presence of God.

He had heard of the desolations of Jerusalem, and he weeps over them before God; as Ezra had seen the sins of Jerusalem, and wept over them before God. But here, we may ask, how was it that these desolations had not moved Ezra? He was all this time at Jerusalem, while Nehemiah was in the Persian palace, and could only hear of them by occasional reports. Was it that the energy had declined in Ezra? and that he himself now needed to be revived, though some years since he had been the instrument for reviving others? Such things are, and have been. Peter led his brethren on, in Acts 1: 15; but he had need himself to be pulled up, corrected, and led on, in Gal. 2. A younger Paul reanimates his elder brother Peter who had been serving the Lord for years, while he was blaspheming Him. And here, it would seem, a younger Nehemiah, a layman too, has to revive the venerable scribe who had crossed over to Jerusalem to serve God there, years and years before him.

If it were not this, it may show us, that the Lord has one business for one servant, another for another; one purpose by this revival, another by that. Zerubbabel had looked to the Temple, Ezra to the reformation of the religion; and Nehemiah is now raised up to look to the city-walls, and the civil condition of Jerusalem. It may have been thus, for such things, again I say, are and have been. Of old, there was the Gershonite, the Merarite, and the Kohathite service. And it has been surely thus, in a series of revivals, century after century, in the course of Christendom, since the Reformation, which was a kind of return from Babylon.

I say not in which of these ways we are to account for Ezra apparently remaining unmoved, though the ruined walls of the city were before his eyes day after day for years. However, he is honourable, highly so, in the recollections of the people of God, as Nehemiah is.

Nehemiah was a simple man of very earnest affections. His book gives us, I may say, the only piece of autobiography which we get in Scripture. It is this dear man of God writing his own history in the simple style that suits truth-telling. He lets us learn, how he turned to God again and again, in the spirit of a trustful, confiding child, as he went on with his work. His style reminds me of a word which I met, I believe, in some old writer, "let Christ be second to every thought." That is, let the soul quickly turn to the Lord in the midst of occupations, be habitually before Him, not however by effort or watching, but by an easy, happy, natural, exercise of soul.

And, together with this exercise of his spirit towards God, Nehemiah's heart was alive to his brethren. In deep affection, and in that eloquence that comes fresh from the heart and its suggestions, he calls Jerusalem, "the city of his fathers' sepulchres." And all this presents to us a very attractive person. We love him, and do not grudge him his virtues, or envy him because of his excellences. We trace him with affectionate admiration.

The exercise of his spirit, ere he got his royal master's leave to visit Jerusalem, is very beautiful. From the month Chisleu to the month Nisan, that is, from the third to the seventh month, he was mourning before God on account of the city. At length he comes before the king, and leave is given him, and a given time is set him, to take his journey and pay his visit — a captain and horsemen are also appointed to guide and guard him on the road. He had been much alone in all this: revivals commonly begin with some individual; and when he reaches Jerusalem, he is still, at first, alone. By night he inspects the city walls, acquainting himself with the nature of the work that now lay before him. He proves what he is about to publish. Very right — it is the way of Spirit-led servants. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Nor is he a patron but yoke-fellow, a fellow-labourer, like Paul, or like Paul's divine Master, Who, while He was Lord of the harvest, served in the harvest-field also.

And, indeed, these are always the forms after which the Spirit prepares the servants of Christ. They prove what they teach, and they labour in the principle of service and not of patronage. They are not lords of the heritage, but ensamples of the flock; they affect no dominion over the faith, but they are helpers of the joy.

Then, as we go on to Nehemiah 3, and look at his companions in the work, we see much to instruct us, and much that tells us of our own day and our own circumstances.

All are a working people together — the nobles and the common folk. The service of God's city had put them all on a level. The rich are made low, the poor are exalted: a beautiful sight in its time and place. Then, some are distinguished: Baruch, the son of Zabbai, works "earnestly" (ver. 20); the "daughters" of Shallum work with their father (ver. 12); some of the priests "sanctified" their work in their part of the city-walls, while others of them worked after a common manner. (vv. 22, 28) And, painful to have to add to all this, the nobles of the Tekoites worked not at all. (ver. 5)

There have always been such distinctions as these, and there are the same abundantly in this our day. In raising the Tabernacle in the wilderness, in fighting the battles of Canaan, in accompanying David in the days of his exile, as here in the building of the wall of Jerusalem, and afterwards among the yoke-fellows of St. Paul, we see these distinctions. And surely, like the daughters of Shallum, or like the wife of Aquila, females in this our day are doing good work in the gospel, and in the service of Jerusalem. But we may remember, and it has its profit to do so, every man shall receive his own reward according to his own work (1 Cor. 3); though we have also to remember, that the Lord weighs the quality as well as the quantity of what is rendered to Him. (Matt. 20: 1-16)

Thus we may surely be instructed in the details of this sweet story. As we pass through Nehemiah 4 we find the builders have become fighters as well as builders. Their work is continued in the face of enemies, and in spite of "cruel mockings," as Hebrews 11 speaks. And in this combination of the sword and the trowel, we see the symbols of our own calling. There is that which we have to withstand, and there is that which we have to cultivate. We are to cherish and advance, like builders, what is of the Spirit in us; we are to resist and mortify what is of the flesh. We are builders and fighters.

As to the enemies, they are the same Samaritans as at the first. The Zerubbabel generation of them was represented in Rehum and Shimshai, or in Tatnai, and Shethar-boznai; and now, the generation of them in this day of Nehemiah is represented in Sanballat and Tobiah. They were not heathen men, but a seed of corruption, who might appear to be "the circumcision" in the eyes of flesh and blood. And by this time they seem to have become more corrupt; for Edomites, Arabians, Philistines, and Ammonites appear to be joined with them, or to have become one with them.

And still more serious, and more for our personal, immediate warning, we see a company of Jews dwelling near these Samaritans. And they were in the secrets of the Samaritans (ver. 12) — a bad symptom. They were borderers. They may remind us of Lot in Sodom, and of Obadiah in the house of Ahab. Surely they were not Samaritans; they were Jews, and had some love and care for their serving, toiling brethren in Jerusalem. But they dwelt near the Samaritans, and were in their secrets; again, I say, a bad moral symptom. They were, I presume, some of the old stock, left behind in the land, in the day when Judah was taken captive. They had never shared in the revival virtues of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Their scent was in them — they had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, as Jeremiah speaks of Moab (Jer. 48).

Different from such, widely different, was the trumpeter, whom Nehemiah here sets close to his own person; for if these Jews were in the secret of the Samaritans, this trumpeter was in the secret of God. This is what the holders and blowers of trumpets always represent — whether we see them as priests, doing their occasional and varied work in Num. 10; or their annual work on the first day of the seventh month, as in Lev. 23; or as gifted ministers in God's assembly, teaching and exhorting, according to 1 Cor. 12: 8, 9.

Humbling to some of us to trace these beauties in the servants of Christ, in the Nehemiahs, and in the trumpeters on the walls of the city!

There are combinations in Nehemiah which distinguish themselves very strikingly. In Nehemiah 5 we see him in his private virtues; as in preceding chapters we have seen him in public energies. He surrenders his personal rights as governor, that he may be simply and fully the servant of God and His people. This may remind us of Paul in 1 Cor. 9, for there the apostle will not act upon his rights and privileges as an apostle, as here Nehemiah is doing the same as the Tirshatha, or Governor of Judea, under the Persian throne.

This is beautiful. How it shows the kindred operations of the Spirit of God in the elect, though separated so far from each other as Nehemiah and Paul!

We have, however, a warning as well as an example in this chapter.

The Jews, who had now been long in Jerusalem, were oppressing one another. Nehemiah tells them, that their brethren, still away among the Gentiles, were doing far better than this. They were redeeming one another, while here, in the very heart of the land, their own land, they were selling one another.

This is solemn; and we may listen to this, and be warned. It tells us, that those who had taken a right position were behaving worse than those who were still in a wrong one. The Jews at Jerusalem were in a better ecclesiastical condition, while their brethren, still in Babylon, were in a purer moral condition.

Is not this a warning? It is another illustration of what we often see ourselves; but it is a solemn and humbling warning.

Not that we are to go back to Babylon, leaving Jerusalem; but we are surely to learn, that the mere occupation of a right position will not be a security. We may be beguiled into moral relaxation through satisfaction in our ecclesiastical accuracies. This is a very natural deceit. "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these," may be the language of a people on the very eve of God's judgment. There may be the tithing of mint, and rue, and anise, and withal the forgetting of the weightier matters of righteousness, goodness, and truth.

But this chapter also gives us another of those combinations which shine in the character of Nehemiah. It enables us to say, that while there was beautiful simplicity in him, there was likewise decided independency. His simplicity was such, that like a child he turns back and home to God, while treading one path of service after another; and yet there was that independency and absoluteness about him, that led him to begin always as from himself in the fear and presence of God. As here, he tells us that upon hearing of those oppressions of brethren by brethren, he took counsel with himself ere he acted (ver. 7). And, indeed, all his previous actions bespeak the like independency. He was Christ's freeman, and not the servant of man; simple in God's presence; independent before his fellow-creatures.

These are fine combinations, greatly setting off the character of this dear, honoured, man of God.

In Nehemiah 6, we see him again in conflict, but it is in personal, single-handed fight; not, as in Nehemiah 4, marshalling others, putting the sword in one of their hands, and the trowel in the other, but fighting himself, single-handed and alone, face to face with the wiles of his enemies. In the progress of this chapter he is put though different temptations. Generally we see him a single-hearted man, whose body, therefore, is "full of light." He detects the enemy, and is safe. But besides this, there are certain special securities which it is very profitable to consider for a moment.

1. He pleads the importance of the work he was about (ver. 3).

2. He pleads the dignity of his own person (ver. 11).

These are fine arguments for any saint of God to use in the face of the tempter. I think I see the Lord Himself using them, and teaching us to use them also.

In Mark 3 His mother and His brethren came to Him, and they seem to have a design to withdraw Him from what He is doing to themselves; just as Nehemiah's enemies are seeking to do with him in this chapter. But the Lord pleads the importance of what He was then about, in the face of this attempt, or in answer to the claims which flesh and blood had upon Him. He was teaching His disciples and the multitude, getting the light and word and truth of God into them. And the fruit of such a work as this He solemnly lets us know was far beyond the value of all connections with Him in the flesh; and the claims of God's word, which He was then ministering, far more weighty than those of nature.

And in like manner He teaches His servants to know the dignity of their work. He tells them, while at it, "not to salute any man by the way," nor to stop to bid farewell to them that are at home; nor to tarry even for the burial of a father (Luke 9, 10).

But again in Luke 13, the Pharisees try to bring Him into the fear of man, as Shemaiah seeks to do with Nehemiah in this same chapter (ver. 10). But the Lord at once rises into the sense of His dignity, the dignity of His person, and lets the Pharisees know that He was at His own disposal, could walk as long as He pleased, and end His journey when He pleased; that the purposes of Herod were vain, save as He allowed them to take their way. And so, in John 11, when His disciples would have kept Him from going into Judea, where so lately His life had been in danger, He again rises, in like manner, in the sense of the One that He was, in the consciousness of personal dignity, and answers them as from this elevation (see verses 9-11).

And the Holy Ghost, by the apostle in 1 Cor. 6, would impart courage and strength to the saints, from a like sense of the elevation and honours that belonged to them. "Know ye not," says Paul to the Corinthians, "that we shall judge angels;" and again, "Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price." "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?"

There is something very fine in all this. These are weapons of war indeed, weapons of divine, heavenly metal. To gain victories with such, is Christian conquest indeed; when temptations can be met and withstood by the soul carrying the sense of the importance of the work to which God has set us, and the dignity of the person which God has made us. Would that we could take down and use those weapons, as well as admire them as they thus hang up before us in the armoury of God. It is easy, however, to inspect and justify the fitness of an instrument to do its appointed work, and all the time be feeble and unskilful in using it, and in doing such appointed work by it.*

*Let me add, in further commendation of this servant of God, what another once suggested to me; that though the Book that bears his name was written by himself and is a piece of autobiography, yet he does not acquaint us with himself beyond what necessarily comes out from his connection with the people of God and his service of them. We see nothing of him as at home, or what the circumstances of that home were. We learn not his age, or place of birth. We may say, he did not know himself after the flesh. He presents a simple-hearted, single-eyed sample of that indeed.

Nehemiah 7 - 10.

Here we read, "Now the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded" (ver. 4). Having therefore built the walls, Nehemiah takes in hand to people the city. For the walls would be nothing, save as the defence of a peopled place within them.

This purpose, therefore, we find in his heart, at the opening of Nehemiah 7 — and accordingly he acquaints himself with the returned captives, and reads the catalogue and the account of them, as they had been in the days of Zerubbabel, which would be a guide to his present object.

Nehemiah 8 - 10.

However, ere he pursue this purpose, and take on him to people the city, he turns aside for a while to consider the people themselves. And this gives us his action in Nehemiah 8 - 10, which may be called a parenthetic action — for in Nehemiah 11 he resumes the purpose which he had conceived in Nehemiah 7: that is, the purpose of peopling the city.

This gives a peculiar character and a special interest to these three chapters, where we find the people put through a moral process of a very striking kind indeed. Nehemiah looks at them personally, looks at their souls, at their moral condition, and would fain quicken or sanctify them, ere he settles them in their places.

This action begins on the first day of the seventh month — a distinguished day in the calendar of Israel, the feast of trumpets, a day of revival after a long season of interruption when all was barren or dead in the land. And this action, thus begun, is continued in successive stages, down to the close of Nehemiah 10; thus, as I observed already, giving Nehemiah 8 —  10 a distinct place in the book of Nehemiah, and the character of a parenthesis.

We must, therefore, look at these chapters a little particularly.

This distinguished day, the first day of the seventh month, demanded, according to the ordinance touching it, a holy convocation and a blowing of trumpets — for it was the symbol, as I have said, of a time of revival after a long season of death and barrenness (see Lev. 23: 23-25). This ordinance was observed here in Nehemiah 8. There was a convocation of the people. But there was something additional. The Book of the Law was read in the audience of the people, and explained to them. And at this the people wept — properly so, for this is the business of the application of the law to a sinner, to convict him, and make him cry out, "O wretched man that I am!" But their teachers, on this occasion, at once restrain their tears, because that day was "holy to the Lord." It was a time of joy, such as the blowing of trumpets, and the new moon then beginning again to walk in the light of the sun, would signify. The people were, therefore, told to let the joy of the Lord be their strength, to be merry themselves and to send portions to others.

All this was beautifully in concert with the day, in the ordinances touching it. The thing that was additional, or unprescribed by Lev. 23, that is, the reading of the law, was by all this made to give a richer, fuller tone to the day itself in its proper, prescribed character. The added thing was in no collision whatever with the ordained thing — that which was voluntary was no violation of that which was prescribed.

And here I would say, this is just what we might expect in a day of revival. At such a time, the word of God must be thoroughly honoured. It must be the standard. But there will be, necessarily I would say, such new or added things as the character of the time, under the Spirit of God, would suggest. But these new things, whatever they be, will not offend against the word of God. And such is the scene here.

But the word of God, being opened, is kept open. It was a day, as we speak, of "an open Bible." Precious mercy! And this open Book, having yielded one piece of instruction, telling them of the rights of the first day of the seventh month, now yields them further instruction, telling them about eight other days of that same month, or about the "feast of tabernacles." And the people, already in the spirit of obedient listeners to the word of God, are still kept in it. They learn about that eight-day feast, and they keep it; in such sort, too, as had not been witnessed for centuries.

This was, in like manner, beautiful. But again, we notice something additional.

In Nehemiah 9 we see the congregation of the children of Israel in humiliation, going through a solemn service of confession; and then, in Nehemiah 10, entering into a covenant of obedience to God, and of the observance of His ordinances. But nothing of all this had been prescribed. We find no mention of such a thing in the law of Moses. Lev. 23 had not required this to wait upon or follow the feast of tabernacles.

Here, however, again we have to notice something. This solemnity did not take place till the twenty-fourth day of this month; and then the time of the feast of tabernacles had ended; for that ended on the twenty-third. And this, again I say, was very beautiful. The congregation would not, by their act of humiliation and confession, soil the feast, or prevent its purpose. That feast was the most joyous time in the Jewish year. It celebrated the ingathering, or "harvest-home," as we speak. It was the foreshadowing of the days of glory or of the kingdom. It shall have all its demands answered in full tale and measure. The twenty-third day, the last day, that great day of the feast, shall pass, ere the language of humiliation and the voice of penitential sorrow be heard. But then, the ordinance of God admitting it, the people may hold, as we again speak, a "prayer-meeting."

This was likewise voluntary or additional, as I have said — not appointed by scripture, but suggested under the Spirit of God, by the time and the circumstances which marked this present revival under Nehemiah. Confession was the due language of a people who stood, at that moment, the representative of a long-revolted, disobedient, and guilty nation.

"Ceasing to do evil," however, is to be followed by "learning to do well." It is very right, if we have been doing wrong, to begin with confession of the wrong, ere we set ourselves to do the right. But to do the right thing is a due attendant on the confession of the wrong thing. And all this moral comeliness we see here, as we pass from the ninth to the tenth chapter.

The nobles, and all the people together, meet as "brethren," in separation from the people of the land (see Neh. 10: 28), and seal a covenant to keep the laws of God. It is pleasant to see here, as also when they were building the wall in Nehemiah 3, how rank and station lost itself in common brotherhood. "Let the rich rejoice in that he is made low, and the poor in that he is exalted, for the fashion of this world passeth away." And what they now covenant and seek to do, has still something additional or unprescribed in it. They pledge themselves to observe all the commandments of the Lord, His statutes and His judgments; not to make marriages with other people; not to profane the sabbath; to bring in their first-fruits, their first-born, and their firstlings, and the tithes of their ground; and all this is according to the word of the Lord. But they also make ordinances for themselves, to be chargeable yearly in the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of God; and they cast lots to bring wood for the altar of God at appointed seasons.

All this is still in sweet and wondrous harmony with the whole of their actions in this day of happy revival. The word of God is, again and again, and throughout, honoured in all its demands; but added things are seen in their services and activities; such as the fresh energy and grace of the revival-season would suggest, and the Spirit would warrant.

Here this parenthetic action, as I have called it, ends. It is beautiful from first to last. The people are conducted through a gracious process. They are exercised according to truth by the Spirit. They are convicted and then relieved. Then they have a lesson about coming joys in days of glory. And thus instructed as to their rich interest in the grace of God, they can look at themselves, not as in fear and in a spirit of bondage, but for due brokenness of heart and with a purpose to serve God for the future. And all this may call to mind that utterance or experience provided by the Holy Ghost for repentant Israel in the last days: "Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, yea even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth" (Jer. 31).

Nehemiah 11 —  13.

These chapters witness the people still earnest and obedient. The day of revival continues. The freshness of its morning has, in no measure, faded, though we here reach a later hour of the day.

The eleventh chapter opens with a grievous mark of Jerusalem's degradation. She is a witness against herself, that she is not as the Lord will have her in the days of coming glory. She is not "desired," rather indeed "forsaken." People are not flocking to her. She cannot look round her, as she will in the days of the kingdom, and wonder at the multitude of her children. It is not, as yet, the boast of others, that they have been born in her; nor are they owning that all their fresh springs are in her. She has not as yet to say, that the place is too strait for her, for the multitude of those who fill her. These surely are not her condition here in this chapter. She is debtor to any one who will consent or condescend to dwell in her.

What a witness of degradation! what a sign indeed, that restoration was not glory! Jerusalem is still trodden down; the times of the Gentiles are still unfulfilled. Surely the daughter of Zion has not arisen, and shaken herself from the dust, and put on her strength and her beautiful garments.*

*And what a witness does Christendom yield, that reformation is not glory!

Still, she must be inhabited; she must have her citizens within her. The land must have its people, for Messiah is soon to walk among them; the city must have its inhabitants, for her King is soon to be offered to her. Therefore is the return from Babylon, and therefore is the peopling of Jerusalem.

And again, as we see in Nehemiah 12, she has her wall. Right, that, having a wall, the wall should be dedicated. Public festivity had been often celebrated on such like occasions: at the carriage of the ark in the days of David; at the dedication of the temple in the days of Solomon; at the foundation of the second house in the time of Zerubbabel; and again, when that second house was finished, this was so. And now, in this day, this day of Nehemiah, the people again rejoice at the dedication of the wall which was now finished, and was encompassing the city.

But while this is so, and all is right so far and after this manner, yet what, I ask, is this wall? What, I further ask, but another witness of Jerusalem's degradation? In her coming days of strength and beauty, when she is the city of the Kingdom, the metropolis of the world, the sanctuary and the palace of the great divine King of Israel and of the earth, "salvation" shall be her wall. God will then appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks. The Lord Himself, like her mountains, shall stand round about her. Her walls shall be called Salvation, and her gates Praise. The voice of the Spirit in Zechariah, the echo of which could scarcely at this time have died away, had uttered this fine oracle: "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein. For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her" (Zech. 2: 4, 5).

How infinite the difference! Jerusalem under the eye of Nehemiah bearing the marks of her shame; Jerusalem, as we read of her in the prophets, the witness of the highest destiny in honour and excellency in the earth! How must such a man have felt, because of all this! And yet he serves earnestly, undauntedly, patiently. Great moral dignity shines in this — a fine spirit of self-devotion expresses itself. He works, and works nobly, though beset with foreign enmities, and encompassed with domestic degradation. Such a servant of Christ, Paul appears to be in 2 Timothy; and such Nehemiah in this book of his.

And this we ought to be ourselves. The Christendom that we see around us is as far from the church that we read of in the Epistles, as the Jerusalem which Nehemiah looked on was unlike the Jerusalem which we read of in the prophets. But he served in the midst of her; and so should we in the face and in the heart of Christendom. For the spirit of service measures not the scene of the service, but the will of the Master.

All this, however, tells the character of the moment. Israel is restored, her land peopled, her city inhabited again; but this is not the kingdom. The children of Israel are to be put to the proving and the clearing of themselves still; and the day of grace, of salvation, and of glory, the promised day of the kingdom, is still distant. But faith has to be exercised, and obedience has to learn and practise its lesson.

Accordingly, on entering Nehemiah 13, we find the Book of God still open among the people. For surely a day of revival is the day of "an open Bible," as we speak. But it is a new lesson they have now to learn. They are growing in knowledge, in acquaintance with divine principles. It is quite another page of the book which they have now turned over. Scripture, as yet, had its "comfort" for them; now it is to have its "patience." As yet it had "piped" to them, now it is about to "mourn" to them. The joy of the feast of trumpets, and the still richer joy of the feast of tabernacles, had been made known to them, and they had obediently responded. They had "danced" to that piping. But now they were to be exercised painfully by the book. They read "that the Moabite and the Ammonite were not to come into the congregation of the Lord for ever."

This was terrible. All, as yet, had been eminently social. Not only in their joy as on the feast-days but in their act of confession, they had been together. "Strangers" had been removed, but "the mixed multitude" do not seem to have been looked after and detected. But now, at the bidding of the word found in Deut. 23, this severe cutting off must be performed; as at the bidding of Lev. 23, the joy of the tabernacles had been already celebrated.

But this was the more fitted to test the spirit of obedience in this good day of revival. And the congregation do stand it, and answer the demand of the word of God very blessedly. For we read, "it came to pass, when they heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude." This was obedience indeed, doing what Scripture prescribed — doing the lessons of the word, teach they what service or duty they may, or call to what sacrifices they may. Iniquity, however, is now found to be in high places, higher, it would seem, than the people could reach. But it must be reached even there; for a day of awakening, and of fresh power from God, must be a day of obedience. All this time an Ammonite had been in the house of the Lord. This exceeded. Not merely was he, like the mixed multitude, in the congregation, but in the house: and that, too, by the practices of the high priest himself.

Nehemiah was not at Jerusalem just at this time. But on his return, he acts on this abomination thus found in the high places, as the people themselves had already acted, in their measure, upon the mixed multitude. For Deut. 23 shall be heard, though the highest functionary in the church will have to be rebuked. Eliashib is nobody to Nehemiah, when Moses speaks; for the one has God's authority with him, the other is to have it over him. A word of admonition to Christendom, if Christendom had ears to hear — that Christendom which has set its own Eliashib above Moses, its own officers above the Scripture. But such an one was not this faithful man. With him "Moses' seat" was supreme. Scripture judges every man, while it itself is to be judged of no man. Neither high priest in Israel, nor assumption of antiquity and succession, nor of any other kind in Christendom, however attractive, is to set aside one jot or tittle of it. The Book, speaking from God, as it does, at all times, and addressing itself to all conditions, must be supreme. "The Scripture cannot be broken" — therefore it is not to be gainsayed. God will fulfil it; we are to observe it.

All this which we thus find in Nehemiah and the congregation, in this closing day of the Old Testament, may well arrest the thoughts of the saints in this day of ours.

In Nehemiah 11 and 12 we have seen marks of degradation in Jerusalem — we see them still in Nehemiah 13. The sabbath was profaned there, and alliances with the daughters of the uncircumcised were still found there. This is more than degradation in circumstances; it is moral degradation, if not abomination. The restoration from captivity, and the re-peopling of the city, have not entitled it to be saluted, as it is to be in coming kingdom days, with that voice which the Spirit has prepared from the lips of an admiring gazing world, "The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness" (Jer. 31: 23).

But in spite of all this, again I say, we see Nehemiah serving. And this is a very fine sight. I need not say how, to perfection, the divine Master of all servants was a pattern of this in His day of service. But there is a great moral dignity in this, let us find samples of it in whom we may.

The congregation, too, keeping the Book still open, is an edifying sight, a sight for us very specially to look at. They were not "partial in the law." They exhibit a people who would fain have no "neglected texts," nor "unturned pages," in the Book of God. Not a sound of it was to be lost upon the ear, as though it was heard in the distance. But who of us, I ask, is up to them in this? How prone we are to choose our lessons, rather than "to live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!" Is it not so? I may love the page which reads me a word on the feast of tabernacles in its joy, and delight myself in the sound of the trumpets in the day of the new moon of the seventh month. But the word that would wash me for purification, and separate me from unwarranted alliances, has another relationship to me, and addresses me in other accents. I do not choose that lesson. It is a page of the Book I am not disposed to open. I am tempted to say with the Roman governor, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." The house may be too social, the heart may be too much at ease, to discipline itself by such ordinances as Deut. 23: 3.

Indeed, indeed, we may say, all this Scripture, these books of the returned captives, this Ezra and this Nehemiah, are worthy of the deep attention and full admiration of our souls. How did the Spirit of God work in the elect in those days, how does He, by what He has recorded of them, instruct us in these days!

And beside, as we have also seen, those times of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, were times of revival. Such times had been known before in Israel, as with Samuel, David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Isaiah. And such have been known, again and again, in the progress of Christendom. And a re-quickening season may take a shape but little expected by us, and perhaps without a perfect precedent. It is the property of life to put on, at times, some exuberant features, to work outside and beyond its ordinary rules and measures. It is more like itself when it acts thus. For life is a thing of freedom, and has inbred force in it. But, at the same time, we are to judge every expression of it by the word of God. "To the law and to the testimony:" if a thing stand not that test, it is not the overflowing of life, however ecstatic or exuberant it may be; it is to be disclaimed with all its fascinations.

"To him that hath shall more be given." Obedience to one lesson is the sure and safe road to the discovery of another. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." There is a temptation to hold back, lest the lessons we have yet to learn shall prove distasteful. "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." There is, therefore, in some of us, a great disposedness or temptation to stop short. But this is disobedience, as well as the breaking of a word read and understood. To shut the book, through fear of what it might teach us, is plainly and surely disobedience.

The Dispersed among the Gentiles.

The Book of Esther.

In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, on which I have already meditated, we saw the captives brought back to Jerusalem, there to await the coming of the Messiah, that it might be known, whether Israel would accept the Messenger and Saviour whom God would send to them. In this book of Esther we are in a very different scene. The Jews are among the Gentiles still.

We will look at it in its succession of ten chapters; and in the action recorded we shall find —

The Lord God working wondrously, but secretly.

The Jews themselves.

The Gentile, or the power.

The great Adversary.

Esther 1 - 2.

The book opens by presenting to us a sight of the Gentile now in power. It is, however, the Persian and not the Chaldean; "the breast of silver," not "the head of gold," in the great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw. We are here reading rather the 2nd than the 1st chapter in the history of the Gentile's supremacy in the earth. We see him in the progress rather than at the commencement of his career; but morally he is the same. Moab-like, his taste remains in him, his scent is not changed. All the haughtiness that declared itself in Nebuchadnezzar re-appears in Ahasuerus. No spirit or fruit of repentance — no learning of himself — or of what becomes him as a creature, is seen in this man of the earth. The lie of the serpent, which formed man at the beginning, is working as earnestly as ever. The old desire to be as God, utters itself in the Persian now, as it had before in the Chaldean. The one had built his royal city, and looked at it in pride, and said, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" The other now makes a feast, and for one hundred and eighty days, shows to the princes and nobles the whole power of his realm, "the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honour of his excellent majesty."

Nay more; for the Persian exceedeth. There is a bold affecting to be as God in Persia, which we did not see in Babylon. We notice this in three distinguished Persian ordinances.

1. No one was to appear in the royal presence unbidden. In such a case, had this ordinance of the realm been violated, life and death would hang on the pleasure of the king.

2. No one was to be sad before the king; his face or presence was to be accepted of all his people as the spring and power of joy and gladness.

3. No decree of his realm could be cancelled; it stood for ever.

These are assumptions indeed. This exceeds, in the way of man showing himself to be as God; and know we not, that this spirit will work till the Gentile has perfected his iniquity? But the hand of God begins to work its wonders now, in the midst of all the festivity and pride which opens the book. The joy of the royal banquet was interrupted: a stain defaces the fair form of all this magnificence. The Gentile queen refuses to serve the occasion, or be a tributary to this day of public rejoicing; and this leads to the manifesting of the Jew, and of ultimately making that people principal in the action, and eminent in the earth, beyond all thought or calculation.

It was a small beginning, poor and mean in its character and material. Vashti's temper, which goaded her to a course of conduct which jeoparded her life, was the "little fire" which kindled this "how great a matter." It is a miserable, despicable circumstance. What can be meaner? The temper, we may say, of an imperious woman! And yet, God, by it, works results, then known to Himself in counsel, but the accomplishment of which shall be seen in the coming day of Jewish glory.

Vashti is deposed. She is disclaimed as the wife of the Persian; and others more worthy are to be sought for, to take her place.

Now, the question may arise, How far can one of the Jews take advantage of such an occasion? Does holiness avail itself of corruption? Can the people of God forget their Nazaritism, their separation to Him? And yet Esther consents to go before the king at this time, as in company with all the daughters of his uncircumcised subjects!

This may amaze us, if we judge of things by any light less pure and intense than that in which God Himself dwells. The moral sense of mere man — the verdict of legal ordinances — the voice of Mount Sinai itself — will not do at times. We must walk in the light as God is in the light. We must know "the times," like Issachar of old, ere we can rightly say, "what Israel ought to do."

Did not some of Bethlehem-Judah take wives of the daughters of Moab, and that, too, without rebuke? Did not Joseph, in his marriage, deviate from the holiness of Abraham, and Moses from the ordinances of the law? Was not Rahab, though a daughter of the uncircumcised, adopted of Judah, and so conspicuous in the ancestry, after the flesh, of David's Lord? And did not Samson take to wife a woman of Timnath, that belonged to the Philistines?

The people of God were not in due order on the occasions of those strange events; and this is the moral vindication. The light of divine wisdom in divine dispensation becomes the judge, rather than ordinances. The Jews were now in the dispersion. Joseph, if we please so to express it, is in Egypt again, Moses in Midian, and the sons of Bethlehem-Judah in Moab; and Esther is as much unrebuked for going in unto the king of Persia, as Joseph for marrying Asenath, or Moses for marrying Zipporah, or Mahlon for marrying Ruth; and each and all of them stand without reproach or judgment before God in these things, just as David did when he ate the showbread. Nay, these things were of God, as Samson's marriage with a Philistine woman seems distinctly to be so recognized (Judges 14: 4).

Divine counsels shall be accomplished; the fruits of grace shall be gathered; and the ordinances of righteousness, and the arrangements which suit us, were we in integrity, and in well-ordered condition, shall not interfere.

Esther 3.

The Jew, strange to say it, as we have seen, becomes important to the power, that is, to the Persian. But more so than I have as yet noticed — important to his safety as well as to his enjoyments. For Mordecai becomes his protector, as Esther had become his wife. This we see at the close of Esther 2. The king is debtor to both. In spite of all his greatness, and all the resources for happiness and strength which attached to his greatness, he is debtor to the dispersed of Judah. They are important to him. Both his heart and his head, as I may say, have to own this.

But, if the Jew be thus strangely brought into personal favour and acceptance, with equal strangeness is the Jew's enemy brought into high and honourable elevation, and seated in the very position which capacitated him to gratify all his enmity. An Amalekite sits next in dignity and rule to the king. Above all the princes of the nation, Haman, the Agagite, is preferred; why, we are not told. No public virtue or service is recorded of him. Apparently it is simply the royal pleasure that has done it. A stranger to the nation he was — a distant stranger; one, too, of a race now all but forgotten; we might say, once distinguished in the day of the infancy of nations, but now all but blotted out from the page of history, superseded by others far loftier in their bearing than ever he had been, the Assyrian first, then the Chaldean, and now the Persian. And yet there he now is before us, an Amalekite seated next to Ahasuerus the Persian; in dignity, office, and power, Haman is only second to him.

This is strange indeed, we may say. The great enemy of Israel, when Israel was in the wilderness, re-appears here in the same character in this day of Israel in the dispersion (see Ex. 17). It is strange, an Amalekite found nearest to the throne of Persia! The heart of the great monarch of that day turned towards him, to put him into a condition to act the old Amalekite part of defiance of God, and enmity against His people. We could not have looked for such a thing. This name of Amalek was to be put out from under heaven; and, from the days of David till now, I may say, this people had not been seen. But now they re-appear, we scarcely know how; and that soon in bloom and strength, as in a palmy hour.

This, again, I say, is strange, indeed. It is of one in quasi-resurrection; of one whose deadly wound was healed; of one "who was, and is not, and shall be present."

The Agagite now stands forth as the representative of the great enemy, the proud apostate that withstands God, and His people, and His purposes. There has been such an one in every age; and he is the foreshadowing of that mighty apostate who is to fall in the day of the Lord. Nimrod, in the days of Genesis, represents him; Pharaoh, in Egypt; Amalek, in the wilderness; Abimelech, in the time of the judges; and Absalom, in the time of the kings; Haman, here in the day of the dispersion; and Herod, in the New Testament. Exaltation of self, infidel pride, and the defiance of the fear of God, with rooted enmity to His people, are, some or all, the marks on each of them; as in a full form of daring awful apostasy, such will be displayed in the person of the Beast who, with his confederates, falls in the presence of the Rider on the white horse, in the day of the Lord, or the judgment of the quick. Prophets have told of such as "the king that is to do according to his own will:" as "Lucifer, son of the morning;" as "the prince of Tyrus," we may say; as "the fool that saith in his heart, There is no God;" and variously beside. And the Apocalypse of the apostle shows him to us in the figure of a Beast, who had his image set up for the worship and wonder of the whole world, and his mark as a brand in the forehead of every man; whose deadly wound was healed, who was, and is not, and is to be.

And further, we may notice, that the purpose, as well as the person, of the great adversary, stands forth in this great Haman. He must have the blood of all the Jews; his heart will not be satisfied by the life of the one who had refused to do him reverence. He must have the lives of the whole nation. He breathes the spirit of the enemy of Israel, who by-and-by is to say, "Come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance" (Ps. 83). The Amalekite and his company cast the lot, the Pur, only to determine the day on which this deed of extermination was to be perpetrated. But, as we know, the lot may be "cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord" (Prov. 16: 33). And so was it here. Eleven long months, from the thirteenth day of the first month to the thirteenth day of the twelfth month — that is, from the day when the lot was cast, to the day on which the lot decided that the slaughter of the nation should take place — are given, so that God would ripen His purposes towards both His people and their adversaries.

This has a clear loud voice in our ears. There is no speech or language but the voice is heard. God is not even named; but it is the work of His hand, and the counsel of His bosom.

Haman finds no hindrance from the king his master. He tells the king that there is a people scattered through his dominions whom it is not his profit to let live, for their customs are diverse from all people — the secret of the world's enmity then and still (see Acts 16: 20, 21). The decree, according to the desire of Haman, goes forth from Shushan the palace; and it spreads its way in all haste to all parts of the world, the domain of the great Persian "breast of silver." The whole nation, as the consequence of this, takes the sentence of death unto themselves. The decree would have reached the returned captives, as well as the dispersion. Judea was but a province of the Persian power in that day. But they are to learn to trust in Him who quickens the dead, Who calls those things that be not, as though they were, Who acts in this world in resurrection-strength. The remnant of Israel must learn to walk in the steps of the faith of their father Abraham. It is faith that must be exercised; for the Lord will not for awhile reveal Himself, though He thinks of them, and shelters them without displaying Himself.

Mordecai now appears, as the representative of this remnant, the possessor of this Abraham-like faith, in this awful hour.

The godliness of this dear and honoured man begins to show itself in his refusal to reverence the Amalekite. The common duty of worshipping only the true God, the God of Israel, would have forbidden this. And shall a Jew bow to one of that race with whom the God of the Jews had already said, that He would have war for ever and ever? — bow to one who, instead of bowing himself to the Lord of heaven and earth, had even come forth to insult His presence and His majesty, yea, and to cut off His people before His face? Mordecai will jeopard his life by this refusal. But be it so. He is in the mind of his brethren Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who can say to an earlier Haman, "We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

This is fine in its generation truly; but finer still from its connections. For combination constitutes excellency of character. We are "to quit ourselves like men," and yet "let all our things be done in charity." In Him, who was all moral glory, as we have heard from others, there was "nothing salient" — all so perfectly combined. And in Mordecai we see this. We see "goodness," and, with that, "righteousness." He was gracious, and tender-hearted, bringing up his orphan cousin, as though she had been his own daughter. But now he is faithful and unbending. He will quit himself like a man now, if then he did all things in charity. He will not bow and do reverence at the command of the king, though his life may be the penalty.

Esther 4 - 5.

The various exercises of the soul in these chapters, as we see in Esther and Mordecai, are a matter of great interest. The hand and the Spirit of God work together so wondrously in the story of Israel, as we get it in the Psalms and in the Prophets: His Hand forming their circumstances; the Spirit, their mind. And these two things occupy a very large portion of the prophetic word. And we get living personal illustrations of this here, in the exercise of heart through which these two distinguished saints of God are seen to pass, and the marvellous circumstances through which they are brought.

On the issue of the fatal decree Mordecai fasts and mourns in sackcloth. But all the while he counts upon deliverance. Such a combination is full of moral glory. Elijah gave a sample of it in his day, for he knew the rain was at hand; but he casts himself down on the earth, and puts his face between his knees, as one in "effectual fervent prayer" (1 Kings 18, James 5: 16-18). The Lord Himself gives another sample of this. He knows and testifies that He is about to raise Lazarus from sleep, the sleep of death; but He weeps as He approaches the grave. So here with Mordecai. He will not put off his mourning. He refuses to be comforted, while the decree is out against his people, though he reckons, surely reckons, upon their deliverance one way or another. This is another of those combinations which are necessary to character or moral glory; a sample of which I have already noticed in this true Israelite, this "Israelite indeed."

And Esther is as beautiful in her generation, as a weaker vessel. She may have to be strengthened by Mordecai, but she is tenderly, deeply, in sympathy with the burdens of her nation. She sees difficulty, and feels dangers; and she speaks, for a time, from her circumstances. Nothing wrong in this. She tells Mordecai of the hazard she would run if she went into the royal presence unbidden. Nothing wrong, again I say, in thus speaking as from her circumstances, though there may be weakness. But Mordecai counsels her, as a stronger vessel; and he appears as one above both circumstances and affections, in the cause of God and His people. He sends a peremptory message to Esther, though he so loved her; and he is calm and of a firm heart in the midst of these dangers. He sits above water-floods in this way, in the dear might of Him who has trod all waves for us. There is neither leaven nor honey, as I may say, in the offering he is making: he confers not with flesh and blood, nor does he look at the waters swelling. His faith is in victory; and the weaker vessel is strengthened through him. Esther decides on going in unto the king. If she perish, she perishes; but she is edified to hazard all for her people. And yet, while she thus does not "faint" under the trial, neither will she "despise" it: for she will have Mordecai and her brethren wait in a humbled dependent spirit, so that she may receive mercy, and her way to the king's presence be prospered.

Accordingly, at the end of the fast, which they agreed on for three days, she takes her life in her hand, and stands in the inner court of the king's house, while the king was sitting on his royal throne. But kings' hearts are in the hand of the Lord; and so it proves to be here. Esther obtains favour in the sight of Ahasuerus, and he holds out the golden sceptre to her.

This was everything. This told of the issue of the whole matter. All hung upon the motion of the golden sceptre. It was the Spirit of God, the counsel and good-pleasure, the sovereignty and grace of God, that ordered all this. The nation was already saved. The sceptre had decided everything in favour of the Jews and to the confusion of their adversaries, be they as high and mighty, as many and as subtle, as they may. God had taken the matter into His own hand; and if He be for us, who shall be against us? "Thou shalt be far from oppression," the Lord was now saying to His Israel, "for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come nigh thee. Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me; whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the water to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn" (Isa. 54: 14-17).

Esther drew near and touched the sceptre. She used the grace that had visited her; but used it reverently and the sceptre was true to itself. It awakened no hope that it was not now ready to realize. It had already spoken peace to her; and peace, and far more than peace, shall be made good to her. "What wilt thou, queen Esther?" says Ahasuerus to her, "and what is thy request? It shall be given to thee, even to the half of the kingdom."

Very blessed this is. The sceptre, again let us say, was true to itself. What a truth is conveyed in this! The promise of God, the work of the Lord Jesus, is as this sceptre. These have gone before — pledges under the hand and from the mouth of our God, — and eternity shall be true to them; and endless ages of glory, witnessing salvation, shall make them good. Nothing is too great for the redeeming of such pledges: as here, the half of the king's dominions are laid at the feet and disposal of Esther.

But her dealing with the opportunity, thus put into her possession, is one of the most excellent and wondrous fruits of the light and energy of the Spirit that we see in the midst of the many wonders of this book in all the workmanship of God's great hand.

Instead of asking for the half of the kingdom, instead of desiring at once the head of the great Amalekite, she requests that the king and Haman may come to a banquet of wine which she had prepared for them. Strange, indeed! Who could have counted on such an acceptance of such an unlimited pledge and promise? It brings to mind the answer of the divine Master, of Him who is "the wisdom of God," to the Samaritan woman. She asked for the living water, and He told her to go call her husband! Strange, it would appear, beyond all explanation. But, as we know, it was a ray of the purest light breaking forth from the Fountain of light. And so here. This answer of Esther was strange, indeed. But it will be found to have been nothing less than the witness of the perfect wisdom of the Spirit that was now illuminating and leading her. It was the way of conducting the great adversary onward to the full ripening of his apostacy, to his attaining that mighty elevation in pride and self-satisfaction, from the which the hand of God had prepared from the beginning to cast him down. Esther, under the Spirit, was dealing with Haman, as the hand of God had once dealt with Pharaoh in Egypt. The vessel of wrath had again fitted itself for judgment; and he must fall from a pinnacle up to which his own lusts and the god of this world are urging his steps. Esther is the instrument in God's hands for giving him occasion thus to fill out the full form of his apostacy. Esther shows herself wonderfully in the secret of all this. She bids Haman and the king, the second day, as well as the first, — only these two together; and when this was done, the giddy height was reached from which the apostate is destined to fall.

He cannot stand all this. It is too much for him. His heart is overcharged; gratified pride has satiated it. He cannot contain himself; but corruption drives him in the way of nature — a sad verdict against nature. But so it is. It was natural, that he should expose all his glories to his wife and his friends. Flesh and blood can appreciate it; and pride must have as many courtiers and votaries as it can. And it must have its victims likewise. Mordecai still refuses to bow; and a gallows, fifty cubits high, is raised that he may be hanged thereon.

Esther 6 - 7.

Every secret thing must reach its day of manifestation. The word which Mordecai told the king about Teresh and Bigthana, the chamberlains, though hitherto forgotten or neglected, must now be remembered. The tears and the kisses, and the spikenard of the loving sinner in Luke 7, and the corresponding slights of the Pharisee, are passed in silence for a moment; but they are all brought to light ere the scene closes. For there is nothing hid that shall not come abroad. God lets nothing pass. Mordecai's act shall not always be forgotten. It shall be recognised, and that too in the very face of his great adversary; as the sinner's loving acts were all rehearsed in the hearing of her accusers (Luke 7: 36-50).

The night after Queen Esther's first banquet was a sleepless one to Ahasuerus. For, as God gives His beloved sleep, so does He at times hold the eyes waking to them by thoughts of the head upon the bed. By sending instruction through meditations in the night-season, He deals with the hearts of the children of men. So here with the Persian. The sleepless king calls for the records of the kingdom, the depository of the act of Mordecai; and he there reads about the act which had now happened some years before. And as it is true of man, that all that he has he will give for his life, so now the king, on the sudden unexpected discovery of the act of Mordecai, by which his life had been preserved, deems nothing too high or honourable for him.

Here, however, we may pause for a moment, and consider the wonderful interweaving of circumstances which we get in this history. There is plot and underplot, wheel within wheel, as the expression is, circumstance hanging upon circumstance; and each and all formed together to work out the wonderful works of God.

There is in this story the marvellous re-appearance of both the Jew and the Amalekite. Strange phenomena indeed! Who would have thought it, as I have said before? The Jew and the Amalekite reproduced in the distant realms of Persia, and in diverse places of favour and authority round the throne there! Then there is Vashti's temper and Esther's beauty meeting at the same moment. There is the fact of Mordecai being the one to overhear the plot against the life of the king. There is the lot deciding on a day for the slaughter of Israel, eleven months distant, so that there may be time for counsels to ripen, and changes to take place. There is the heart of the king moved to hold out the golden sceptre to Esther. And then we see the king's sleeplessness, and his thoughts guided to the records of the chronicles. And now, again, we see Haman entering the court of the palace at this peculiar juncture.

What threading together of warp and woof in all this! What intertwining of circumstances, and the production of a curious texture of many colours! And yet, as we have seen and said already, God all the while is unseen and unnamed.

Very blessed! Pleased with the work of His own hand, and in the counsels of His own mind, the Lord can be hid for a time, unpublished, uncelebrated. And we are called, in our way, to that which is like this. We are to prove our own work, to have rejoicing in ourselves alone, and not in another, without uttering our secrets, or gathering the regards of our fellows. And truly great this is, to work unseen, to serve unnoticed. Deep counsels of that wisdom which knows the end from the beginning, and wondrous working of that hand which can turn even the hearts of kings as it pleases.

Haman falls. What a day may bring forth, we commonly say, who can tell? We see it to be so in his history. Zeresh and his friends have to receive, ere the second day's banquet begins, a different Haman from him whom they had greeted after the close of the first. Haman falls, and falls indeed. But over this we must tarry for a little, that we may take knowledge of the character of this great fact, so important is it in setting forth the judgment of God:

1. Haman's greatness was allowed so to flourish and ripen, that he might fall in the hour of highest pride and daring.

This is very instructive, for this has been God's way, and is so still. The builders of the tower of Babel were allowed to go on with their work, till they made it a wonder. Nebuchadnezzar was given time to finish his great city. The beast of the Apocalypse will prosper till the whole world wonder after him. So here Haman is borne with, till he sits on the pinnacle. Then, in the moment of proudest elevation, the judgment of God visits all these. Herod, as another such, was smitten of God, and died, as the people were listening to him, and saying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man" (see Ps. 37: 34-36).

2. He is caught in his own trap. The honour is given to Mordecai which he had prepared for himself; and the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, he hangs thereon himself.

This still instructs us; for this has been God's way, and will be so still. Daniel's accusers are cast themselves into the den which they had prepared for him; and the flame of the fire slew those men who took up the children of the captivity to cast them into the furnace. And so it is foretold of the adversaries and apostates of the last days in this world's history. "Their own iniquity shall be brought upon them" (Ps. 7, Ps. 9, Ps. 10, Ps. 35, Ps. 57, Ps. 141, etc.). Satan himself, who has the power of death, is destroyed through death.

3. He falls suddenly.

So with the last great enemy. The judgment of God is to be like a thief in the night, like the lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth to the west. "In one hour," it is said of the Apocalyptic Babylon, "is she made desolate." The judgments on the world before the flood, and on the cities of the plain, were such also; "like figures," with this fall of the Agagite, of a judgment still to be executed.

4. He falls completely: utterly destroyed.

So with the great enemy, and the course of this present world with him.

The children of Judas cut off (Ps. 109), the little ones of Edom dashed against the stones (Ps. 137), Haman's sons, all hanged after himself, — these illustrate for our learning the utter downfall and annihilation of all that now offends; the clearing out of all by the besom of divine judgment. The "millstone" of Rev. 18 tells us this, and prophecy upon prophecy has long ago announced it.

Full of typical significance, in all the features that signalise it, is the fall of the great Amalekite. We live in such an hour of the world's history, as renders it specially significant and instructive to us. We are, day by day, seeing the Lord allowing the purposes of the world to ripen themselves, gradually to unfold their marvellous and varied attractions, and its whole system to make progress, till it again, like the tower of Babel of old, draw down the penal visitation of heaven; and that, too, in a moment, suddenly, to do its work of judgment completely, when (blessed to tell it!) not a trace of man's world shall remain, his pride and wantonness, with all their fruit, shall be withered and gone, and such a world as is fit for the presence of the Lord of glory shall then shine.

Esther 8 - 10.

We close this Book with the deliverance of the Jews in the very moment when destruction was awaiting them, and with their exaltation in the kingdom, and the celebration of their joy.

Mysterious workmanship of the hand of God! The Amalekite, the great adversary, cast down in the moment of his proudest elevation, and utterly cut off; the Jew, his purposed and expected victim, when there was but a step between him and death, delivered, then favoured and honoured, and seated next to the throne in rank and authority!

What a history! True in every circumstance of it, typical in every circumstance of it also; significant of those last days in the history of the Jew and of the earth, of which prophets have spoken again and again, the downfall of the man of the earth, and the exaltation of God's people in His own kingdom!

Mordecai, instead of being any longer at the king's gate, now comes before the king and takes his ring, the seal of office and of authority, from his finger. Thus is the Jew translated at the end. All scripture prepares us for this; and here it is illustrated. Here the historic scriptures of the Old Testament end, and here, as in a type, the history of the earth ends.

I may say, that the leading principal characteristics in the story of Israel are these, as we read it in the prophets:-

1. The present casting off of that nation, and the hiding of the divine countenance from them; and yet, their providential preservation in the midst of the Gentiles.

2. The present election of a remnant among them, and that repentance at the last, which leads them, nationally, to the kingdom.

3. The judgment of their adversaries and oppressors, with the especial downfall of their great infidel enemy.

4. Their deliverance, exaltation, and blessing in kingdom-days, with their leadership of the nations.

These are among the great things of the prophets; and these things are found in this little book of Esther. So that, again, I may say, this last Old Testament historic notice of the people of Israel pledges and typifies their present preservation all through this age of Gentile supremacy, and their glory in the last days, when the judgment of their enemies shall be accomplished.

Certain detached features of the coming millennial kingdom are likewise exhibited here. The fear of the Jews falls on their enemies, on those that were round about them; and they are restrained from all attempts to do them harm. Such had been seen in the palmy days of the nation, and such is promised by the prophets to be their portion again. Shushan, the capital of the Gentile world in that day, rejoices in the exaltation of the Jew; as all Scripture tells us, the whole world will rejoice under the shadow of the throne of Israel in the time of the coming kingdom. Many of the people of the land became Jews, as we read the like thing in the prophets again and again. Thus, for instance, "Many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." The throne that had exalted the Jew, and put down his oppressor, exercises universal dominion, laying a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea; as we know that, by and by, the king in Zion "shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth."

And here, let me add, that Ahasuerus represents power, royal authority, in the earth. He then filled the throne that was supreme among the nations. He was "the power," and represents, mystically or in a shadow, the power that will be in a divine head in the day of the kingdom. It is so, I grant, that power in the hand of this Persian is first exercised in evil; serving, as he did, the wicked designs of Haman, though now he is exalting the righteous. Still, he represents power, royal authority in the earth. Just like Solomon in Jerusalem, he did evil personally; he may have repented; but still his personal ways were evil as well as good. Nevertheless, in a general typical way, he represented power, and was the shadow of Christ on the throne of glory, that throne that is to rule the world in righteousness.

Full of mysterious beauty and meaning all this is. Those days of Ahasuerus and of Mordecai were days of Solomon and of prophecy, coming millennial days, days of the kingdom of God in the earth and among the nations. They were as the days of Joseph in Egypt. Mordecai in Persia was as Joseph in Egypt — the first historic book, and the last, in the Old Testament, giving us these varied but kindred notices that will come in upon the close and judgment of the kingdoms of the Gentiles.

The days of Purim celebrate all this. They constitute triumph after the victory, the joy of the kingdom upon the establishment of the kingdom. The Jews took on them, according to the word of Mordecai and Esther, to make the 14th and 15th days of the twelfth month, the month Adar, days of feasting and joy, because they rested therein from their enemies, and their mourning was turned to gladness, and light, and honour. They were a kind of Passover, celebrating deliverance from the land of Persia, as that feast did from the land of Egypt; or, if we would rather have it so, Purim was another song on the Red Sea, or another song of Deborah and Barak on the fall of the Canaanite. And it rehearses the song yet to be sung on the sea of glass in Rev. 15; or again, I say, if we would rather have it so, the joy of Israel in coming kingdom-days, when they shall draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa. 12). Indeed the Psalms 124 and 126, prepared as they are for future days of Israel's glory and joy, breathe the very spirit that must have animated Israel in this present day of Mordecai and Esther. It is beautiful to trace all this, to see these rehearsals again and again, as we go on the way, waiting for the full chorus of eternal harmonies in the presence of glory by and by. The infant church in Acts 4, in this spirit, breathes and utters the second Psalm, prepared as that Psalm is for the day when God's king sits upon the hill of Zion, after the enemy has perished, and the kings of the earth have learned to bow before Him. The blessed God is pleased with His own works: "For thy pleasure they are and were created." He, therefore, preserves, the work of His hands as their Creator. He is pleased with the counsels of His grace and wisdom. He has, therefore, preserved to this day the nation or people of the Jews, and will preserve them till the fruit of His counsels displays itself in His kingdom. And His kingdom thus will rise on the ruins and judgment of the nations; and Christ's world, "the world to come," shine in brightness and purity and blessing, after the folding up and passing away of "this present evil world."

This coming kingdom, this millennial world, is spoken of in all forms of speech by the prophets; but it has also been set forth in all forms of samples, and parcels, and specimens of it, in broken pieces of history from the beginning: as here we have seen it showing itself at the end of the Book of Esther. Ordinances, prophecies, and histories, in their several ways, have been doing this service.

Ere the antediluvian saints pass away, the spirit of prophecy speaks through Lamech, and addresses, as to them, a word of promise touching the earth; that therein, in due season, there should be comfort instead of curse (Gen. 5).

In Noah, as in the new world, we see an illustration of this prophecy of Lamech's; for after the judgment of the deluge, the earth rises again as in new or resurrection-form; and a pledge, a foreshadowing, of millennial days is before us.

The land of Egypt, under the government of Joseph, is a "like figure."

Under the law, we have a shadow of the same millennial rest in the weekly sabbath — in the annual feast of tabernacles — in the jubilee every fiftieth year.

For a moment, in the day of Joshua, when the tribes of Israel had entered the land, kept the Passover as a circumcised people, and then ate unleavened cakes of the corn of the land, we see, in another form, the same happy mystery witnessed to us (Joshua 5).

After this, the palmy reign of Solomon in a more extended form, in a full and rich manner, tells us the like secret.

And, indeed, I might have noticed the meeting of Jethro with the ransomed Israel on the mount of God, in wilderness-days, was (though in a different form) the foreshadowing of the same coming day of glory (Ex. 18).

And so now, in dispersion-days, as I may speak, we have the same; as we see at the close of this Book of Esther.

Prophecies upon prophecies accompany these ordinances and these histories; so that, in the mouth not only of many but of various witnesses, the kingdom that is still to be set up, and the glory that is still to be revealed, are verified to us. These are rehearsals of the great, the magnificent, issues of the counsels of God, of that purpose which shall be manifested in "the dispensation of the fulness of times."

The New Testament gives us like illustrations and promises. The transfiguration tells us of it. The regeneration or Palingenesia tells us of it. The action in the Apocalypse first makes way for it; and then, at the end, it shines in our sight, when the holy city descends from heaven bearing the glory of God with it, and when the millennial nations walk in the light of it.

Thus, the close of Esther finds itself in company with things from the very beginning to the very end, and all through the volume, all through the actings and sayings of God in the progress of this world's history. It is wonderful. What a witness of the writings that were to be found in Scripture! What a proof of the breathing of the same Spirit in all the parts of it! How it tells us, that "known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world!" We fill our own place, and occupy our own moment, in this great plan.

Conclusion.

Having read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah by themselves, as the story of the returned captives, and the book of Esther by itself as the story of the dispersed captives, we would now meditate on them together for a few moments. They give us, as we see, two distinct companies of captives, or two sections of the Jews. They illustrate different parts of the divine counsel and wisdom touching that people; and teach us lessons very important for our souls thoroughly to learn.

In each of these scenes, in the midst of each of these sections of the people of God, we have, so to speak, a separate platform erected for the exhibition of several or separate portions of God's ways and dealings with them.

The returned captives are brought home and left in the land, in order that they may be tested again, for to test His people, though in different ways, had been God's way from the beginning. Israel had already been tested by the gift of power. They had received a fat and good land, and been led on as from strength to strength, till they had flourished into a kingdom; a kingdom which had drawn the eyes of the kings of the earth, and was the admiration of the world.

But they had been untrue to their stewardship. They had abused the power entrusted to them, and were rebellious against the supreme rights of Him who had thus set them up, and ordained them as chief and metropolitan in the earth. And accordingly, or consequently, power, supremacy in the earth, or principal authority among the nations, was taken from them and given to the Gentiles.

Now, however, they are at home again. The captivity to which their unfaithfulness had led is over, and there is a section of the people at home in the land of their fathers again. For it is the divine purpose to test them by another test. God is about to send Messiah to them. His mission and ministry is to be in healing mercy, a proposal of the grace that brings salvation, that it may be known, whether they have an answer to the appeals of love, since they have already proved that they had no fidelity to Him who had entrusted them with power.

This is what we read in the fact of Israel's (or Judah's) return from Babylon. They are Jews again in their own land. Accordingly, as soon as they get home again, they behave themselves as Jews. They keep the ordinances — they raise the national altar — they rebuild the temple — they keep themselves apart from the heathen — they read the Scriptures — they observe the way of the God of Israel, as far as subjection to power in the hand of the Gentile will admit it. And the God of Israel owns them. He blesses them. He shelters them. He may exercise them in faith and patience; but still He is with them. As of old, He gives them leaders and deliverers and teachers; sends to them His prophets; and grants them days of revival, days of the new moon in the seventh month.

We know all this, indeed. This was, it is true, a kind of reformation in their religious history. No idolatry is practised by them after this; but other corruptions rapidly set in and worked, as not only the books of Ezra and Nehemiah themselves show us, but more particularly the prophecy of Malachi. And the opening of the New Testament Scriptures confirms this; for the Gospel by Matthew lets us see clearly and fully, that the returned captives were deeply unbelieving; as untrue to the doctrines and proposals of goodness, as their fathers had been to the stewardship of power. "He came to His own, and His own received Him not."*

*Here let me suggest, what I believe to be so, but would not teach it with authority, that among the witnesses of goodness which God left among the returned captives, and which were so many harbingers or pledges of a Messiah coming in grace, the Pool of Bethesda takes its place. It was, indeed, an extraordinary witness of "God the Healer."

This is so, indeed. And as, when they had been untrue to power, power was given over to the Gentiles, so now, since they are untrue to grace, grace is given over to the whole world; for the gospel is preached and the salvation of God is held up in the eyes of the ends of the earth.

And strikingly consistent and beautiful this progress in the ways of divine wisdom, or of God's dispensations. All testing ends in failure, and God must act for us and not with us. This fresh trial, by the ministry of Messiah, only proves, as by the mouth of another witness, that man is incorrigible and incurable. Every effort to make something of him, or to do something with him, leads him but to another exposure of himself, till he is left naked to his shame. The kingdom is not entered by a tested creature, even though grace test him. Judgment as of "reprobate silver" is the result of the process. "The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain."

Yes, indeed, he must be saved by grace, and not merely tested by it. The first advent of Messiah, or the proposal of salvation, did not lead Israel into the kingdom; it has left them a judged people, scattered and peeled, unsaved and unblest, only condemned upon a fuller conviction than ever.

We turn, however, to another scene. We are to consider another section of the people, the dispersed and not the returned. For in them is erected another platform, as I may still speak, for the illustration of God's way. We shall see them as the pledges and witnesses, not of a tested but of a saved people, saved through sovereign grace, and led into the kingdom.

This people had not availed themselves of the opportunity they had of returning home. This is a standing witness against them. They remained among the uncircumcised. They acted the part of the raven in Noah's ark. They seemed to take up with the unclean world. They are as Gentiles, we may say; we see no feasts or ordinances, or word of God among them. But I grant they are Jews still. And grace abounds towards them. In the midst of the Gentiles they are still kept alive — another unconsumed burning bush. Jehovah is not seen to be acknowledging them, as He was acknowledging their brethren who had returned to Jerusalem. Still He had His eye upon them, and they are kept alive; and that, too, till the due time comes for His rising up to deal with them in a way of which all His prophets have spoken.

All this we see in Esther, that wondrous book which closes the historic volume of the Old Testament.

A remnant is seen there. God deals with them marvellously both by His hand and Spirit; but He is unmanifested. We have seen this, when meditating on Esther. And we further traced God's way with Israel in all those eras of their history, when they were in an informal anomalous state; as instanced in the marriage of Joseph with an Egyptian, of Moses with a daughter of Midian, and the like, and Esther's marriage with Ahasuerus the Persian. For this was as the way of God Himself with them: when they were untrue to Him, He went over to others. Power first, as we have seen, and now grace and salvation, have gone over to others, since Israel was disobedient and unwilling. How consistent all this is! What constancy and perfection and unity in the ways of His holy wisdom! His brethren were untrue to Joseph, and cast him out. He married and became important in Egypt. His brethren were untrue to Moses, and forced him away; he married and became happy in Midian. His people were untrue to Jehovah; and He gave power to the Gentiles. His own were untrue to Messiah, rejecting, not receiving Him; and He now dispenses grace and salvation to the whole world.

Surely the Lord knows the end from the beginning. Surely His way is before Him.

"His wisdom ever waketh,

His sight is never dim,

He knows the way He taketh,

And I will walk with Him."

Oh for grace to say this and to do it! And to walk with Him, too, along the path of His wisdom, and the ways of His dispensations, as from glory to glory, to "walk in the light as He is in the light."

And fresh wonders still show themselves to us on these two platforms, in the story of the Returned, and in the story of the Dispersed.

As I have already observed, Malachi begins to intimate what will be the end of the returned or tested captives. All will fail, as all has failed. The New Testament Scriptures affirm the intimation of Malachi. The Evangelists make good the hints and notices of the Prophets. But Esther gives us to know what will be the dispersion, or of that portion which remained among the Gentiles. They will finally be taken up in sovereign grace, carried through "the great tribulation," and by that road into the kingdom. In that story, or on that platform, we see the nation of the Jews brought to the eve and on the brink of utter destruction, rescued by the wonder-working hand of God, and then seated in the high places of honour, of influence, and of authority, by the Power that rules the earth, all their enemies either judged and taken out of the way, or seeking their favour and blessing.*

*The great tribulation, "the time of Jacob's trouble," of which the prophets speak, will find the Jews at home in their own land, though now they are dispersed as in the day of Esther. But that is no matter. As a nation they are to pass into the kingdom through the tribulation.

In these books, or in these two scenes of various action, these are the secrets we are instructed in. Man is tested and fails; the sinner is taken up in grace and saved.

And these are the secrets we have been set down to learn from the beginning; and we are destined, blessedly destined, to celebrate them for ever. Man is exposed, God is displayed. Man is thoroughly made naked to his shame; God is exalted in the highest order of exaltation, and displayed in the brightest light of glory.

It was thus in the story of Adam at the very beginning. He was tested, and under the testing he failed, and destroyed himself; he was then taken up in grace, and saved through the death and resurrection of Christ — by faith in the bruised and bruising Seed of the woman.

It was thus again in Israel. Israel was set under law. But the shadows of good things to come accompanied the law. Under their own covenant, under the law, Israel, like Adam, was ruined. But God acts in the midst of the self-destroyed people, of the self-wrought ruin; and by ordinances and prophecies and pledges of many kinds He has ever been telling them of final grace and salvation.

And now, in like manner, the gospel thoroughly exposes us, but fully, presently, perfectly, eternally, saves us. And through the ages of glory, it will be told out that we are a washed people, a ransomed people, who owe everything to grace and redemption, though glorified for ever.

So that these two platforms, the scene in the midst of the returned captives, and the scene in the midst of the dispersed captives, are in company with all the divine way from the beginning, and with that which is to be had in remembrance and celebrated for ever. Only we marvel afresh at this new witness of the way of God, His necessary perfect way, in a world like this.

How complete all this makes the divine historic volume of the Old Testament! That volume ends here; and we are well satisfied to have it so.

The way of the Lord Himself in this book is specially wonderful. Apparently He is neglectful of His people. He is "silent" towards them. He does not show Himself. There is no miracle. His people, even in all the exercises of their hearts under the most pressing circumstances, never mention Him. Surely this is wonderful. But it is admirable as well as wonderful. It is perfect in its place and season. For during this present Gentile age, God is apart from Israel, like Joseph, in Egypt, or Moses in Midian, apart from their brethren, as I have already noticed; yea, and as many voices of the prophets have anticipated (see Ps. 74; Isa. 8: 17; Isa. 18: 4, Isa. 45: 15; Hosea 5: 15, etc.). And the Lord Jesus, speaking as the God of Israel at the close of His ministry, says to them, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate; for I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" (Matt. 23: 38, 39)

But He cares for them. Their names are in the palm of His hand. He revokes not the judgment; but He will, in due time, awake for their deliverance. It is Jesus asleep in the boat, winds and waves tossing it. But in the needed time He awoke and rose for the quieting of all that, which, swelling in its anguish, was raging against them.

"Hail to the Lord's anointed,

Great David's greater Son!

When to the time appointed

The rolling years have run,

He comes to break oppression,

To set the captive free,

To take away transgression,

And rule in equity."

Short Meditations on Elisha

Short Meditations on Elisha

J. G. Bellett.

"Tell me, I pray thee, All the great things that Elisha hath done." 2 Kings 8: 4.

Introduction.

The ministries of Elijah and Elisha occupied the days of the family of Ahab, of the house of Omri; the time of the deepest corruption in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. The testimony of the Lord about those times is this: "And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him."

It was in those days that Hiel the Bethelite dared the arm of the Lord by rebuilding Jericho; an act which, affronting the truth and power of the Lord, looked with infidel boldness, and said, "Where is the God of judgment?" (Mal. 2: 17). For Ahab's days were days of man's proud provocation and temptation again.

At such a time, just on the act of Hiel, Elijah is called out (1 Kings 16: 34; 1 Kings 17: 1). And in him, we see an entirely independent call of God, and energy of the Spirit. He is quite in the Lord's own hand. He does not belong to the Priesthood. He never seeks the Temple. He never consults established oracles, or walks orderly according to the statutes or ordinances of Israel. But the Lord takes him up, and fills him with light and power altogether His own, not reaching him by any prescribed channel at all.

And so Elisha. He was independent of all that was already instituted in the land. The hand of the Lord uses him, the Spirit of God fills him, without respect to the Temple or the Priesthood.

And we get the common, and yet most blessed instruction of Scripture, out of this — that when man had corrupted and righteously lost everything (as in Ahab, and in his times), the Lord finds occasion by that, to bring forth His own resources. Man's wilderness was Christ's storehouse (Matt. 14: 15-21).

But though there is this common character and moral in the call of these two prophets (and indeed, in measure, of all the prophets), yet their ministries are, in detail, very distinct. Testimony against evil, and consequent suffering, mark the history of Elijah; power, and grace in using it for others, mark that of Elisha. Both are seen in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose shadows, of course, they were. In one aspect of His history on earth, we see the suffering, driven, persecuted witness; the world hating Him, because He testified that its works were evil; in another we see the powerful, gracious, ready friend of others, all that had sorrows or necessities getting healing and blessing from Him.

More, too, than even this stands reflected in the histories of these prophets; for Elijah's sorrow here, and rejection by the world, ends in heaven; Elisha's power carries him ahead of all that might resist, and keeps him in constant honour and triumph on the earth. And these things foreshadow the heavenly and earthly things of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and King of Israel.

I would now pass through the history of Elisha given to us in 2 Kings 2 - 13. I do so, however, only rapidly, though in this little journey noticing each detached scene in order, and seeking to draw forth something of the divine counsel, and the divine moral, having found it a scripture of great interest to my own soul.

The Translation of Elijah.

2 Kings 1 - 13.

These verses give us the first distinct portion. Long before this, Elijah had invited Elisha into ministry with him (1 Kings 19) by passing by and casting his mantle upon him; but Elisha was not then quite prepared. He pleaded his father and mother. "Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father, and my mother, and then I will follow thee." Upon which Elijah, as it were, withdrew his mantle from him, recalled his invitation, saying, "Go back again, for what have I done to thee."*

*The Lord seems to refer to the call of Elisha, in Luke 9: 62. Elisha was then at the plough, but seemed to look a little back. (See 1 Kings 19: 19, 20).

This was significant. For though Elisha is for a moment seen ministering to Elijah after this (1 Kings 19: 21), yet we do not again find him expressly in company with his master, till now that his master is just about to be taken from him.

And to what end is he now seen with him? Just to abide the fire, just to stand the test, whether indeed he were, or were not, fully prepared for the mantle.

Elijah can leave his mantle behind him. He needed it not in the heaven to which he was going. As soon as he entered the fiery chariot on which the whirlwind attended — as soon as he was borne by angels (Heb. 1: 7) up to heaven, he may, and must, disrobe himself. The mantle must be the instrument of power, the gift for service here - and the servant lays that aside when his service is over; just as the sinner at his conversion, when his old estate is passed, can cast away his garments (Mark 10: 15). "We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."

But though Elijah may now dispense with his mantle, is Elisha prepared for it? That is the question. And this trial is made by two instruments, Elijah himself, and the sons of the prophets. Both were used by God to prove if indeed Elijah's mantle were chief in Elisha's esteem, whether he carried within him the spirit of a true Levite, of one with whom the Urim and Thummim might be, being found able now to say to his father and his mother, "I have not seen him" (Deut. 33: 8, 9). This was the test; the Lord was weighing Elisha's value for glory; He was ascertaining how heavy a share with the joy and honour of being one in the spirit and ministry of Elijah was in the scales of Elisha's affections. And he stands the test; nothing slackens his hand. He silences all temptations; he declares plainly that he coveted the mantle, the double portion of the Spirit. He turns his eye from every object but the glory. It is no more his father or his mother behind him whom he would return to kiss, but it is his father in the faith, his kindred in the Spirit, he clings to, and towards whom, and whom alone, he looks upward and onward. "My father, my father," says he, as Elijah was ascending, "the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof."

This was enough. There was a slight flaw in his title to the mantle at first (1 Kings 19) as we saw, but now his title is perfect. He is a true Levite. "He knows no man after the flesh," and the mantle is his.

And this is a holy lesson for us. For how little do our hearts, surely we know, value the mantle, value the honour of serving Jesus, or a share of His coming glories! This tested not the prophet's title to God Himself, or salvation. Elijah had no doubt that Elisha was the Lord's: but this was trying his estimation of glory. And that is properly our only question. We are to examine ourselves whether we be walking worthy of the Lord's glory — whether we value a share in it. And well for us if discipline lead us to covet it, as it did Elisha: well, if nature, which is so tenacious of its life and its rights in us, be rebuked, and while it says, go back and kiss father and mother, we rather listen to the voice of the mantle which tells us to go forward after the prophet of God.

And humbling it is to know that the heart, left to itself without the Spirit, cares not for God or His glory. It once sold him for a mess of pottage, then for a herd of swine, and then for thirty pieces of silver. And would still for anything. The chariot may go back to heaven empty for aught we care. This is the language of the heart. But oh for grace to value a portion with Thee, blessed Saviour! Oh for power in our souls to long for a seat with Thee in that heavenly chariot that shall separate us from earth, and its interests, and take us in Thee, and with Thee, and through Thee, to the height of glorious bliss!

TheWaters of Jericho Healed.

There are different elevations amongst the Saints. Lot did not stand on a level with Abraham, nor did the 7,000 hidden ones with Elijah. But all were, equally, the elect of God, known to Him, and reserved by Him. So here; Elisha and the sons of the prophets illustrate the same thing. We have just seen the one pressing through all hindrances after heavenly honours, but now we are to see the other with a mind too sadly formed by the earth.

These sons of the prophets were, Nicodemus like, slow hearted to believe. Their thoughts do not rise above the mountains and valleys of the earth. They have never seen a heavenly chariot. They cannot think but that Elijah is still somewhere here - and they search for him here. Elisha would have led them at once to his place of light and elevation; but they must be taught through their own mistakes.

Elisha can, however, own them. Weak and inapprehensive as they may be, and in the power of the Spirit far below the prophet of God; still they share his company, and his blessing. The city where they dwelt had been under a curse (Joshua 6) But he brings healing to it. "There shall be no more curse," was the language of the prophet over Jericho, as it will be the language of the Lord over the inheritance (Rom. 8, Rev. 22).* And this is comforting while it is humbling to us consciously weak ones — to us who, from what we know of our poor souls, stand more with the sons of the prophets round Jericho, than travel, in the strength of the Holy Ghost, with Elisha through the Jordan. It should humble us to think that we are not on his level, while it may blessedly comfort us to know, that the Lord is still ours. The small and the great stand before Him.

*If it be not too bold a thought, I would suggest, from the history we get of it in scripture, that Jericho may be looked at as a sample of the whole earth. The curse was at the beginning pronounced upon that city (Joshua 6); that curse was executed on it (1 Kings 16); but at the end it becomes a healed place, suited to the habitation and joy of God and man again. Is not this the parable of the earth?

But here I would observe, that from the moment when our prophet took up the mantle of his master, God was all he had; but he found Him enough for all he needed. His need, however, like that of Jesus, was not his own. It was for others he occupied his resources and strength in God. He was rich, but not for himself. Thus — he meets the inconveniences of nature — without a purse he relieves the poor — without a commisariat he feeds armies — the deadly thing he makes harmless — without bread he gives food to a multitude and gathers fragments — without medicine he heals disease — without arms or soldiers he defeats enemies — in famine he supplies a nation — though dead he communicates life.

All this tells us of Jesus. For Jesus had nothing, yet made He many rich. He had the worlds of nature and of grace for the needy children of men. And His ways shine in the reflections of His servant Elisha.

The Judgment of the Scoffing Children.

Another meditation is suggested here. Children of Bethel are another order of persons altogether. If Elisha present the strong one in Christ, the true Levite, who had turned his back on all but the glory, and the chariot of fire to conduct him to it, and if the sons of the prophets are the weak ones, still, however, by divine grace, in the same company and blessing as Elisha, these children of Bethel, on the other hand, are the mockers, or infidels. They despise the word of the Lord. They mock the thought of ascension. "Where is the promise of his coming?" say they (2 Peter 3) The whole mystery of God, made known for salvation and glory, is their sport. They put the Son of God to open shame. "Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head," they say to Elisha, as reproaching the thought that Elijah had already, gone up. And here the curse falls. Ministers of wrath come forth; the bears on the children of Bethel, and the eagles on the carcase, to vindicate the divine truth against the gainsayers. Creation, it is true, is not to groan for ever under the curse which our sin has put on it, but shall be delivered from bondage into glorious liberty (Rom. 8), as Jericho had just been here but the curse will rest on the Cain, the children of Bethel, who despise God's remedy for the mischief. And it is written of such mocking, infidel children, children of disobedience, whether of Babylon, of Bethel, or of Edom, "happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Ps. 137)*

*Bethel may well stand in company with Babylon and Edom. Its history savours of full apostacy from God. There the idols were set up (1 Kings 12: 25-33). There, as we saw, Hiel was born, (See Introduction.) And here we learn that it was the native place of these scoffing, infidel children.

The Armies of the Kings Supplied with Water.

We do not find Elisha the sport of wicked kings as Elijah had been. No rude hand of theirs prevails against him; but their fate, the rather, hangs on his word, and the power of God that was with him.

Without him, we have seen three of them brought to the brink of destruction with all their armies. But the word of the Lord, by him, changes the scene, and distress of nations, with perplexity, is turned into victory and spoils.

But in the progress of this, we have something to notice.

The King of Judah is here found in bad company. This confederacy with the apostate house of Ahab was a symptom of sad unguardedness in Jehoshaphat. Nay, it was more — it was conferring with flesh and blood in a very evil way. But, in the divine grace, occasions are allowed to manifest the hidden life that was in him.

Trouble surprises him, and then the voice of his better nature is heard. "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire of the Lord by him?" This shows the uneasiness of the renewed mind of Jehoshaphat in such a scene as the present, though in an unwatched moment he had consented to it. And it was in the Lord's goodness to send the trouble, that the life which was indeed in him might appear (see 1 Kings 22: 7).

This is comforting to us. But there is something further in this narrative.

Elisha finds, when in the presence of these kings, that he cannot readily prophesy. Jehoshaphat may claim the word of the Lord from him, it is true, for Jehoshaphat is the Lord's servant: but Jehoshaphat is not where he should be, and the Spirit in Elisha is checked.

This is solemn. A minstrel must be brought ere the Spirit in the prophet can have His full and graceful flow.

What a rebuke to the king of Judah was this! What a rebuke to any saint, that another finds the Spirit in him restrained in his presence! Is not this often so? Does not our fleshliness interrupt the fine, free, and easy current of the Spirit, and has not the minstrel still to be thus called for? Some delay, some effort, something incidental, is to be exercised or suffered by. those who are spiritual, before all can be in tune again.

So was it here, and so ofttimes is it yet. This was the symptom of Jehoshaphat's bad condition, but of Elisha's heavenly-mindedness. Had Elisha been less in communion, he would not have stood in such need of the minstrel Had he been in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, he would not have felt the breach that Jehoshaphat, now in the flesh, was occasioning. His heavenliness of mind may be known by this sensitiveness, and the need that he had of restoration. Jesus had continually to call for the minstrel. His communion met its constant hindrance here, even from His own, who understood neither His joys nor His sorrows. He had to leave them; He had to rise before day, to continue all night, to go into a solitary place for prayer to God. It was the perfectness of His communion that made this necessary. He needed the minstrel. Had He been on ground nearer the earth, He would not have been so quick in feeling the earthliness of all around Him but He knew it all by the deepest contrast with it all in His own soul; and the charm and melody, of His own converse with the Father restored Him — in that sense restored Him.

Such was the blessed Master, the pattern of all perfections; and such, in his measure, was Elisha His servant. A mere instrument of divine power, or of a spiritual gift, may perform its part or exercise itself anywhere with equal freedom. Balaam is not hindered by the presence of Balak and the altars, from uttering His prophecies. For he is merely an instrument — a carnal material, as it were, through which another breathes. But where a renewed mind is the instrument, this cannot be. It will be alive in its own proper affections and in its own sensitive holiness, all the while it is used as an instrument of power.

And such was Elisha. He cannot but be grieved at the scene before him. Jehoshaphat ought not to have been there; and Elisha must let him know that he himself must enter it in another way altogether. A saint is called to serve or testify, in places of deepest defilement. But he can never be there with his sympathies, or the fellowship of his soul.

It was Elisha's praise, as a saint, to be thus like his Lord, to be quick in feeling the weight and pressure of such a scene as this, where another saint was walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit. And how should we covet this, beloved! How should we so live, and move, and have our being in the sanctuary, that the unclean could not touch it unperceived!

The Widow's Oil Multiplied.

"According to your faith, be it unto you!" was the Lord's word to the two blind men. Wondrous and blessed indeed, that thus in any wise our faith, or patience, or expectation of hope, should be allowed to measure the active and bounteous power of our Lord! but so was it. "According to your faith, be it unto you;" and again, "As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee" (Matt. 8, 9).

And this is the voice of the miracle wrought here through the hand of Elisha. For as long as the poor widow produced her vessels, the pot produced its oil. The oil waited on the vessels. The vessels were the measure of the oil. In other words, divine power waited on faith — faith measured the active resources of God on the occasion. This was like the Lord, of old, standing with Abraham. For as long as Abraham stood interceding, the Lord stood promising. (Gen. 18: 17-33).

This blessed grace of God has its illustration here. But there is another thing. "What hast thou in the house?" said the prophet to the woman. As Jesus afterward said to His disciples, "How many loaves have ye?" — or, as He had said to Moses at the hill, "What is that in thine hand?" For it is suitable, that whatever we have should be put to use. It may be quite unequal to the necessity, but whatever it be, it should be occupied. It may be but a shepherd's staff, and Israel has to be redeemed; — it may be but a pot of oil, and the creditor, who has a right to sell children and all, has to be paid; — it may be but five barley loaves, and five thousand hungry ones have to be fed. But still, let what there is be occupied and brought forth. "She hath done what she could." And, accordingly, the word here is, "What hast thou in the house?" And then, on bringing forth the pot of oil, the all of the house, let faith count on the power of God, and His word of promise, and not only shall the creditor be discharged, but life sustained for many days, over and above the payment; not only shall the multitude be fed, but fragments gathered; not only shall Israel be redeemed out of Egypt, but the same shepherd's rod, now God's rod, shall feed and keep the flock to the end of the desert.

The Shunammite.

Here we have another exhibition of the power of Elisha's walk through the earth. This is very, glorious; savouring, as we shall see, very strikingly, of the energy and authority of God that was with him. And yet, though walking thus in such power towards others, he had himself, all the while, nothing. Poor indeed, while making many rich: seeming to possess all things, yet really having nothing. Receiving bounty and care in the ordinary need of life, from those in whose behalf he, at the same time, is opening resources which were altogether beyond man. And beside — he walks alone in the world, and yet all wait on him.

All this gives us a strong expression of the ways of One who could call Himself Master and Lord, receiving the homage of faith, even while He had not where to lay His head. In all this our prophet is marking out for us, as in a reflection, the path of Jesus in one of its most striking, remarkable characters.

The woman whom this passage introduces to us was evidently, one of the godly seed in the land. She lived in the distant tribe of Issachar, and does not appear to have personally known this mighty prophet of God. But she quickly apprehends something of the Lord about him. She had been already taught of God; her religion was that which discerned God's mind and way in an evil day, when apostacy was clouding everything. New moons and sabbaths, as her husband wrongly judged, did not constitute her service, or mark out the path of her spirit with God. But Elisha, who was at that day the channel of divine grace and power apart from the temple and its ordinances, was her object and hope, as he was God's object and instrument.

She accordingly prepares him a place of sojourning in her own house. And her intelligence of him is further and strikingly marked by the preparation she makes for him. It was but a little chamber, with its bed, its table, its stool, and its candlestick. All was in the simplicity of a man of God, who stood apart from the world, a stranger in the midst of its corruptions.

She knew him because she was like him. One spirit was in them both. She understood his pilgrim thoughts and habits, just because she was exercised in them herself. And this is the only way really and divinely to know either the children of God, or God Himself. It is by the union and mind of the same spirit.

She dwelt among her own people, and cared not to be spoken for either to the King or to the Captain of the host. Even as Elisha; who, though he had the ear of the King and of the Captain of the host (as well he might after feeding their armies in the day of battle), yet would he be a stranger and pilgrim in the land, and lodge in a little chamber, with a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick.

These are the sympathies in the spirit between the children of God. She could receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, according to the tastes of a prophet. And the great prophet of that day, God's witness in the land, the vessel of fullest divine treasure that was then, in the name of the Lord, shedding it blessing wherever it was borne in the might of the Spirit, is of one mind with this unknown and distant daughter of Abraham in the borders of Issachar. Precious the traces of one Spirit thus quickening and forming every elect member of the same household.

And we shall find, not only Abraham's daughter, but something of Abraham's house and Abraham's faith, in this honoured and interesting place. This woman had no child, and her husband was now old. But as the Lord Himself had once said to Abraham, "according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son;" so now, the Lord's prophet says to this Shunammite, "according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son." And so it was — as with Sarah, so with this woman. The quickening power of God entered her house, and, as it was promised her, she embraced a son.

More, however, than even this is to be witnessed in this house; she is to learn, through the hand of Elisha, resurrection, as well as quickening power; just as in the house of Abraham, it was learnt from the Lord Himself. Isaac, who was at the first quickened in the womb of Sarah through the power of God, was afterwards received as from the dead. And so here. The sentence of death is laid in this child of promise, but the same power of God, through Elisha, raises him from the dead.

This is Abraham's house again, and a distant woman of Issachar is thus noticed, thus honoured, and graced, by the Lord God of her people. This makes this house of the Shunammite a sample of that glorious mystery in which we are all concerned, a witness of every soul where the power of God is known; for it is there a quickening and resurrection power, which calls up those who were dead in trespasses and sins, to live in the life of the Son of God.

Faith possesses itself of this. Faith, which apprehends death in ourselves, but life in Jesus. The simpler, the happier. The more unquestioning, the more according to God's mind. It was so in this Shunammite. Her faith, as we saw, was ready at the first to apprehend the prophet; it was ready to know that all was well, or should be well, even when death had entered the house. And it was ready, in spite of all tempters, to cleave to God's prophet, God's object and instrument, and to him only. This was precious simplicity of confidence. And throughout the trial of her faith, to which she is now put, as was her father Abraham in his day, I observe the same calmness and certainty.

When the Patriarch was ordered to take his son, and offer him up for a burnt offering he went forth to the trial, without the least disturbance of soul. The ass and the young men were at once put into readiness; and the knife, and the fire, and the wood, were all prepared. Faith counted on resurrection. Abraham reckoned on God being able to raise Isaac from the dead, as of old He had quickened him in the womb of Sarah: and Abraham was undisturbed. And so, when the deliverance did come, and the voice from heaven announced the substitute for Isaac, Abraham is not amazed. He does not wonder, or suspect, or ask again, whether indeed this be so, but he looses his son in the same repose and certainty that he had bound him. O what depth and character there is in that calmness! Faith had anticipated resurrection. And altogether in the same spirit, is the path of faith trodden here by this dear and honoured daughter of Abraham. Death was in her house again, but she knew of a quickener of the dead. And therefore the ass and the young men are again got ready, and "it is well," is the language of her faith in sure and certain hope of resurrection of the dead. And at the end, life is no amazement to her. She received her dead brought to life again (Heb. 11) She can loose her son by faith, as well as bind him. She falls at the prophet's feet, and bows her head. She owns in thankfulness and humiliation the precious gift, but she bears it away without amazement. It was no wonder to her. She does not curiously examine the child, whether indeed it were alive again. Faith had counted on such an hour, and already had received her child as in resurrection, and her soul had only to know that her loved one was warm and lively in her bosom again.

Indeed, all this is the pattern of a sinner's faith. Should it be thought a thing incredible with us that God should raise the dead? "Is anything too hard for the Lord!" faith is to say. "With God all things are possible." And we are to go forth from a state of death in trespasses and sins into life and liberty — from the spirit of bondage and of fear, and from under the guilt of an unpurged conscience, without amazement or suspicion, because the Lord has done it. "Once was I blind, but now I see," may be the calm, happy, thankful certainty of the sinner, who has met the Son of God in the healing virtue of His blood.

But there is still more in the faith of this dear soul. I find her faith tried in the two ways that the faith of Elisha had before been tried. The sons of the prophets on the one hand, the word of Elijah on the other, had put the faith of Elisha to sore trial, as we saw in 2 Kings 11; but it prevailed, and onward he followed his master till the chariot of Israel separated them. And so here.

The thoughts of her husband first, and then the way of Elisha, both rise as tempters of the steadfastness of her soul. "Wherefore wilt thou go to him today?" says her husband to her, "it is neither new moon nor sabbath;" and Elisha is for Gehazi satisfying her, and would have him go forward and lay his staff on the face of the child. But the woman's faith silences both. And she presses through the hindrance in the same decision and fervency that Elisha himself before had done, saying, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee" (2: 2; 4: 30).

The great enemy and deceiver, that old serpent, often proposes some delegated virtue — some servant and his staff. But faith ever withstands. Through his subtlety and darkening of divine counsels, confidence in ordinances was prevailing in Galatia, but Paul clung to the cross, and cast the bondwoman out of the house. For the trial of the soul, even the Lord Himself, like His prophet here, can make some such offer. "It thou wilt enter life," says Jesus to the young ruler, "keep the commandments." But faith would have answered, "Lord, thou hast the words of life." The young ruler, however, may try the proposed remedy, and take the servant and the staff with him, and go his way, but Paul, and faith, and this dear woman of Issachar, must cling to Jesus only.

There is a greatness in the work of the Spirit in her soul, that is indeed blessed. Elisha had been already known to her in the quickening of her dead body. She had learnt him, or God's power through him, in that, and to that she now clings, in the face of every temptation. She holds fast the beginning of her confidence. Elisha, the Lord's witness at that time, was her object at the first, and so shall he be to the last. And so with the sinner and Jesus. The sinner who believes has learnt the Son of God in His quickening power. He has understood the mystery of death and resurrection. He has been at Calvary, and at the empty sepulchre. There he has seen things, and known the meaning of them, for the full clearing of the conscience towards God. And no ordinance, as people speak, can take the place of them in the believer's soul. One may talk of new moons and sabbaths; another of the prophet's staff in the hand of a vicar, or delegate; but the faith of a divinely taught sinner apprehends nothing but the precious, unchanging, imperishable virtue of Him who was dead and is alive again; from whom, as this dear woman did from Elisha, he had learned where alone quickening, redeeming, saving power is of God to be received and enjoyed.

Sweet and fruitful indeed is this spot where the feet of the prophet ofttimes tarried, and where our thoughts, wearied with ourselves and the world, may as often turn to get refreshing in God!

The Deadly Pottage Healed.

The incidents of our prophet's life are like so many emanations of glory through the cloud of his apparent poverty and nothingness in the world. And this was one character of the life of the Son of God on the earth.

Here we have a very bright expression of his ways, and of the ways of Him whom he foreshadowed.

There was "death in the pot;" death indeed where life should have been; death invading the place where life looked for its support and strengthening. But the prophet has the remedy for death here, as he had for the curse at Jericho. We know One of whom we sing,

"Where He displays His healing power,

Death and the curse are known no more."

And here, our prophet, the shadow of Jesus, has meal to cast into the pot, as before he had salt to cast into the waters, and both are healed. Moses typified this also at Marah, where he had the wood for the bitter waters. For the Son of God has cast Himself into the scene of death and intercepted its course. He has come with His healing cross, and "destroyed him that had the power of death." "By His stripes we are healed." There is a cry at the discovery of the death that has entered, but the Son of God has answered it. We eat of what in our wilfulness we have gathered, but Jesus changes the feast, and gives us meat indeed and drink indeed, on which we live even in the time of dearth, or in the regions of death.

Death and the curse are altogether at the disposal of Him who has cast Himself into the scene and action of this world on our side. "I have the keys of hell and of death," says He; and His strength shall rescue even creation from the curse, and cast death itself into the lake of fire (Rom. 8; Rev. 20).

Why, we may ask with amazement of soul, did we ever gather our wild fruit and bring death in? Why did we not sit at the feast as it was first spread for us? For what a miniature picture of the whole great mystery does this little incident give us! What has Adam done? What has Christ done? Have we not the answer here? The prophet prepared a feast. Though it were a time of dearth, he had resources. He had pottage for his guests, and the pot was seething on the fire. But there was some one, it matters not who, save that it was neither the prophet nor his servant, who thought to improve the feast, and officiously and intrusively gathered some wild gourds. But his gourds brought death into the prophet's pot. And what did Adam but this? The Lord, the Creator, had spread a feast, rich and dainty, and abundant for him, in Eden, but Adam must needs improve it. He gathers wild fruit, something that the Lord had not ordained for the table, something in addition; but he spoils everything, and brings death into the pot; death upon that board which the Lord had loaded with the sweetest, richest, food of life!

The prophet, however, had the remedy, and heals the pot, and then his guests retake their seats at the feast with only fresh appetite to still more savoury meat. It is now a healed table, and not a spread table merely. They may admire and love the man and his resources, who could then, in unupbraiding grace, restore their good things, the good things which in their wanton pride they had thought to improve, but had utterly ruined and defiled. Is not this Jesus and ourselves? I ask. Do we not sit at a healed table? "The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." We are at a happier table than the bowers of Eden would have ever shaded. We sit at the feast of the Redeemer with new affections. We admire the healing as well as the creating virtue of His power, and lose ourselves in love and praise at the thought of the unupbraiding grace that has thus repaired the mischief.

The Multitude Fed.

In the preceding little narrative we saw in our prophet a bright expression of the power of the Son of God in meeting the power of death. It was as the stronger man entering after the strong, to spoil him — the power of life casting itself into the place of death, to clear away death and destroy it.

Here we have a gentler expression of the power of the same glorious Jesus. It was still the same time of dearth as before (ver. 38). But with twenty barley loaves and some ears of corn, the prophet feeds a hundred men, to the amazement of his servitor — as afterwards Jesus fed five thousand with five barley loaves and two small fishes, to the amazement of His disciples: and fragments were left after both meals, that we might know the aboundings of our Father's house, that there is there "bread enough, and to spare." For we have to go to Him as one who has overflowing treasures as well as overflowing affections. We are straitened neither in Himself nor in His resources. "His love is as large as His power" (and I may add, His power as His love), "and knows neither measure nor end."

There is a difference, however, not only in the size of these two miracles, if I may so speak, of Elisha and of Jesus, but in the style and bearing of them. Elisha feeds the people "according to the word of the Lord;" Jesus by His own word. Elisha says, "Thus saith the Lord, they shall eat, and shall leave thereof;" but Jesus says, "Make the men sit down." The glories are thus diverse. Jesus was "the word," according to whom Elisha fed the people. Elisha carried the name of the Lord with him, but Jesus was Himself the Lord, and bore about with Him, and exercised, the rights and authority of His own name. We know the Son of Man in Thee, Lord Jesus, but we know also God over all, blessed for ever!

Naaman the Syrian.

Various, as well as striking and significant, are the glories that shine along the path of our prophet. Every stage tells out some great and new secret of God.

In this history we have, it seems, all the leading truths of the mystery of God's grace simply, yet strikingly illustrated. It is a parable of very rich instruction.

In the person of Naaman we get man in his best estate. Naaman must have been the world's envy, the great favourite of the day. He was made much of, as we speak, by every one, by the king himself, and all the nation. The Lord in endowments and providences had greatly signalised him. But "he was a leper." There was a stain on all his glory which no hand but God's could remove; and let the world flatter him as it might, it was a witness, a constant witness, to himself, that all was not right. There was a worm at the root of the wide-spreading gourd.

And such indeed is man. Let him be advantaged as he may in circumstances, or set off as he may by embellishments and attractions, there is a witness against him still. He carried it in himself; he is conscious of it, though he may be silent as to it.

In the little captive whom we next see, we get just the opposite of Naaman. All was against her in circumstances. She had been dragged from friends and home, and was a bond-woman in a stranger's house and land: but she carries a secret, the very opposite of Naaman's secret. She had the witness of God for her, as he had His witness against him. She knew the healing, while he felt the sore. This was a mighty difference; yea, all the difference, if God be considered. To have Him for and not against us, is surely the grand circumstance after all. And so it was here. And so is it with every true Israelite like her: in the knowledge of the same secret, in the knowledge of the healing of God, they can say, if God be for me, who can be against me! She reminds one of Paul before Festus and Agrippa. There the Apostle was poor indeed in circumstances, but rich indeed in God, and, like this dear woman, desired all good and blessing for those who had bound him.

These are valuable lessons in this parable. But we have others. The king of Syria is next introduced; and he represents man in his loftiness of thought and self-esteem, even in religion. He judges, to be sure, that nothing can be done for the divine healing of his favourite captain, independently of him and his resources. Who but he? who but the king? was the language of his heart. He therefore prepares his silver, his gold, and his raiment, and writes a letter with his own hand on this business to the king of Israel. A king to a king. For nothing less than such patronage can give fair promise of blessing.

All this is worldly religion, man's thoughts about God's ways. But there is nothing that the king of Syria does that is not simply "labour lost." His own personal patronage and gifts, and the countenance he sought of a brother king, all is religious vanity. And the king of Israel, who had the advantage of God's revelation in his country, is able to refuse to take his place, or act his part, in this grand purpose and thought of the king of Syria.

There is, however, one higher than the king in all this, though the Syrian knows nothing of him. Elisha had, of course, passed the notice of this great man of the earth. But Elisha, who is now, also, in his turn, introduced to us in the history, is Naaman's only hope in this day of his leprosy. And Elisha, conscious that the power of God was with him, makes no stir, or difficulty, as the king had done. He has not, like One afterwards, the authority of his own word to cleanse away the stain, but he is in the secret of God's ordained remedy, and he can, with authority, preach that to the leper.

For here I may notice how Jesus shines above all. When the leper comes to Him, it is not as with the king, "Am I God, that I should heal a man of his leprosy?" nor is it as with the prophet, "Go wash in Jordan, and be clean." No; but He reveals Himself at once in the place and power of God. "I will, be thou clean." Elisha was but a Preacher of Jesus to Naaman; Jesus was the leper's cleansing, healing God. Elisha did not venture to touch the leper. This would have defiled him.

But Jesus touches him; for Jesus, with the rights of God of Israel, was above the leper, and could consume and not contract the defilement.

What pre-eminence in all things marks Him! John, or the brightest of them, is but the bridegroom's friend; Jesus is the bridegroom.

And then, in this same picture, we see another ,object of the deepest interest to us. I mean the poor convicted leper passing through is cleansing.

At first, nature is strong in him. He resents the remedy which grace had provided — a remedy most simple but most humbling. So simple that there was no mistaking it, and no difficulty in applying it; saving, indeed, the difficulty which man's pride and previous thoughts had opposed to it. But these give battle at once. Grace, however, can plead with a slow reluctant heart, as well as provide for a tainted leprous body. Grace can use a ministry, as well as open a fountain, for sinners. And that ministry, like the remedy, is simple and artless, and as such fitted to its end. Naaman's servants, in their way, met the risings of nature in their master, and their word or ministry is blest; the proffered fountain is tried, its virtues are proved, and the flesh that was leprous became like that of a little child. It is more than restoration. It is resurrection. Jordan was a true baptism to this Syrian. He dies and lives again, he is buried and rises again, and comes forth, not merely as a healed, but as a new creature.

And what is the fruit of this new condition in which he finds himself? Here we trace the parable still, and get the principle of God's way still illustrated.

1. He stands before Elisha with all his company. It is not now the proud but the humble Naaman. Sweet fruit this of the new man that Naaman had become! He is humbled because he is washed.

2. He makes a goodly confession to the one only God. He takes him for his God: he had learnt Him through the health and salvation He had given him. And this is the way that the new creature ever learns Him — the only, way He can be learnt, or known, in this world.

3. He presses his gifts, whatever he had, on the prophet — not now, as the king his master thought, to purchase the healing, but because of the healing. He had been forgiven, and therefore he loved. He was relieved and happy, and therefore he could be generous.

4. He will henceforth know no other God — and in order to that, he seeks materials to raise Him an altar. God must be his God, even in the midst of infidel Syria, where he is returning,. Him and Him only will he worship. For this "mule's burthen of earth" was for the end of erecting, as it were, another Ed beyond the Jordan (see Joshua 22: 34). It was to bear witness in the distant land of Syria, that this citizen of that country belonged to the God of Israel — that, like the Ethiopian eunuch, he had cast in his lot with Israel; or had come, like Ruth the Moabitess, to trust under the wings of the God of Israel.

5. And lastly — he gets a renewed conscience all quick and sensitive, of the least, even apparent, departure from the God who had now blessed him. He dreads the appearance of evil. He would not have it thought that any tendance of his on his master was recurring to the old principles of Syria, and the house of Rimmon. Such he had left, and left for ever, through God's grace, and would now, at the very entrance of his new creation in Christ Jesus, enter a protestation against everything that might even look otherwise.

The prophet sends him away in peace. The Ethiopian had left Philip "rejoicing" — the Syrian leaves Elisha under his seal of peace.

This narrative, therefore, which thus occupies an important place in the ministry of our prophet, and is the scene in his labours taken up and referred to by his divine Master afterwards (Luke 4), is one of extensive value to us, so clearly, and fully exhibiting the dealing of God with each of us. Let us, with all simplicity of heart, assure ourselves, that all was written for our learning — that our God has from the beginning been allowing things to happen to others, that we might be admonished and comforted by them, through the records which His Spirit has given us of them.

But there is one other object in this scene which I observe. I mean Gehazi. The prophet (ver. 26) does not challenge him on the ground of his having lied to Naaman, but on quite another form of evil that was in his conduct. And there is, I believe, great force and beauty in this. "Is it a time," says Elisha to his servant, "to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and men servants and maid servants? "

This was an ingredient in the sin which belonged rather to the Spirit to notice — the lie was of common moral apprehension.

The Gentile had just been learning the grace of the God of Israel. The talents of silver, and pieces of gold, and changes of raiment, which the king of Syria had sent into the land of Israel, had been despised by the prophet, and Naaman was bearing them all, to the utmost "thread or shoe-latchet," home with him again. He had gone to the waters without money and without price, and was the witness that the gift of God was not to be purchased with money.

Terrible, then, was it to have all this testimony confounded. Well might the prophet ask, was this a time to take the Syrian's money? Could anything be more grievous to the Spirit? The lie, it is true, was abominable — the lie first to Naaman, and then to Elisha himself — it was all abominable. But what shall we say of this sad counter-testimony, this clouding of the brightness of the grace of God, this giving occasion to them that might seek occasion?

This was the offence which the Spirit noticed, and the prophet challenged. Gehazi had sold the honour of the rich and free grace of the Lord of Israel to the reproaches of an injurious world. At least, he had done all he could to this end. His money must therefore perish with him. He must be put outside the borders of the camp; for he who could thus falsify the God of Israel, was unfit to be of the Israel of God.

The parable of the unmerciful servant reads the same warning to us. The grace of the Gospel was there insulted — and the man that exposed it to reproach was cast into outer places like the leprous Gehazi. It was the energy of the dear Apostle, on the other hand, to reflect and set off that grace continually. Read his ways, in Acts 20: 33-35. For the reasonable service is this: — "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father that is in heaven is perfect." "Maintain the family character," as has been the paraphrase of that lovely word; but Gehazi was not jealous of its honour and praise in the sight of the nations. Did he not count himself unworthy of a place in it?

This is the serious feature in this otherwise happy picture. And it is serious — that a man, like Gehazi, who had companied so long and so intimately with such a servant of God as Elisha, should have been so distant from his spirit!

This part of the story, however, brings out what, on the other hand, is comforting and encouraging — that the soul of the Syrian, though it has now passed the hour of its first love, and he is on his journey to his distant home, has not lost the generosity of that first hour. He alights at once on seeing the prophet's servant behind him, and without suspicion and without reserve, lays his treasures at the servant's feet, as he had on the first moment, offered to do at the master's Oh that on our journey the power of the first hour may continue to be felt!

The Iron Made to Swim.

This is a simple domestic scene, and yet, according to the same wondrous ways of Elisha, calculated again to call the doings of the Lord Himself to mind. For whether it be Peter, or the iron, that stands on the face of the waters, both are equally contrary to nature. Neither is there any natural alliance between the cause and the effect, between the casting in of a stick, and the swimming of the iron, as there was none afterwards between the putting clay on the eyes, and the restoring of sight; for it is neither the skill of the workman nor the fitness of the instrument, that is to be considered, but the excellency of the power of God. How natural and easy was the behaviour of our prophet here! In a moment he is one of a company that are busied about the simplest domestic concern! The great apostle of the Gentiles would gather sticks to help to make up the fire; and the Lord of prophets and apostles, even after he had risen from the dead, would get ready the dinner on the sea shore! And yet what august power lay in their hands all the while. The apostle shakes a venomous beast into the very fire he was kindling, and the prophet makes the iron head of the axe to swim on the face of the water! Oh the beautiful, godlike condescension of real power!

But I read another lesson here.

It has been observed, I believe, that, properly speaking, there is "nothing either great or little with God," — His nature opposes the thought. That may be so. But we are less able to infer consequences or truths from God's nature than from His revelation. Indeed, we dare not assume to know His nature, but from His revelation. From His revelation, however, we are led, in some sense, to see this to be a truth, that there is nothing either great or little with Him.

We may trace some expressions of this in all His ways.

At creation, so to illustrate it, the wing of an insect was framed with the same care as the heavens or the earth. The small and the great, in that way, then stood before Him.

In settling the nation of Israel, protection for the roof of the houses by battlements, lest blood should be shed, was ascertained by a divine oracle, with as full and clear decision as the services of the sanctuary or the allotments of the tribes.

Jesus, in His ministry, would take the little children in His arms, as He would His most honoured disciples up to the mount of glory. This was still of the same character.

So, in feeding and ordering the churches afterwards — the details between men and women, old and young, with other relations, are attended to by the same Spirit, who was at the same time revealing mysteries kept secret from the foundation of the world. He gives directions about taking a little wine for the stomach's sake, as He would unfold the inheritance of the Father of glory in the saints.

And it is the grace of the Holy Ghost, in this equal care about the great and the little things, which has especially dwelt on my heart at this time. For though His due, yea and happy work is to take of the things of the Father and of Christ, and to show them to us, still He turns to matters of discipline for the comfort of the weakest of us. And is not this done, to speak after the manner of men, at some personal cost? "Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, to go to be promoted over the trees?" The blessed Spirit's joy is to deal with Jesus, But in His grace, He consents to deal with all the possible exigencies of the saints.

And thus indeed it is: Whether the divine action be in creation, in providence, or in redemption — whether it be in Israel, or in the churches; whether dispensationally it be the Father, the Lord, or the Holy Ghost, still we see the big and the little equally the care of God — the great and the small standing alike before Him — as we read again and again in the Apocalypse.

This is to be observed also in more private actings of our God. By His prophet (as we have it in this passage), he will raise an axe's head from the water, because the recollection that it was borrowed was distressing the mind of one of the prophet's companions. So the Lord (as another once observed) encourages His people to pray that "their flight might not be in the winter," simply, of course, because flight in that season would be the more uneasy and difficult; thus showing His care about the most ordinary conveniences of His saints, as well as about their troubles and anxieties. The little scene in this passage, as I have said, is one illustration of this.

And what is all this? It is not merely the condescension of power, though that is beautiful, but the grace of benevolence. It is because these little things concern our comfort and present well-being, that they are thus waited on. And we, in our measure, should be imitators of this. It may not be the delight of the spiritual, nay it cannot, to forsake the sweetness, and good fruit of the doctrine of the Father and of Christ, for matters touching the discipline of the saints — to be promoted over such thorns and briars as they are — but still, this pattern of divine benevolence, which thus parcels itself out on things, be they great or small, provided they do but concern others, puts it upon us as our duty. "Be ye imitators of God," it is written, "as dear children." "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

The Syrian Host Struck Blind.

Have already observed, that testimony against evil, and consequent suffering, marked the history of Elijah — power, and the gracious use of it, the ways of Elisha.

According to this, many instances of combined power and grace in Jesus stand reflected in the doings of Elisha.

In the scene that lies before us here, we have recollections of our Lord strongly brought to mind. He had twelve legions of angels at command, had he pleased, and so a mountain full of horses and chariots wait on our prophet. And the simplicity of his faith is very remarkable. He needed not prayer for himself; he had already seen "the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof" (2: 2), and rested in the certainty that they were, at any time, ready or his use — and now in the time of his need, he knows that they are at hand.

He has not therefore to pray for himself. All he does is to desire for his servant that he may stand on the same elevation of faith.

Elisha had seen, as I said, these horses and chariots of Israel already. He knew that the God of Jeshurun rode on the heavens for Jeshurun's help, and he would have his servant's thoughts, in the present hour of danger, full of the same sense of this divine security. These chariots and horses of fire which fill the mountain, and which in the day of the translation of Elijah were accompanied by, a whirlwind, were, I doubt not, a host or constellation of angels those heavenly creatures, which, excelling in strength, stand in the presence of God, or go forth to minister on account of those who are heirs of salvation. For of them we read that "God maketh His angels spirits (winds) and His ministers a flame of fire" — and again, "the chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of angels." At the divine behest, they get ready to serve in whatever the exigency of the saint, or the occasion under the throne of God, may require. They formed a travelling chariot to convey Elijah to heaven, and to carry Lazarus to Abraham's bosom. They now form chariots of war, when Elisha is beleaguered by the hostile bands of Syria. Either singly or in company they visit the elect on earth, and either alone or in concert celebrate the joy of heaven in the audience of the earth. They have drawn the sword to smite a guilty city, or with the strong hand of love dragged the too reluctant one forth from the doomed city. They are either as winds or as fire. They are messengers of mercy, and executors of judgment, as "the Lord," who "is among them," may command. They attended on Mount Sinai when the law was published, and they hovered over the fields of Bethlehem when Jesus was born. And here, in their order and strength, they are as a wall of fire, a wall of salvation, round about our prophet.

Very blessed all this is. And still more blessed to know, that ere long, the hidden glories, which are now only known to such faith as Elisha's, will become the manifested things; and the threatenings of the enemy, the noise and the din and the clang of arms, which are the present apparent things, full of fears and sorrows for the heart, shall have rolled by, like the past thunderstorm, but to leave the sunshine the brighter.

But there is more than this calmness and certainty of faith. We have traces of the power and of the grace of Jesus in this path of our prophet.

"When the wicked, mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell." Thus David spake concerning Jesus (Psalm 27). And accordingly, in the garden, when the band of men and officers came to lay hold on Him, "as soon as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward and fell to the ground" (John 18). So here with our prophet. The bands of Syria came to Dothan to fetch him, but the Lord smote them with blindness, as they were making ready to make him their prey.

Thus the glory of power in the Lord was reflected in Elisha. But the measures of this glory were again, as we have seen before, diverse. Elisha sought the Lord's power in this, Jesus stands in that of His own person, and the enemy equally bows before it. "As soon as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward and fell to the ground."

But there is the grace, as well as the power, of the Son of God here. The Lord, in His day, refuses to break the bruised reed, or to quench the smoking flax. He refuses to use His strength and authority even for the righteous judgment of His foes (see Matt. 12). He will not strive nor cry, nor let His voice be heard in the streets, but, "suffering thus far," He overcomes evil with good. And so Elisha. He had the bruised reed, the smoking flax at His mercy, but he will not break nor quench it. "My, father, shall I smite them?" says the King, as he had the Syrian bands caught in the net of Samaria. But the prophet answered, "Thou shalt not smite them; set tread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master."

Blessed and precious expression of the mind of God! What constellations of moral glories shine in His ways! And these ways of the Lord, in combined power and grace, get their image in these ways of this honoured prophet. How much he was in the intimacy of God, if I may so speak! How fully in His friendship, knowing His secrets! And how largely does his history illustrate those words, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secrets unto His servants the prophets" (Amos 3: 7). He knew of mountains of strength and salvation that were altogether invisible to others; he knew of abundance at the doors tomorrow, though today all was famine and death in the city. And if he be not told everything (such was the marvellous condescending love of the Lord to him, and with which his soul was familiar), it is rather his wonder (see Amos 4: 27). And so of each of us (not honoured prophets, but the weakest saints), it may as really be said, "We have the mind of Christ." Oh for power in our souls to value such goodness in Him, and such dignity and blessing in ourselves!

The Famine in Samaria.

We have in this portion of our prophet's history, something of very peculiar significance. The richest ways of divine grace are illustrated in this striking picture of Samaria's misery and deliverance.

The siege of that city by the army of Syria reduced it to the extremest wretchedness. An ass's head was worth eighty pieces of silver, and mothers were compelled to feed up their offspring.

One need not draw the picture of misery to greater length than this. Here it is in all its horror. It reminds one of Legion in the Gospels: another picture of what the unmitigated and unchecked power of the great captor could do with all of us.

But man is further disclosed in this history. He is seen in the character of his mind, as well as in his misery and state of captivity to his ruthless destroyer. "God do so, and more also, to me," says the king of Israel, "if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day."

This was man charging on God (or His servant the same thing), all the mischief that was occurring. It was like Adam at the beginning of our sin, — "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." It was like Cain — "Am I my brother's keeper?" It was laying the sin and the sorrow on that head which was alone clear and free of it all.

This was the accomplishing of sin. Like the cross of Christ, this was the height of evil. This was just the moment of Samaria's fullest iniquity. But like the same cross of Christ, this same moment was just the occasion for the display of the divine grace. The ruin was complete, and without hope from man. Then it is that Elisha's lips are opened with a promise, and he delivers a word from the Lord.

For if the power of Israel be gone, and there is none shut up nor left, will not the Lord repent Himself concerning His servants? (Deut. 32: 36). If God see that there is no man, no intercessor, will not His own arm bring salvation? If the enemy come in like a flood, will not the Spirit lift up a standard against Him? (Isa. 59: 16-19). And such was this moment in Samaria. Such a moment was the moment of God's glorious grace — that where sin abounded, there grace more abounded — that, as in the cross of Christ, man was at the height of his rebellion and God was also at the height of the glory of His goodness, so now, when the sin and misery of Samaria were at the full, the cup of divine blessing was also about to flow over. "Then Elisha said, hear ye the word of the Lord; thus saith the Lord, tomorrow about this time, shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria."

"In the gate of Samaria!" Truly precious that thought is to the needy soul — blessed notice of the grace of the gospel! Salvation is not to be sought for either in heaven above or in the depths beneath. It has come to us. The sin offering lies at the door. The Israelite need not leave the lintel of his own house to accomplish the full security of that house from the sword of the destroyer. Grace brings the relief which grace has provided. The fine flour and the barley were to be had by the famished people at the very gate of their city! (See Rom. 10: 6-8).

How are the shining foot-marks of the salvation of God to be traced in all this, beloved. "Mercy for fetching," as one of old said, "nay, for desiring, nay, for nothing but receiving."

This appears to me to be very striking indeed. And this was Elisha's glory in this scene; he knew the mind of God. The wicked heart of man was working its worst. The king of Israel was laying the mischief, as I have observed, on the only one who was really clear of it; as the high priest, Caiaphas, gave counsel that one must die for the people, lest the whole nation perish, and that One must be He who alone was unguilty of all the nation's sorrow. (John 11) But then it is, that God's remedy reveals itself. Then it is, that grace abounds. And instead of the ass's head being bought for eighty pieces of silver, a measure of flour and two measures of barley should now be bought for one shekel in the gate of the self-destroyed city.

But if we have, thus, before us the height of human evil met by the aboundings of divine grace, we have also the varied way in which this grace is entertained in the world.

It meets with rejection from some. The nobleman exhibits that to us. He would not believe that God could do all that His prophet was now pronouncing.

There was a lion in the way. If windows were to be opened in heaven, this might be; but who ever heard of windows in heaven? And this is all said just in the spirit of unbelief; in the evil temper of the heart of men who refuse to receive good tidings from God; who will not have happy thoughts, nor entertain filial, holy confidence towards Him; but who, when He speaks of pardon and blessing, reject the grace, and will rather cleave to their own hard notions of such grace being a thing impossible: so ignorant, so alien from the life of God, is the heart of man.

There is a generation, however, who have no other hope, — a people who have spent all on physicians for the healing of their plague, and are not a whit better. There are lepers outside the camp still — poor convicted sinners, "too bad for any but Jesus," as one of them once said. Death is before, behind, and around them. The Syrian host, as they judge, before — the famishing city behind — their own diseased leprous dead bodies encompassing them around. To such this grace comes in suited needed time. They find that it is all to them. It is either certain death for them, or this last, this only resource in God Himself. And such arise, and take the spoil. Their necessities throw them into the place where Christ has gained the victory, and on the storehouse which God hath both filled and opened.

Like the four lepers here. They had no help for it. Their very necessities, pressed in by deaths oft, death all around, threw them into the camp of the Syrians, where the Lord, all single-handed and alone, had been gaining a victory. For it was the Lord who had made the Syrian host hear a noise of chariots and horses, and thus alone had put them all to flight. Of the people of Israel there are none with him. It was "the day of the Lord." Israel was dying in Samaria. The lepers were dying without. And God meets the Syrian host alone. And the poor lepers have nothing to do but to arise and share the fruit of the Lord's triumph. As the sinner, now. It has been entirely and altogether the victory of Jesus. None stood with Him, or for Him. Alone He met the enemy — alone He suffered the penalty — He drank the cup alone — and three hours of darkness fell from heaven, because He was made sin — He alone hung a curse upon the tree. And the gospel is the publishing of all this strife and triumph of Jesus, that sinners, dead as lepers, may come and feed, and live for ever on that feast, that spoil of glorious war, which Jesus has won for them.

And what does their own joy communicate to them? a desire to divide the spoils. They tell what a Saviour they have found. They spread the good tidings which they have themselves received, and by which they live. And there is no temper of soul that the spirit of the renewed mind more thoroughly condemns, than the selfishness of our old wretched nature. The working of it is too well known by some of us; but the working of it is so contrary to the glorious and generous grace of God in the gospel, that it leaves, when indulged, the tinge of fear behind it in the soul. "We do not well," said one of these lepers to the other, "this is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household." And they publish it at once, as in the high places.

All this exercise of heart is easily to be understood by the renewed mind which has tasted of, and been formed by, the grace of the gospel. But there is more in this striking picture. We see weak or slow-hearted faith in the king. He reasons about the good tidings. He does not, in the bold unbelief and scorn of the nobleman, at once refuse them. But he reasons about them. "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." But grace abounds. Grace, as in the case of Naaman, can provide a minister as well as a treasury — and the slow-hearted king, as well as the readier lepers, shares the spoils of the glorious victory of the Lord. And all the famishing city follow. "The lame take the prey." None come short but the unbelieving nobleman. Distrust of the divine bountifulness alone cuts off in the day of this feast of Israel. All is accomplished. The measures of flour and of barley are sold in the gate, and the nobleman perishes alone in his unbelief.

The great things of the gospel of God are thus illustrated in this very striking picture of Samaria's misery and deliverance, materials for our holy, profitable comfort and admonition. But may it be our purpose not merely to investigate and admire these skilful ways of the divine wisdom, but to mark and digest them, that our souls may be refreshed and our faith in the gracious provider for all our need, and all our delights for eternity, be blessedly strengthened!

The Shunammite Again.

2 Kings 8: 1-6

From this short notice of another path in the ways of our prophet, we see again how intimate he was with the mind of God. For here we are reminded again of that scripture, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."

The famine must be told to Elisha now, as to Joseph, and Agabus, and others, in older or more recent times. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" was the language of the same gracious Lord who thus treats His people as friends. It was the mind and the hand, the counsels and the strength of the Lord, which this prophet so gloriously carried with him.

And we find all His riches still used in grace to others. "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." Abraham used it to the profit of others; and, knowing the purposed judgment, interceded for the righteous remnant in Sodom. So Elisha here. He heard of the coming famine, and he warned the godly woman of Shunem to provide for her household against it.

Her circumstances are changed from what they once were. This loved and honoured woman has, apparently, become a widow; her little child, the gift of God to this daughter of Sarah, has grown up. But the famine has separated them from their home and their fields in the land of Issachar. (See 2 Kings 4) And she had once loved her mercies there. She "dwelt among her own people." She valued not the court or its patronage then; nor does she now seek it, save to be restored to the same simplicity of her home and her own people. And, surely we may judge, that "the little chamber on the wall" helped to draw back her recollections and desires to that loved place, where she had known the quickening and resurrection strength of her Lord and Saviour, by the hand of His chosen servant.

Gehazi is in other circumstances also. It may be that the root of the matter was in him; "but he is a leper." He is separated from the prophet of God now. It was not famine, however, but covetousness that did this. He has now only to recollect, but no longer to witness, "the great things" of Elisha. Happy, if in repentance he can tell of them with holy delight to the king, — happier, had constancy in faith and in the spirit kept him still in company with his master. But he had wronged his own soul, as we all do in our way and measure, beloved: "Blessed is the man that heareth me," says Wisdom, "watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my door; for whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord; but he that sinneth against rite wrongeth his own soul." And gracious it is in the Lord, to give us this parting look at him. We may hope that as he had once pierced himself through with many sorrows because he would be rich (1 Tim. 4), so now, that money is no longer the thing on his heart or on his lips, but recollections of Elisha. For the Lord here graciously seems to use him again, and make him helpful to this dear and godly friend of the prophet in the day of her necessity. Happy is it to receive from the hand of the Lord such a pledge of His restoring grace, though His Spirit be so grieved with the backslidings of His people! Oh that we may praise Him for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!*

*I am aware that this introduction of Gehazi may not be favourable to him, in the judgment of some. They may think that it is a symptom of his being still a man of the world, and covetous, because he is found here attached to the court, and apparently in some confidence with the king. It may be so. But still I rather gather the above impression from the scene in which we here find him taking his part.

"A word spoken in due season, how good is it," we may almost say of the incident in this little passage.

Gehazi and the king were talking of the Shunammite, as the Shunammite came up to the place where they were. And how often have we occasion to notice like happy coincidences! There are scarcely any who have not to recount such things, at times, in their history. "We were just speaking of you," has been again and again said to one suddenly making his appearance in the midst of a little knot of friends. And faith will own the mercy of such harbingers casting up the highway, and making straight the crooked paths, which lead to some desired blessing, as in this case before us. And faith will not complain that it is not always so. For faith says "It is well," when providences either help or cross us.

'Tis well when at the throne,

We wrestle, weep, and pray;

'Tis well when at His feet we groan,

Yet bring our wants away."

'Tis an equal hand of love that takes the thorn out of the flesh, or leaves it there. If left, it is only made to work further good.

The Prophecy of Hazael.

2 Kings 8: 7-15.

We have here another instance of the intimacy of the prophet with the counsels of the Lord. What daily communications there must have been between them! — indeed, in the history of the Church of God, glorious revelations have been vouchsafed to those faithful ones who stood obedient, witnessing, and suffering remnants in evil times. Thus to Ezekiel and Daniel among the captives. What extended visions of divine purposes were opened to them! So when Zechariah, Haggai, and their companions, began, in honesty of heart and in spite of enemies, to work at the house of the Lord as His faithful remnant returned out of captivity, what thoughts and scenes of coming glory are made to pass before them! As still more marvellously afterwards, in like manner, before John in Patmos, where he was a companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. And Elijah and Elisha were of the same. They were, each of them, in his season, the godly remnant of their day, and had very preciously the eye, the ear, and the lips of the Lord opened to them.

But from this passage in his history we find that Elisha had honour beyond the limits of Israel. We see him in Damascus, and his arrival is soon reported to the king, and honoured by him. The case of Naaman may have given him this introduction to the honour and confidence of the Syrian court, and is some evidence of the testimony which that healed leper, that converted sinner of the Gentiles, had borne to the name of the God of Israel, so that at least the Syrian king does not now again look to the king (see 2 Kings 5: 5), but to the prophet of Israel.

But there is another point of moral value to our souls that shows itself here. I mean in the character of Hazael; and I must notice it. Hazael had come to Elisha with an inquiry from the Syrian king his master, about the disease under which the king was then suffering. Elisha tells him to say to his master, "Thou mayest surely recover." But having given him this answer to the king's inquiry, he adds another word, addressed merely to Hazael himself, "Howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die."

On hearing this, we read that Hazael "settled his countenance stedfastly until he was ashamed." This was hypocrisy. Under the eye of the prophet, before the truthful mind of the man of God, this show of his countenance witnessed against him. He feigned sorrow at this prophecy of Benhadad's death.

The prophet himself, during this little moment of Hazael's practising grief, appears to have been following the course of divine inspiration through his own soul, and weeps at the prospect of all the evil which this Hazael would do to Israel when he got into power — for into such scenes the inspiration he was now under was leading him. But this sorrow was genuine, as Hazael's was hypocritical. It was the unforced fruit of a heart made sorry at the divine vision which his eye was then resting on.

But after a little more intercourse between them, which I will not notice, Hazael returns to Benhadad, and misstates to him the prophet's answer to his inquiry. The prophet had said, "Thou mayest surely recover" — thereby intimating, that there was nothing in the disease itself which was fatal; and then he added, "the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die," — thereby intimating that Benhadad was to perish by other means than the disease. Hazael, however, now tells the king that the prophet had said, "he should surely recover." Here was the mis-statement or the lie of this hypocrite. But the end strikingly shows the full unmixed truth of the prophet's words, for the disease does not kill the king, but other means, — the hand of this murderous Hazael. And thus he might have recovered, but he surely dies, as the prophet had spoken.

This enigmatic style of the answers or oracles of the Spirit are worthy of our admiration. There was something like it in our prophet's word upon the unbelieving nobleman — "Behold thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof." For however strange this might sound in the ear, to the letter it was made good. "So it fell out to him, for the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died" — i.e. in the very act of bringing their barley and their flour under his own eye, the crowd crushed him to death (see 2 Kings 7) So here — the words "mayest recover" and "surely die," are made true by the event, though they sound strange to the ear.

The case, however, of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, is still more remarkable. Jeremiah had said of him, that his eyes should behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and that he should go to Babylon. (Jer. 34: 3). Ezekiel had said, that he should go to Babylon, but should not see it, though he should die there. (Ezek. 12: 13). Almost on the verge of impossibility all this seemed to be. But to the utmost jot and tittle all this was accomplished. They were the words of the lips of Him whose hand is wonderful and mighty, and sovereign in its operations. (See Jer. 39).

This, however, only as we pass. In the history of this scripture, on which we have now been meditating, we have indeed an awful picture of human selfishness and hypocrisy. And it is admonitory to us all. A look may be deep hypocrisy, as a word may be. And our watching and prayer should be, that the searching Spirit may find truth in the inward parts, and truth about us everywhere, in every look, in every word, and motion.

The Anointing of Jehu.

2 Kings 9 - 10.

Our prophet is not the principal object here. But he is seen. And the whole history being one of very deep moral value, I would not pass it by.

It is another solemn lesson. It affords us an awful illustration of the doctrine of scripture, that the Lord may use, instrumentally or ministerially, those in whom personally He takes no delight. This is a solemn fact. Balaam could never have stood in the mind or sympathies of God. But Balaam the prophet is used, as is also Saul the king, and Judas the apostle.

Our souls may well pause over truth like this, and be admonished. "Have we not prophesied in Thy name? I never knew you." No communion in spirit, though the hand or the tongue may have been used by the Lord.

And this clearly shows itself in Jehu. The hand of this captain is used, but there is no communion between him and the Lord. He goes through his service. He executes his commission to the full. But there is no expression whatever of a soul exercised towards God. He takes up and lays down most solemn and important transactions, and all of them, too, in the name and at the command of the Lord; but there is no exercise of heart as in the sanctuary, or presence of God.

And this is just what marks the man whom God can use ministerially, but in whom he can have no joy personally. All may be used in this dead way: knowledge as well as services may be taken up — taken up by a dead intellect, as in a dead hand. For what is knowledge, if used as a mere material? Jehu had both. He had knowledge and strength; he had an understanding that could apprehend the divine decrees touching the house of Ahab, and a hand ready to execute them. But it was a dead intellect and a dead hand. No divine life or grace filled or moved either. And with us, knowledge will be but the same, if it be not the occasion of awakening divine affections. Jesus' knowledge ever made Him enter into and reflect the divine counsels. But there is nothing of this in Jehu. He can talk of God's purposes, and execute them; but there is no communion with God through all his actions.

And here I would turn to look at something in full moral contrast with all this, and which shines beautifully in the spirit of Elisha.

He told his messenger, that as soon as he had poured the oil on Jehu's head, he was to open the door and flee, as though he were to have no communion with Jehu. Like the man of God who was not to have sympathy with the place he was sent to curse. (See 1 Kings 13: 9). He had a business to do with Jehu, weighty business; but that was all. And in this, Elisha blessedly stands in kindred feeling with God Himself. We have already seen how gloriously he carried in him both the mind, and power of God, revealing the one, and exercising the other; but in this case he shows that he carried the tastes, the senses, of the blessed God also. Like Matthew the publican, I may say, who strikingly shows that He understood the sympathies and tastes of the Lord Jesus. (Luke 5: 29).

This is truly to be desired by our souls. We are much to covet this holy attainment. God had no personal joy in Jehu, though He may use him, as I have already noticed. So, Elisha had no personal joy in him, though by divine command he anoints him.

And in this, Elisha stands distinguished from Jehonadab. It is not that Jehonadab. was not faithful. It is not that he was not a separated one, a saint of God. But he is not in Elisha's elevation, as Lot was not in Abraham's, or Obadiah in Elijah's. Jehonadab. has not this divine sense of what Jehu, was. He gets up into his chariot. He strikes hearts with him, if I may speak so. He rejoices in his work. But Elisha and the Lord have no delight in him. "Open the door, and flee, and tarry not," was the prophet's word to his messenger.

But this may turn to holy admonition, and lead us earnestly to desire of our God this precious sympathy with Himself; this companionship with the divine enjoyments, tastes, and loathings. This was a deep work of the Spirit in the prophet's soul. He had much beside; the mind and the power of God, as I have said, were with him. But oh this introduction of his soul into the divine sense of things and persons! This was a beauteous fruit of the Spirit's path and husbandry within him. This was divine. He could, like God Himself, travel the whole course of Jehu's action, and yet take no personal delight in him. But so it was not with Jehonadab. The senses of the spiritual mind were not so lively in him. And these differences we see continually.

This character, however, in Jehu, is very solemn. There is no fragment of a broken heart — no outgoings of desire — no sense of the divine honour about him. He can even remind Bidkar of the day in which they both rode after Ahab in the days of his blood and covetousness (when the Lord laid the righteous burden upon him), with an unmoved soul. His soul takes no part in the recollection. He has no sense of share in all the evil. So unlike Daniel or Nehemiah, who, rehearsing the sin of their people, their kings, their priests, and their prophets, still take their own place and share in all the mischief. So unlike David also; who, though the judgment of another was making way for him to reach the throne (as the judgment of Ahab's house was here preparing the like of Jehu, could see only the dishonour of the Lord's anointed — had no eye of joy for that throne which sparkled before it, but an eye of tears over that shame and fall of others which lay before it.

Thus is Jehu, contrasted with those who are "of God" in similar scenes. And such contrast is that which lies between the flesh and the spirit, between a soul moved only by the corrupt principles of the world, and a soul ordered by the power and grace of God.

Still, however, it was a divine commission which he executes. But how awful in its character! On what a fearful journey does it send this sword of the Lord! From Ramoth to the vineyard of Naboth, from thence to the going up to Gur, from thence to Jezreel, from thence to the Shearing house, and from thence to Samaria, and all the road marked by blood! blood, too, appointed in righteousness to be shed. For though the sword that shed it, cared not for righteousness, yet in its action the Lord was pleading with the flesh of Ahab and his house, as, by and bye, He will have a greater pleading, even with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. And what shall be the rapidity and the stretch of the divine judgment then? What will be the journey of the sword of the Lord, or "the grounded staff" in that day? when "as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."

We may look at a moment of righteous judgment in this journey of Jehu, It is like the day of the Flood, or of Sodom, or of the Red Sea. Our souls, beloved, may afresh prize the precious blood that shelters us, while we own also, with reverence, the way of Him to whom vengeance belongs.

Jehu, executes the divine commission, it is true, but it served himself. The decree of God concerning Ahab was just that on which Jehu could get forward in the world. Like a true Pharisee, he would trade on religion, or use godliness as gain. Beyond that, it had no beauty for him, or power over him, and thus, what religious zeal brought him, religious declension shall preserve to him. If he could give up Baal to get the throne, he can now give up Jehovah with as much ease to secure the throne. He can return to the calves of Jeroboam, after he has abolished the prophets of Ahab, that, as Jeroboam said, "the kingdom might not return to others."

Oh the deep and serious lesson! May our souls ponder it — and seek an exercised heart and conscience in all service, and all knowledge, lest all be dead in our minds and hands!

Joash, King of Judah.

2 Kings 11 - 12.

Elisha is not seen in these chapters, for the affairs of the kingdom of Judah are introduced. But they are incidental to the affairs of Israel in this respect, that they give us an account of a great apostacy in that kingdom, and its judgment, just as the chapters which precede them gave us, as we saw, the judgment of apostacy in the kingdom of Israel. And being very important in opening the counsels of God to us, I will consider them, though Elisha, our principal object, be not before us.

These chapters give us an account of that interruption to the enjoyment of the throne of Judah which the house of David suffered. And I doubt not it is expressive of the time now present, when the same thing may be said — that the seed and house of David are not in the occupation of the throne and power of David.

Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and of Jezebel, and, as I may call her, the Jezebel of Judah, was the instrument of accomplishing this iniquity. A murderer, idolater, and usurper, she completes the sin here, as Ahab and Jezebel did in Israel, till the wrath of God visits and removes her, as it had visited and removed them.

The seed royal was the object of her murderous design, in order that she might seize the crown as her own, and (as she judged, perhaps, with infidel boldness) overthrow the divine promise to the house of David. (1 Kings 2: 4). Her act was like Ahab's in Samaria towards the vineyard of the righteous, or like that of the whole nation afterwards towards the Lord of the vineyard, or the Heir of the kingdom.

But there is a secret purpose and power of God that frustrates all this. He has the resurrection of Jesus in order to bring to nought all the devices of the enemy; and so here, Joash, a child of resurrection, is used as His instrument for the like end. The sentence of death had gone out against him. He was as much involved in it as any of them who perished by it. But the Lord had deliverance prepared for him, as He had great purposes to accomplish by and in him, and he is therefore drawn out from the place of death, like Moses in such a case, by the daughter of a king, Jehoshabeath, who had married the High Priest Jehoiada.

It is however, much to be observed, that, being drawn thus out of the place of death, he is hid by the priest of God in "the house of the Lord," and that, too, "till the seventh year." This is a striking picture of the distant purposes of God concerning the true Heir of the throne of Judah. For Jesus, being drawn from the place of death by resurrection, is hid during a whole age in the house of God, the heavens having now received Him as the High Priest of the present house of God; the concealment of this former heir of David for a time thus standing a fair and full expression of the present hiding of Jesus in the heavens. Surely I may say, this is "a sign and a wonder," something to be treated as a type or a mystery.

But Joash is not to be always where the hand of Jehoiada had now secured him. In due season Jehoiada prepares a remnant in Judah to favour him, with whom he makes a covenant in the house of the Lord, and to whom he shows "the king's son." And after preparing them he uses them: he fits them out with weapons of war, and harness, for the day of battle, from the armoury of David, and sets them all in order, to hurl the bold usurper from the throne. And this is done with the same perfect and holy intelligence of God's mind, as the concealment in the sanctuary had been. No blood is to stain the Temple — the wicked are to be cut off in this day of righteous judgment without mercy — and "the king's son is to be brought forth from the house of the Lord. These three things are to be carefully observed on this great occasion. The king is to be enthroned, the wicked to be slain, but the Temple to be kept undefiled. All this must be done according to God. And then, accompanied in all due solemnity by the power of his kingdom, the righteous in whom he could trust, and on the Sabbath day, the day prepared for his showing to Judah, the king comes forth from his hiding place.

Jehoiada, who, as the priest, had been the guardian of the young king during the time of the usurpation, orders the whole matter of his coronation and manifestation. He marshals a line of body guard from the house of the Lord to the house of the king, from the sanctuary to the palace. Their business was, to watch the king from his exit to his entrance, and along the whole passage from the one house to the other. And the king is, accordingly, brought forth from the Temple; and just outside it, at the pillar, he is proclaimed amid the acclamations of the people, the testimony as well as the crown being given to him; the one signifying to him his subjection to Jehovah, the other his sovereignty over Israel.

Athaliah the usurper is then slain — but beyond the ranges of the Temple. For even to the restoration of the king and the peace of the kingdom, the priest will not sacrifice the sanctity of the Temple. Beautiful witness of the Lord maintaining all His glories in all His ways, never clouding one during the shining of another. The covenant of all the people is then made, they accepting the king, and the king adopting them. All things that offend and do iniquity are taken out of the way, the house, the altars, the images, and the priests of Baal. And at last, the king passes through the line of body guards, all joyful in their attendance upon him; and, like another Solomon, in peace and dignity, full of honour and of the gladness of the people, he sits on the throne of the kingdom, the throne of the house of David.

Can anything more beautifully express the return of Jesus from His heavenly sanctuary? For is He not to appear then in the midst of the strength and righteousness of His kingdom? and is not that to be a time when a Sabbath is again preparing for His Israel, and for the whole creation? Will it not, likewise, be the day of visitation on them that have shed the blood of the righteous, and corrupted the earth? Heaven will be opened, and that will be the day of Jesus' crowning, and His people's gladness; as here, the priest anoints Joash, puts the crown on his head, the testimony in his hand, according to the ancient ordinance of God (Deut. 17); while the people cry, "God save the king." The king shows himself in his beauty, and as alive from the dead; and the wicked one, the usurper, and the murderer, perish in his presence.

Nothing could more exquisitely give us the distant glimpses of our true David than all this. We see, as it were, His descent from heaven, the house of the Lord, in power and glory. And it was the suited moment for such a type. For this usurpation of Athaliah was the full apostacy of Judah, the time for the Lord to come out again, as at Babel's and Gomorrah's iniquity of old, to punish the earth for its iniquity, and as the result of that, to take to Him His own holy power and honour.

And the land is now again full of David. Not only had the guard of the king been armed with the spears and the shields of David, which had been kept apart, and allowed, as it were, to rust for want of use while the heir was hid in the sanctuary; but now, the ordinances of David, and the music of David, are observed and heard. (2 Chr. 23: 18) The priest is careful to fill the scene with recollections of David. And Baal and his servants are put away, and the God of Israel is in His place again. It is Jehovah the Lord, and David the servant, as it will be in the glorious antitype. And a larger covenant is now struck, as we have already observed. It is not merely the priest taking an oath of some in favour of the concealed Joash, and showing him simply to them. It is the priest bringing all the people, the king, and Jehovah, into holy, gracious covenant again, that they should be the Lord's people, and then showing the rightful heir of all the glory, not to some, but to all the congregation of Israel. And thus was the city quiet, the people of the land rejoice, the king sits on the throne, and he and the priest restore the service and worship of the God of Israel.

This was the great restitution of all things. In this way things are totally changed. It is no longer the king hid in the house of the Lord, and a strange woman on the throne, as it were, riding the Beast, with Baal brought in, and the temple of the only true God in defilement and ruin; but the king has been brought forth and owned by his willing people, the usurper is judged, and the sanctuary and worship of the Lord are in honour and observance again.

But as with Solomon, so with Joash, this is only for a season. Adam lost Eden, after we get the fair type of Christ and the Church in him and the help-meet given to him. So did Solomon lose the throne of David after he had served (in the hand of our blessed God who ever teaches us to profit) the glorious purpose of exhibiting in type the earthly honours and kingdom of the true Son of David. And Joash now, as soon as Jehoiada is gone, tarnishes all this brightness. But this we see, that as long as Jehoiada the priest lived, the kingdom was maintained by king Joash in its holiness and beauty. And this shows us again in a type, that in the coming kingdom, when we shall see the King and the Priest together, all shall be well. As it is written," He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne, and He shall be a priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." And because the Priest of that kingdom cannot die, being made "after the power of an endless life," and because the King of that kingdom cannot fail or do wrong, because His sceptre is one of righteousness, and it is said of Him, "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity," therefore this peace and honour will abide through His times, till He have delivered up the kingdom. "In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." "The government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever."

This is, indeed, a strong expression of the then distant things of Christ's glory, His return from the heavens, which is the Sanctuary of God, and His taking to Him judgment first, and then His priestly kingly honours, and dominion in the land of His ancient choice. Happy for our souls to dwell on any thoughts of Him; and therefore, though Elisha was not here, a greater than he being here, we have not passed it, nor judged these chapters an intruder on our path.

Joash, King of Israel, and the Arrows.

2 Kings 13: 1-19.

We now return out of Judah into the land of the ten tribes, and after an interval, the reign of Jehoahaz the son of Jehu, we get a sight of our prophet again.

Joash had succeeded his father Jehoahaz on the throne of Israel, and still did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and the rest of the kings before him. But in his days Elisha had fallen sick of his sickness whereof he afterwards died.

The longest day has its evening, it has been said, and said, too, of the ministry of this prophet He had gone through the reigns of Jehoram the son of Ahab, of Jehu, Jehoahaz and Joash, having seen also the earlier times of Ahab and Ahaziah. Perhaps he had been a prophet of God for nearly sixty years. But the evening of his day was now come; his sun sets in brightest tints, and with a glow which was worthy of its meridian hour.

Joash, we read, came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, "O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." This may surprise us. But it is clear that there was no pretence, or mockery, or insincerity in all this. It was nature. Perhaps Elisha had been hitherto much neglected by this king of the house of Jehu, And in the prospect of his being taken away, there was, as was very natural, a quickening of conscience in him, and he accordingly seeks the dying prophet. Even Herod, a worse man than Joash, could do many things, and tremble at the thought of John being alive, as Joash here could at the thought of Elisha dying.

This was nature. Joash valued Elisha's presence in his kingdom. But beside that, he would honour Elisha, ere it was too late; for the remembrance that he had done so, might, when Elisha was gone, hinder some disquiet in his conscience. The prophet's sanctity, the power that had so often been owned in him, and the name and place he filled, enforced all this on his soul at such a moment as the present; and thus, not in mockery or pretence, but under this strong current of natural feelings, the king visits the dying prophet with the very same salutation with which this prophet himself had hailed the ascending Elijah.

But nature is not up to the elevation of the Spirit of God. "Stand fast in the Lord," is the word — and "I can do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth me," is the Apostle's only boast. We are not to glory, save in that which Christ works in us. And so, however promising things may be at the beginning of this scene, nature in Joash is not up to the occasion. He could not go through it, as Elisha had before done, in the power of the Spirit. The motions of nature carry us for a season apparently in that track, where the energy of the Holy Ghost would have us; but they will not bear us to the end with those who are in the same track in the Spirit. And so, though Elisha and Joash begin with the same language on their lips, there is distance between them.

But let me say, in connection with this admonition, that we must not question the goodness of God, though we may know the weakness and deceit of our own hearts. And there is this tendency in us. We are prone to suspect the sources of light or joy or strength, that may be in us at times. Our reasoning will tell us that simple nature and not the Spirit of God is in these things. We do what we can to take the praise of our blessings from God, and to reason that good gifts come down from sources short of the Father of lights. But this should not be. The heart is deceitful indeed, but God is good. And in simplicity of faith we should accustom ourselves to trace our light, or joy, or strength of soul, to His Spirit, without the darkening and troubling reasonings of our own hearts.

All this may teach us. There is warning against nature, but consolation for us in God here. But there is something besides.

At the bidding of the prophet, the king takes bow and arrows, and does with them according to the word of the prophet, the prophet interpreting the action to him. Then the king, having taken the arrows by themselves, as Elisha bids him, is ordered to smite the ground with them But on doing so only three times, the prophet rebukes him. The man of God is wroth, and rebukes him, for he was grieved and disappointed. But why was this? Why this heat in the soul of Elisha? The reason is beautiful. He had just told the king that "the arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrows of deliverance from Syria," were in his hand: had his soul been in unison with the prophet, had it glowed with thoughts of that glory which was thus brought so nigh to him; had his heart sparkled at the sight of the Lord's own quiver then in his hand, how lustily would he have smitten the ground at the bidding of the prophet. Had Joash but valued the Lord's arrow as Elisha had valued his master's mantle, all would have been harmony of soul between them. But the king had not in spirit fallen into that current which was then bearing the prophet along. The spirit in him was not in the same fine flow that it was pursuing through Elisha, and therefore, with slack hand he smote the ground but thrice. And oh! how much of this we know! Where is the fine rich fervency of heart which we find of old, the glow of soul, and power of utterance, which were known among our tried and suffering brethren in other days? What smiting on the ground again and again was there then, in company, as it were, with the soul of Elisha! But our hand is slack. The unction and the zeal, and the earnests of the Spirit, express themselves in far feebler lines now, than they were wont to do in other days. Elisha had cried out as Elijah was leaving him, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof" — but he also took up the mantle of the prophet and smote the waters as the prophet had smitten them, to divide them hither and thither. The king can now come to Elisha as he is leaving him, and utter the same words, but there is no kindred smiting now. The king's heart is cold, and his hand is slack, where Elisha's had been fervent and bold. "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known."

We stand but little now-a-days in the rich and fervent power of the Spirit of God. At least one feels this for oneself too sensibly. There may be extension in the field of vision, or multiplied truths dwelling in the thoughts, but the deep unctuous virtue of truth itself is less felt. Again I say, one speaks this at least of oneself, according to the well-known coldness and narrowness of one's own affections. So that we may still say, "O Lord, revive thy work!" As another has sung -

"The ancient days were days of might,

In forms of greatness moulded,

When flowers of heaven grew on earth

Within the church unfolded.

For grace fell fast as summer dew,

And saints to giant stature grew."

The Dead Man Quickened.

2 Kings 13: 20-25.

This is the closing expression of the power of God in our prophet. But the way of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, is reflected here still. For by His death we live. To touch the dead body of Jesus, that is, to have faith in His blood, is to be justified and live.

But it is not so much in that general way, as belonging to all sinners, that we get Jesus here. It is as in connection with Israel, whose prophet Elisha was, and the earthly man also, who takes his course in power through Israel and on the earth, after Elijah the heavenly man had been translated to his place on high. For so with Jesus. He will be for the succour and life and kingdom of Israel in the latter day, after He has accomplished His mercy and His purpose with the Church, His heavenly witness.

And as the man of grace and power for Israel, we here see Elisha doing his last service. Israel was now in confusion before the face of their enemies. They were put to the worse by the Moabites. The most they can do is to bury their dead, and we know, that is the service of the dead — "Let the dead bury the dead." This is shortly, but strikingly, marked as their condition here. But one that was dead already carries life, unlooked-for life, for them. This is shortly but strikingly marked here also. The power of reviving lay in the sepulchre of this mystic prophet.

And so with Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of His Israel. Things will be seen in Him according to this pattern; when it shall be said, "The Lord shall judge His people, and repent Himself for His servants; when He seeth that their power is gone, and that there is none shut up or left, He shall say, See now that it is I, even I, and there is no God with me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal." Then, according to Ezekiel, the dry bones shall live; then the Lord will open the graves of His people and bring them out of their graves.

"At evening time it shall be light," we read. And again, "He turneth the shadow of death into the morning." Of these holy and august powers, we have faint touches in our prophet's history. For in the evening of his days, when he was adying, we saw a light shining, as in the case of Joash and the arrows, that was worthy of his life's meridian hour. And now, after his sun is gone down, even in the night of the tomb, the full power of the returning morning appears. And all has still a mystery in it. It is mystic ground as well as holy ground that we tread through these histories, and in the spirit of our minds we must tread softly, as ever, with unshod feet, but still be in company with happy thoughts of Jesus and His ways.

_______________

Thus have we closed the story of "the great things that Elisha" did. Great things they surely were. We have, however, if I may so call it, a short appendix to it, which I read as very characteristic and significant. I mean the notice taken in the last four verses of this chapter, of the times of Jehoahaz and Joash. (See 2 Kings 13: 22-25).

We are told that Hazael of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz but that the Lord was gracious, and had respect to His people, remembering in their behalf His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he gave Joash three victories over the son of Hazael, according to the sign of the arrows, which by command of Elisha, he had struck on the ground; and he took out of his hand the cities of Israel which his father had lost to Hazael in war.

Here we get the God of the fathers of Israel and His covenant of blessing, in company, too, with the mystic arrows of our prophet, strikingly owned. And this is, as I observed, very significant and characteristic. For Elisha's ways had been ways of grace and power towards Israel, shadowy or typical of the ways of Messiah in the behalf of His people. And now that those ways of our prophet had all been run, as we have seen, and even in death he had given life, and sent the prisoner from the pit, and made the buried ones to go up from their graves, in a little postscript we get this mention of Abraham's God and His covenant, by which Israel was to be secured and blest, in spite of all that was against them.

Is not this like the moral of the whole story? Is not this, as it were, the key to the mystery, or the sense of the parable? Do we not thus learn that the Lord has pledged, in all this history of Elisha, succour and strength and grace and revival to Israel in the latter day? It is Israel delivered and blessed, as of old, that we get here; and nothing less. It is the ancient days of Israel's mercy in Egypt that are again before us. For there, when they groaned under the rod of Pharaoh, and sighed by reason of the bondage, God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, as He does here; and also, as He does here, had respect unto them. (Ex. 2: 23-25). Hazael may be as Pharaoh, but the God of Abraham is the God of Abraham still, and He can pledge deliverance and blessing by Elisha, as once He brought it by Moses.

It was long ere now that we heard of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in connection with the ten revolted tribes. Yea, did we ever before hear of Him as with them, save on the lips of our prophet's kinsman, as I may call him, Elijah? ( See 1 Kings 18: 36.) But now Elisha has been the witness of His grace and power in the midst of them, and the God of grace, the God of the fathers, can now be owned over them and for them.

Conclusion.

We have now gone through the actions of Elisha, whose name signifies, "salvation of God." It has given us many an expression of the marvellous power and abounding grace of Jesus — some faint, but true, traces of the Son of God, in that divine mystery of strength, and divine tenderness of goodness, which manifested Him in the days of His flesh.

All of Jesus, it is true, is not seen in him. Where should we find that? As a suffering witness against the world, Elijah, as I have before said, the rather reflects Him. But in His ways of power and grace we see Him in Elisha.

There was no suffering for Elisha, I may say, after his master left him. It was not with him, as it had been with his master, the wrath of the throne prevailing to exile and harass him. But chief captains wait at his gates, and kings send presents to him. He discloses the secrets of one of them, disappoints the purposes of another, gives pledges of victory to a third, and grants supplies to the combined armies of them. Every path he treads wears after him some trace of the greatness of him who had been travelling there. Chariots of salvation fill the mountains, attending on the prophet. Famine, disease, and death own him. Nature again and again changes its course at his bidding. He goes onward in the Lord from strength to strength, and even his dead body puts forth strange and surprising virtue.

All this is seen in the ways of Elisha. And the goodness and power that was in him of God was very well-known among the people, as the words of the little captive in the house of Naaman may easily assure us. (See 2 Kings 5: 3). And yet the while, he was personally nothing in the world. The more like Jesus. Elisha received bounty and care in the ordinary need of life from those, in whose behalf he was opening resources which were altogether beyond the reach or range of man's ability — How like was he made to Him, who though He Himself was "an hungered," again and again fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes. And though He sends the springs into the valleys that run among the hills, and measures the waters in the hollow of His hand, and though He had a little while before turned water into wine, and entertained the guests at a marriage feast with it, asked for a cup of cold water from a woman at a well., and took the loan of an ass's colt from its owner, though the cattle on a thousand hills are His! (John 2, 5).

Remarkable it is, that in the dark realms of the kingdom Israel, the place of revolted tribes, the Lord should have raised up such prophets as Elisha and his master. Lights they were truly in dark places. Judah, which had still the sanctuary and the priesthood, was never so visited. A rich unction of the prophetic spirit was known in the waning hours of that kingdom, or after its sun was set, as in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others. And the same spirit had been there in earlier days, as in the person of Isaiah. But none of these were in the scene of action, working miracles, executing judgments as well as pronouncing them, ministering mercies as well as publishing them, as Elijah and Elisha were.

"A prophet mighty in deed and in word," is said of the Lord Jesus by one of His disciples. Elijah and Elisha, were prophets mighty in deed. We have no book of either the prophet Elijah, or of the prophet Elisha, as we have of Isaiah. But there was no greatness about Isaiah, as there was about them; he was in no way important in the history of his day, as they were. In no sense was he a type of the Lord, though His prophet. But Jesus stands foreshadowed in them, in the most distinguishing features of His history. They tell of Him as the suffering witness who ends His course in heaven; and as the gracious, powerful, but self-emptied Friend of Israel, who went about dispensing the virtues of life and salvation through their cities and villages, and giving a pledge, through His death, of their quickening in the last days.

These are "the great things" which cast a strong and bright light over the whole path of our prophet, every little spot in which bears the trace, as we have seen, of grace to Israel. And may our souls rejoice in the prospect of their final joy! that when the heavenly people have been removed to their heavenly places, the earth shall be the scene of the power and grace of the God of Elisha, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then, "praise ye the Lord from the heavens — praise the Lord from the earth," shall be the burthen and chorus of universal gladness. For in the dispensation of the fulness of times, God will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him. And" at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Blessed anticipation! Can we lay out ourselves and our talents upon it, beloved? Jeremiah, in faith of God's truth, spent his money on an expectation, though for the present it seemed to have been thrown away, for the Chaldeans were at the gates, and the fields of Anathoth were part of their plunder. (Jer. 32)

Precious faith as well as brilliant prospect! And hope can celebrate it now, till "the nobler sweeter song" be heard in the presence of it.

"Joy to His ancient people!

Your bonds He comes to sever;

And now 'tis done,

The Lord has won,

And ye are free for ever!

Joy to the ransom'd nations!

The foe, the rav'ning lion

Is bound in chains,

While Jesus reigns

King of the earth in Zion.

Joy to the church triumphant!

The Saviour's throne surrounding -

They see His face,

Adore His grace,

O'er all their sin abounding,

Crown'd with the mighty Victor,

His royal glory sharing,

Each fills a throne,

His name alone,

To heaven and earth declaring,"

Our meditations began with Elijah, whose translation to heaven, after a life of suffering testimony on earth, tells us of that elect body, who, having continued with Jesus in His temptations, are to share His throne in the days of the kingdom; and as their representative, in company with Moses, we see him glorified on the distant heavenly hill (Matt. 17: 3). And now they have ended with Elisha, after a ministry of grace and power, quickening the dead estate of Israel, and bringing back the covenanted mercies of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to their seed in the land of their inheritance. As in a mystery, the tale of the heavens and the earth is told, and their divers glories are pledged. And the coming millennial days will verify this wondrous tale, and redeem these precious pledges.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto Him again? For of Him and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

Musings on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

'The Opened Heavens'

J. G. Bellett.

Hebrews 1, 2.

The Epistle to the Hebrews strikingly illustrates one quality of the Book of God. It may be read in various lights; yet no one ray interferes with another. In six or seven ways this epistle could be read with the greatest ease. I will specially look now at the first two chapters. It opens the heavens to you as they now are.

How blessed is the introduction of such a thing to the heart! You look up and see the physical heavens above you; but it is only the superficial heavens you see. This epistle introduces the inner heavens to you, and not in a physical, but in a moral character. It introduces us to the glories surrounding and attaching to the Lord Jesus, now accepted in the heavens. We are thus enabled to see the heavens in which He has sat down, what He is about there, and what will succeed those heavens. When the Lord Jesus was here, as we learn in Matthew 3, the heavens opened to get a sight of Him. There was an object here then worthy the attention of the heavens. He returned — and the heavens had an object they had never known before — a glorified Man. And now it is the office of our epistle to show us the heavens as the place of this glorified Man. And as in Matthew 3 we get the heavens opened to look down at Christ here, so in the Hebrews you get the heavens opened that you may look up at Christ there.

But supposing you ask, Is that all the history of the heavens? Have you gone to the end? Indeed I have not. In Revelation 4 and 5 we get the heavens preparing for the judgment of the earth. Then at the close of the volume I find the heavens not only the residence of the glorified Man, but of the glorified church. What a book it is that can present to us such secrets as these! It is a divine library. You take down one volume from your shelf, and read about the heavens; in another volume you read of man in ruins; take down a third and you read of God in grace; and so on, in precious, wondrous variety.

Now we will set ourselves down before chapters 1 and 2. "When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." That is just taking up the pledge I gave — that the epistle is going to open to us the heavens. The Lord has been here purging our sins, and He has gone up to occupy the heavens as the Purger of our sins. Supposing I had been to a distant country, I might describe it to you so as to fill you with delight and with desire to visit it. But when the Holy Ghost comes and shows you the distant heavens, He does more than this — He shows you that your interests are consulted there. Our Representative is seated in the highest place and seated there in that very character. Is it possible to have a more intimate link with the place? It is a wonder we are not all on the wing to get there as soon as we can! To think that because He came to die a wretched death for us He is seated there! I defy you to have a richer interest in the heavens than God has given you.

Now in verse 4 we see that not only as the Purger of our sins, but in the verity of His Manhood He is there, seated above the angelic hosts. We have seen already what an interest we have in Him as the Purger of our sins. Now the chapter introduces Him to us as the Son of man above angels. Man has been preferred to angels. Human nature in the person of Christ has been seated above angelic nature, though it be in Michael or in Gabriel. The whole of chapter 1 is thus occupied in giving you two sights of Christ in heaven. What two secrets they are! The Purger of our sins, and very man, like ourselves, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

I read the first four verses of Hebrews 2 as a parenthesis. Do not you like these parentheses? The Holy Ghost speaks the language of nature. We see friends when conversing together turning a little aside to converse about one another; so the apostle speaks here — "I am teaching you wonderful things. Do take heed that you let not such things fall on a careless ear." We must not be mere scholars. If we be disciples of a living master in the school of God, we shall have our consciences exercised while we are pursuing our lesson. That is what the apostle is doing here. That parenthesis falls on the ear most sweetly and acceptably.

But though a parenthesis, it opens a new glory to us. How the field of scripture teems with fruit! It is not a thing you have to till diligently and get but little fruit. That parenthesis contains another glory of Christ. (Surely we ought not to need exhortation!) He is seated there as an Apostle — my Apostle. What does that mean? He is a preacher to me. God spake in times past by the prophets, He is speaking to us now by the Son; and Christ in the heavens is the Apostle of Christianity. And what is His subject? Salvation. That salvation which, as the Purger of our sins, He wrought out for us; and which, as the Apostle of our profession, He makes known to us. There is more furnishing of the heavens for you.

Then verse 5 returns to the theme of Hebrews 1. It goes on with the distinctive glories of Christ, as super-eminent, above angels. "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come." What is "the world to come"? It is the millennial age, which we read of in Psalm 8. We have three conditions of the Son of man here. "A little lower than the angels"; "crowned with glory and honour"; and "set over the works of God's hands." So that the world to come is not put in subjection to angels but to the Son of man. Now you find that you have an interest in this glorified Man. I was saying that if I went to a distant land and described to you its scenic wonders, you would desire a sight of them. But this epistle shows you that you have a personal interest in these glories. Is there a single point that the Son of man has travelled in which you have not an interest? The apostle traces it here for you. So that again I say this epistle is opening the distant heavens to your view, and showing you the glories that attach to Christ, and that you have an immediate, personal interest in those glories.

In verse 10 a new thought comes in, "to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Only pause here for a moment. It became the glory of God to give you a perfect Saviour. Do you believe it? What thoughts rise on the soul when we come to that! Are you in possession of Him, so that you never in a single thought are tempted to look beyond Him? We have got an unquestionable, infallible salvation, one that will stand the shock of every coming day.

From verse 11 we further see our interest in the glorified Man. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." Not ashamed! Tell it out that earth and heaven may hear! This glorified Man is a brother of the elect of God. He is not "ashamed" because of their dignity. Not merely because of His grace, but because of their personal dignity. He has appointed me a share of His own throne. Is He ashamed of His own doings — of His own adoptings? Do not get creeping, cold thoughts as you read scripture. Our thoughts of Christ should be such as to take captive our old man — to bear us on eagles' wings. "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." Christ raising and leading the song of the ransomed ones, and not ashamed to be found in their company! "And again, I will put my trust in him." He did that when He was here, and we do it now. "And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me." There is our interest in the glorified Man.

Then we return to see what He was in humiliation. "He took not on angels; but he took on the seed of Abraham." He left the angels where He found them. The angels excelled in strength. They kept their first estate, and He left them there. Man excelled in wickedness, and He came and linked Himself with man. Then verse 17 introduces us to another glory that attaches to Christ in the heavens. We see Him there as our High Priest, ever waiting with reconciliation for sins, and succour for sorrows. The epistle teems with divine glories. It is massive in glory and ponderous in the divine thoughts that press into its short space.

Hebrews 3, 4.

We were observing that one leading characteristic of this epistle is that it gives us a look into heaven as it now is not as it was in Genesis 1, and not as it will be in Revelation 4 or Revelation 21. The heaven of Genesis 1 had no glorified Man in it, no Apostle, no High Priest. The heaven of Hebrews has all these. That being the general character of the epistle, we looked at the Lord Jesus as in that heaven. Then we were observing how the Lord is there as a glorified Man — as the Purger of our sins — as our Apostle preaching salvation, and as the High Priest making reconciliation for sins. Every page is fruitful in casting up the glories of the Lord Jesus now in heaven.

Now we will take up chapters 3 and 4. Having been introduced to the heavens where Christ is, and to the Christ that is in those heavens, chapters 3 and 4 turn a little round on themselves and look a little sharply at us and tell us to take care now that we are travelling along the road in company with Him. The first thought is that we are to consider Him in His faithfulness. The exhortation here is commonly misunderstood.

For what are we to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession? Is it to imitate Him? The religious mind says so. But that is not the point of the passage at all. I am to consider Him as faithful, for my sake, to God; faithful so that I might be saved eternally. If I do not consider Him so, I have more than blunted the point of the passage and lost the sense of grace. The word should be, not "was faithful," but "is faithful," or "being faithful." Not in walking down here but now in heaven. I look up and see Him discharging these offices, faithful to Him that appointed Him. What business have I to imitate Him in His high priesthood? I am to consider Him for my comfort.

What a constellation of grace there is in all that! The grace of God that appointed Him, the grace of the Son that discharges the work, and the grace that opens chapter 3 is infinite in magnificence. Could there be sublimer exhortation or diviner doctrine? We get the Son in the highest heavens, there seated as the Purger of our sins, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and could any exhortation be more divine than that which tells me to sit still and look at Him in His faithfulness up there?

Then in verses 3 and 4: and onward we get further glories unfolded in contrast with Moses. The first dispensation is here called a house. It was a servant to serve a coming Christ — Moses and the house are identical. All the activities of that dispensation were worth nothing if they did not bear testimony to a coming Christ: therefore it was a servant. When the Lord comes, on the other hand, He comes as a Son, to claim that which is His own as His own; and the whole thing now depends on this — Will the house, over which He is set, be faithful to Him?

What is your faithfulness? To continue in confidence and hold the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. "Christ for me, Christ for me!" I will take nothing but this all-sufficient Christ. Cling to Him day by day till the wilderness journey is over. Then you are part and parcel of that house over which He presides as a Son. He not only presides over it, but He claims it as His own  - a dearer thought. It is quite right to be subject to Him, but He tells you to lie near His heart. Faithfulness is not merely being subject to the headship of Christ. If I am lying on His bosom then I am faithful. So that when the Spirit comes to exhort, in Hebrews 3 and 4, He has not left the high and wondrous ground of Hebrews 1 and 2.

Then, having come to that point, He turns aside to Psalm 95. If you begin to read at Psalm 92 and read to the close of Psalm 101 you will find it a beautiful little millennial volume. It is exhortings and awakenings of the Spirit of faith in Israel, summoning them to look forward to the rest of God.

How is that brought in here? The wilderness journey of Israel is a beautiful, lively picture of the journey the believer is now taking from the blood to the glory. People sometimes at the opening of Hebrews 4 turn it on themselves. But rest to the conscience is not the thing that is thought of at all. It assures us that we are out of Egypt and looking towards Canaan. The danger is, not lest the blood should not be on the lintel, but lest we should break down by the way, as thousands did in the wilderness. It never calls you to re-investigate the question of having found rest in the blood, but to take care how you travel along the road. When He speaks of rest, it is the rest of the kingdom He talks of, not the rest of the conscience. Then He calls the whole age through which we are passing one day — "Today." It was a short day to the dying thief, a short day to the martyred Stephen. A longer day to Paul, and a longer day still to John; but let the wilderness journey be short or long, it is one day, and you are to hold by Christ to the very end. If you are to be partakers of Christ, you must hold fast to the end.

Now, what is the Christ of verse 14? A Christ crucified? No, Christ glorified. You are made partakers of Christ in the kingdom if you hold fast by Christ crucified. Let this "today" ring in the heart and conscience every hour. Holding to a crucified Christ is my title to the rest of a glorified Christ. Two things contest this with you — sin and unbelief. Do you not recognise these two enemies as you pass along? Shall I continue in sin? Am I to give place to one wrong thought? I may be overtaken, but am I to treat them other than as enemies? Then unbelief is an action of the soul towards God. You and I do not know what saintly character is — what it is to be between Egypt and Canaan — if we are not aware that those two things stand out to withstand our passage every day.

Hebrews 4 still pursues the subject. The Christ of Hebrews 3: 14 is the rest of Hebrews 4; Christ glorified — rest glorious. He has us out of Egypt. The exhortation attaches to a people out of Egypt. We have left the blood-sprinkled lintel behind. The glorious Canaan is before us. Take heed lest you come short of it. "Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them." The gospel, not of the blood of Christ, but of the glory of Christ. It took one form in the, ear of the Israelites and it takes another form to us; but to them, as to us, rest was preached.

Then He beautifully falls back on the Sabbath rest of the Creator. The blessed Creator provided Himself a rest after creation. He promised Himself a rest in Canaan after bringing them through the wilderness. Adam disturbed His creation-rest. Israel disturbed His Canaan-rest. Is He, therefore, disappointed in His rest? No; He has found it in Christ. The secret of the whole Book of God is, God retreating into Christ when man in every way had disappointed Him. Christ is the One who has worked out that rest, and who holds it now, and it remains with Him both for God and for His saints. "Therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein." It is no longer a fallible thing depending on Adam or on Israel, therefore let us take care that we do not come short of it.

Now we get two ways in which to use Christ. We had two enemies in the end of chapter 3, now we have two uses of Christ in the end of chapter 4. We are to use Him as the Word of God and as the High Priest of our profession. Is that the way I am using Him? These two uses stand opposed to sin and unbelief. Let the Word of God discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. Instead of giving place to your lusts and vanities, invite the entrance of the two-edged sword, that makes no allowance for a single bit of sin. And when you have dragged out the enemy — found some favourite lust lying in this corner and some unsuspected vanity in that, what are you to do with them? Take them to Christ and let His high priesthood dispose of them in the mercy and grace that are in it.

There we pause for the present. We have seen the heavens opened, and looked in, and found there a Man arrayed in glories, every one of which I have an interest in. Then comes the exhortation. Two enemies beset you — take care. Instead of yielding to them make use of the two-edged sword; and when you have found them out, take them to Jesus. There is a beautiful suitability between the Christ that is exhibited up above, in chapters 1 and 2, and you and me as we are exhibited here below in all the characteristics of chapters 3 and 4.

Hebrews 5, 6.

We will read now to Hebrews 5: 10; and from there until the close of Hebrews 6 we may observe that the apostle turns aside to a parenthetic warning. He is full of that style; and our style with one another is full of it. Such little breaks and interruptions in a discourse are always grateful to us.

In the first ten verses of chapter 5 a most weighty matter is introduced to our thoughts. In the first verse we get a general abstract thought of priesthood. It is that thing which serves men in their relationships to God. Then the character of service is presented to us — "That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins"; that is, that He may conduct both eucharistic services and penitential or expiatory services before God. He stands to conduct our interest with God in whatever form. He is "taken from among men" that He, may have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. He is not, taken from among angels, therefore we read in Timothy, "the man Christ Jesus." God in ordaining a Priest for us has chosen One who can have compassion. We find at the close of Hebrews 7 that the Lord Jesus was separate from infirmity. But the priest here was one who by reason of infirmity could sympathise. The Lord Jesus had to learn how to sympathise, as well as to learn obedience by the things which He suffered.

Under the Old Testament scriptures two persons are distinctly set in the office of the priesthood — Aaron in Leviticus 8 and 9, and Phinehas in Numbers 25. The difference between them was this: Aaron was simply called into the priesthood; Phinehas acquired a title to it.

When we come to the Lord Jesus we find that both these, Aaron and Phinehas, are seen in Him. He was "called of God, as was Aaron." Aaron was a mere called priest. The priesthood of Numbers 25. stands in contrast with Aaron's. Phinehas was not called, as was Aaron, but he acquired his title. How did he do this? He made an atonement for Israel in the day of their great breach, touching the daughters of Baal-Peor and enabled the Lord to look with satisfaction again at His erring camp. Phinehas stood forward to avenge the quarrel of righteousness and to make atonement for the sin of the people. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas ... hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel ...

Wherefore say, Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace ... even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." Nothing can be finer than this. You could not have a more magnificent light in which to read the Christ of God than in that act of Phinehas. Aaron was never in this way entitled to a covenant of peace. So you have these two Old Testament lights in which to read the priesthood of the Lord Jesus.* He was the true Aaron and the true Phinehas.

*Melchisedec was a third. (Heb. 7)

Both these are brought out here. The blessed Lord Jesus was called into office, as was Aaron; but He was in office because He made an atonement. This earth was like the outside place of the temple,, where the brazen altar was. The Lord Jesus is now seated in the sanctuary of the heavens, which God has pitched, and not man, because He has passed by the brazen altar on earth. He has passed it by and has satisfied it. Nothing can be simpler, and yet nothing can be more mysteriously grand. How did God bear witness to the satisfaction of the brazen altar? By rending the veil. Then it is an easy thing to pass in. If God has rent the veil am I to let it be rent for nothing? If it be now rent I have as much right to go inside as the Israelites of old were bound to keep outside. By satisfying the altar He has passed by the rent veil into the sanctuary in the heavens. All that is brought out here. He glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest.

Why is it a matter of honour to be made a high priest? You will tell me that nothing can dignify the Son of God; and I grant it. But let me ask you, Do not men know what it is to have acquired honour as well as hereditary honours? The son of a nobleman goes to battle and may he not acquire honours as well as his hereditary family dignities? And tell me, which will he value the most? Those which he has acquired. He himself is more honoured by them. His hereditary dignities are his, and no thanks to him; but his acquired honours are more specially his own.

Divine things are illustrated by human things. Who can add anything to Him who is God over all, blessed for ever? But the Son has been in the battle and acquired honours that would never have been His if He had not taken up the cause of sinners; and dear and precious honours they are to Him! That word "called" is very sweet in the original. God "saluted," "greeted" Him when He seated Him in the sanctuary, as He greeted Him when He seated Him on the throne — "Sit thou at my right hand." The Epistle to the Hebrews shows, in the opened heavens, a throne as well as a sanctuary.

In verses 7, 8 and 9 we find some very weighty truths connected with ourselves. "Who in the days of his flesh" (let us mark that with holy reverence), "when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death." The scene of that conflict was eminently marked in Gethsemane. What was the transaction there? He properly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And was heard for his piety." He was heard because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed. Instead of the judgment of God being sent to wither His flesh, an angel was sent to strengthen Him.

Yet He suffered death. He might have claimed His own personal exemption from it, yet He went through it. He learned obedience to His commission by travelling from Gethsemane to Calvary, and He now presents Himself to the eye of every sinner on earth as the Author of eternal salvation.

We see the Lord in Gethsemane pleading, as I may express it, His title against death. His title is owned; yet, though death has no claim on Him personally, He says, "Thy will be done." He might have gone from Gethsemane to heaven; but He went the rather from Gethsemane to Calvary; and so, being made perfect there, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who receive Him. Then, when the altar was satisfied, the sanctuary received Him, and there He is.

In creation God planted a man in the garden in innocence; in redemption God has planted a Man in heaven, in glory. There is a glory that excelleth. The glory in redemption leaves the glory that was once in creation as a nothing.

Now we have got down to verse 10. Observe that the language of verse 10 is taken up in Hebrews 6: 20, and the argument there has not advanced beyond this verse 10. Supposing, then, I were to take you to 1 Corinthians 1, 2 and 3, you would find the apostle there hindered in his teaching. "You are carnal; I cannot teach you with the rich treasures I have stored up for the church." It is so here; only there the evil that hindered was moral, here it is doctrinal.

It was very difficult for the Hebrew to detach himself from the things in which he had been educated. He was "unskilful in the word of righteousness." The legal mind is apt to take up righteousness as Moses did, as a thing demanded from us. God takes it up as a thing that He will give us.

And in the next chapter, finding this hindrance among them, he sounds an alarm, as in the opening of Hebrews 2 he sounded an exhortation. A carnal mind and a legal mind are two great villains. They are both little foxes that spoil the vintage of God.

"Now," says the apostle, "you must leave these things. I must put you down to another volume, and that volume is perfection." "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened," etc. That is, "It is not within my reach to do it." We must leave it to God whether they be brought back or not. It is just between themselves and God. It is a terrible thing, having known Christ, to go back to ordinances; but I have no warrant to say that it will not be forgiven in the person of many who have thus been ensnared but have come back.

Hebrews 7.

To look carefully at the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is important to our souls. Therefore, for the present, we will lay aside the parenthesis at the close of chapter 6 and read part of chapter 5 and the whole of chapter 7. We are looking at the priesthood of the Lord Jesus as reflected in Aaron and Phinehas. Aaron, we saw, was simply called into his office; Phinehas earned his office. We will now look at the Melchisedec phase of the same priesthood.

Supposing I said to you that this world is a scene of forfeited life — you would understand me. Life is but suspended death. To return to life is to return to God. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Sin worked the forfeiture of life; consequently, if I can make a return to life, I make a return to God. In two characters God visits this world — as a Quickener and as a Judge; and John 5 tells us that we are all interested in one or other of these visits. Now it is the office of this epistle to let every poor believer in Jesus know that he has returned to life and that his business now is with the living God and with God the Quickener. "The living God," is an expression that occurs often in this epistle. "Departing from the living God," "To serve the living God," "The city of the living God." The living God thus occupies the field of my vision both now and in glory. I am now not to depart from Him which intimates that I have got back to Him. I have escaped from the region of death and got back to the region of life; and by-and-by in glory I shall find "the city of the living God."

The question is, How have I got back to Him? The epistle beautifully unfolds that. It is a magnificent moral subject to trace the Lord Jesus in His ministry through the four gospels and see Him from the beginning to the close of His history, displaying Himself as the living God in this world. To mark Him at Gethsemane — to mark Him giving up the ghost — then as the living God rising from the tomb and bestowing the Holy Ghost. We see the living God in a scene pregnant with death. It is the office of this Epistle to the Hebrews very specially to present Christ as the living God. The apostle is full of the death and the cross of Christ. It would not be the Epistle to the Hebrews if it did not take up Christ in His vicarious character.

But though we see the Lamb on the altar, we see the vacant sepulchre too. We have remarked before that the Lord Himself always attaches to the story of His death the story of His resurrection. "The Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death . . . . and the third day he shall rise again." We have the same thing here, only in a doctrinal and not an historic way. The cross is often named, but always in company with the ascension. Take the opening of the epistle — "When he had by himself purged our sins." How did He purge them? By death. Death looks at you at the very opening of this epistle; but at once you read, "Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Again we read, "That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Does the story end there? No; He is "crowned with glory and honour." What is done historically in the gospels is taken up doctrinally in the Hebrews.

The Holy Ghost is considering the living God in the Person of Jesus, as Jesus was exhibiting the living God in His own Person. So again Hebrews 2, "That through death"  - death looks again at you, but what follows  - "he might destroy him that had the power of death." Have I not again the empty sepulchre as well as the altar and the Lamb? I go in this epistle to find an empty grave; but not as "Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary." I expect to find it empty. Their mistake, dear women, was that they expected to find it full. I go expecting to find it empty and I do find it so. When I see the Lamb on the altar and the empty sepulchre, I have got hold of victorious, infallible life. That is the rock-life of which the Lord spoke to Peter.

In Hebrews 5 we find that in Gethsemane He transacted the question of His title and was heard for His piety. He had a moral title to life. Then He surrendered that moral title and took His vicarious place. From Gethsemane He walked on to Calvary. Gethsemane was a wonderful moment. There the great question of life and death was settled between God and Christ; and instead of taking the journey He was entitled to up there, He went along the dreary road our sins put Him on down here. There is exceeding blessed interest about all that.

At Calvary, again, we find Him in death; but the moment He gave up the ghost everything felt the power of the Conqueror. He had gone down into the darkest regions of death, but the moment He touched them every one felt the power of the Conqueror. The earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints arose.

If we look in John 20 we see not merely the vacant tomb, but the tomb strewed with the tokens of victory — the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. We shall never be able to read the mystery of the Christ of God if we do not remember Him as the living God in the midst of death, getting victories worthy of Himself. We see Him in death rending the veil. In the grave we see the napkin lying wrapped together by itself to tell the story of conquest. We see Him then with His disciples, and He is exactly the living God of Genesis 1. We find God there breathing life into the nostrils of man — the Head and Fountain of life. In John 20 the Lord shines under our eye as the Head and Fountain of infallible, unforfeitable life, breathing on the disciples and saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost."

In this epistle we find Him in that character, as entitled to life and as holding it for us. That is His Melchisedec priesthood. He is not merely the living God —  He might have been that if He had gone to heaven from Gethsemane; but He went to heaven from Calvary, and is now there as the living God for us; and God is satisfied — to be sure He is satisfied. How could He be otherwise? Sin has been put away and the blessed God breathes the element of life. It is, so to speak (with worshipping hearts may it be spoken), His native element, and He is satisfied. And God has expressed His satisfaction. But how? When Christ rose in the face of the world that said, "We will not have this man to reign over us," God said Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool." That was His satisfaction in a rejected Christ.

When Christ ascended the heavens in another character, as having made atonement, He put Him in the highest heavens with an oath, and built a sanctuary for Him  - "the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Is it possible for Him to show us in more interesting form that He is satisfied with what Christ has done for us?

Are the services of such a High Priest enough for me? They must be so. I am in connection with life, and every question is settled between me and God. He is King of Righteousness and King of Peace, and He dispenses all you want in the royal authoritative virtue of His own name.

The moment you get the living God expanded in this epistle you find that everything He touches He communicates life for eternity to it. His throne is for ever and ever — Hebrews 1 tells you that. His house is for ever and ever — Hebrews 3 tells you that His salvation is eternal — Hebrews 5 tells you that. His priesthood is unchangeable — Hebrews 7. tells you that His covenant is everlasting — Hebrews 9 tells you that. His kingdom cannot be moved — chapter 12 tells you that. There is nothing He touches that He does not impart eternity to. To entitle the Epistle to the Hebrews in a word, we might say it is "the loaded altar and the empty sepulchre."

Christ has put Himself in possession of life, not to keep it to Himself. The living Jesus in the highest heavens says, "Now that I have got life, I shall share it with you." Oh, the depth of the riches!

Hebrews 8.

We meditated as far as Hebrews 6: 7 and there we left it, taking up Hebrews 7. Now we will read the close of Hebrews 6 and 8. But before we pursue the doctrine of the epistle we will look a little at what we called the hortatory parenthesis in chapter 6. At Hebrews 5: 10 we left the doctrine, and from that to the close of chapter 6 is a parenthesis. The apostle having turned aside to exhort them, we were observing that the thing he feared in the Hebrews was not moral, as in the Corinthians, but doctrinal pravity. And do we not see such moral varieties around us now? One has a Corinthian bias, another has a Galatian bias. The thing he feared in the Hebrews was giving up Christ as the Object of their confidence.

What is the dressing that God is giving your heart now? (Ver 7.) It is not law but grace. Moses was on the principle of law — the Lord Jesus was on the principle of grace; and free, happy, grateful hearts are the herbs meet for such tillage. How is your soul before God? Do you apprehend Him in judgment or in grace? Is the communion of your soul with God in the liberty of grace or in the fear of a coming day of judgment? If the last, it is not yielding herbs meet for Him by whom it is dressed. Thorns and briers are the product of nature. They are the natural product of a corrupt scene, whether it be the earth I tread or the heart I carry within me. Supposing I am acting in a legal, self-righteous mind — dealing with God as a Judge — is not that natural? But these are all thorns and briers. But if I walk in the filial confidence of one who has trusted in the salvation of God, that is the earth yielding fruits meet for Him by whom it is dressed.

Now what is the ground of the apostle's persuasion of "better things" touching them in verse 9? Not confidence in the simplicity of their apprehension of grace, but that the fruits of righteousness were seen among them — beautiful things that accompany but never constitute salvation. Therefore the apostle, seeing this beautiful fruitfulness, says, "Though I am sounding an alarm I do not attach it to you." Having got on that ground he pursues it to the close of the chapter, and does not return to what is doctrinal till he reaches Hebrews 7. He prays them to continue to minister to the saints. Does your knowledge of Christ lead you to two things — secret communion of soul with

Him and practical energy of christian walk and faithfulness? "Now," says he, "do you go on with the beautiful, practical work you have begun. Do not be slothful, but followers of them who by faith and patience inherit the promises."

Then he brings out Abraham as one who did not slack his hand to the end. Abraham not only got the promise in Genesis 15, but went on in patience till it was confirmed by an oath in Genesis 22. We are called not only to faith, but to the patience of faith. May you not have a consolation and yet not a strong consolation? We see it in Abraham. He had a consolation in Genesis 15 and a strong consolation in Genesis 22. A saint once said to me, "In that last sickness the Lord brought me so near Himself that I felt as if I had never believed before."

The apostle would have us like, Abraham in Genesis 22, that "we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to take hold upon the hope set before us." This passage is commonly misquoted. It is not a sinner running to the blood for refuge, but a saint running to the hope of glory from the wreck of every prospect here. This is enough to try us. Do you and I sit on the wreck of everything here? Are we promising ourselves hopes for tomorrow? Abraham was a man who fled from every prospect here to lay hold on the hope of glory. The apostle says, "Lay hold upon the hope," not on the cross. The word of God has an intensity that commonly escapes us. Now he returns to the Levitical figures. Does your hope enter within the veil? Have you not a hope about tomorrow? What is the thing the expectation of your heart hangs about? Is it the hope of the return of Christ, or the promises tomorrow?

"Whither the forerunner is for us entered." The Lord Jesus is here brought out in a new character. We see Him in heaven, not only for us as our High Priest, but to secure a place for us with Himself. Oh! if we could unfold the glories of the present dispensation! It is full of glories. Jesus is now in heaven in the glory of a Forerunner — a High Priest — the Purger of our sins. There He sits arrayed in glories. He will put on other glories in the millennial heavens. He will also be King of kings and Lord of lords on the millennial earth. He is not that now; but there are glories in which He is displayed to the eye of faith. Do you go and meditate, brokenheartedly, on the glories of "these last days," as they are called in this epistle.

But we pass on to Hebrews 8. "We have such an high priest who is set on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." What exquisite words! What glories filled the heavens in the days of creation? The sun, and moon, and stars were set there. His fingers garnished them. And pray, have not they garnished the present heavens? If there were glories set in the superficial heavens by the fingers of God, there are glories set in the interior heavens by the grace of God. One of these glories is a tabernacle which the Lord has pitched there. Christ came down from the eternal bosom to glorify God on the earth. Was there anything too brilliant in the way of glory in which to array such an One?

What intercourse we get here between God and His Christ — between the Father and the Son! And among the glories that awaited Him there was a temple pitched by the Lord Himself. The sun comes out of his chamber to run his course. The Creator built a habitation for the sun in the heavens. (Ps. 19) God in redemption has built a habitation for the High Priest; and He is seated there in the highest place of honour. Christ could not be a priest here. The place was divinely occupied, It has been foolishly said, He could not go into the holiest. Surely He could not, for He came of the tribe of Judah. Did He come to break God's ordinances or to fulfil all righteousness? What business had He in the holiest? A priest of the tribe of Levi, if he found Him there, would have been entitled to cast Him out. He was entitled to everything, but He came as a subject, self-emptied Servant. Did He intrude on the two poor disciples at Emmaus? Much less would He, a Son of Judah, as He was, intrude in God's house.

Here we pause a little. In this epistle we find one thing. From the beginning to the end the Spirit is taking up one thing after another and laying it aside to make room for Christ, and when He has made room for Christ and brought Christ in, He fixes Him before us for ever. And we must all submit to it. Has not God laid you aside and brought in Christ in your stead? Faith bows to this. It is what He has done in every believing soul.

So in Hebrews 1 He lays aside angels. "To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" Oh! how faith consents to it! Oh! how angels consent to it! Next we see Moses laid aside. "Moses verily was faithful ... as a servant ... but Christ as a Son over his own house." We can part with Moses because we have got Christ — as the poor eunuch could part with Philip because he had got Jesus. Then in Hebrews 4 comes out Joshua. But he is laid aside also. "If Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day." Christ is set before me as the true Joshua who really gives me rest. Then Aaron is set aside to let in the priesthood of Christ; but when I have it before me I have it for ever. He is the Administrator of a better covenant. The old covenant is done away because the Lord has nothing to say to it. And at the close we read the beautiful utterance, which might be the text of the epistle, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." He being brought in is the same for ever.

What a magnificent thought it is to think of God bringing in the blessed Jesus to the displacing of everything! That is perfection, because God rests in Him. This is exactly the sabbath of old, when God rested in creation. Now God rests in Christ, and that is perfection; and if you and I understand where we are, we are breathing the atmosphere of perfection — an accomplished work — a sabbath.

There is nothing more fruitful in glorious luminaries than the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is an epistle of untold glories, and of inestimable value to the conscience of the awakened sinner. It is the title of my soul to breathe the atmosphere of heaven itself; and if I do not do so, shall I put a cloud on my title because my experience is so poor?

Now at the close of chapter 8 we see another thing set aside — the first covenant. The covenant that Christ ministers never waxes old. "Your sins I will forgive, your iniquities I will pardon." There is no wrinkle on its face; no grey hairs upon its brow.

The Lord touches everything and fixes it before God for ever; and God rests in it. He perfects everything He touches. Mile everything gives place to Him, He gives place to nothing. And would not you have it so? Would not John the Baptist have it so? When they came to him and said, "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptiseth, and all men come to him," he answered, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled." This ought to be the instinctive utterance of your heart and mine. If the Spirit has dealt with you in your soul you ought to say, "Blessed be God for it! He has set me aside to bring Jesus in." There is wonderful unity between the discovery we get here and the experience of our own souls. We shall never get to an end of these glories till we are lost in an ocean of them by-and-by — a sea without a shore!

Hebrews 9 - 10: 1-18.

We closed at chapter 8; and pursuing the structure of the epistle we will now read chapter 9 down to Hebrews 10: 18. This is the last section of the doctrinal part; and then to the close we get moral exhortations. From the opening of chapter 9 to verse 18 of chapter 10 is one argument.

Suppose we linger a little over the structure of the epistle. Did you ever present a little distinctly to your mind the glories that belong to the Lord Jesus? There are three forms of glory that attach to Him — moral glory, personal glory and official glory. From the manager to the cross was the exhibition of His moral glories. In "these last days" the Lord is exhibiting some of His official glories, and by-and-by He will exhibit more of them, as in millennial times. The prophets of old spake of His sufferings and the glories which should follow — not glory. But Its personal glory is the foundation of every one of these.

This is a grand subject for our constant meditation — the glories of the Lord Jesus from the womb of the virgin to the throne of His millennial power. All through life He was exhibiting His moral glories. The scene for these is past now, and He has taken His seat in heaven; but that has only given Him an opportunity to display others. The four gospels give me a view of His moral glories here. In the Epistle to the Hebrews I see Him seated in heaven now in a constellation of official glories. In other writings we get His coming glories. Whenever you see Him you cannot but see Him in the midst of a system of them.

In these chapters 9 and 10 you get what He was doing on the cross, the foundation of every one of His present glories. In the first eight chapters we get a varied display of the conditions of the Lord Jesus now in heaven; and now, as the sustainment of all these, in chapters 9 and 10 we have an account of the perfection of the Lamb on the altar.

Do you ever make "these last days" a subject of thought? Why is the Spirit entitled to call the age through which we are passing the "last days"? We shall have other days after these. Why then does He call them the last days? Beautifully sobecause God rests in what the Lord Jesus has accomplished, as thoroughly as He rested at the close of creation in the perfection of His own work. It is not that in the unfolding of the economy of God we shall not have other ages; yet, in the face of that, the Spirit does not hesitate to call these the "last days."

In all the Lord has done He has satisfied God. He perfects everything He touches, and makes it eternal, and God does not look beyond it. Everything is set aside till Christ is brought in, but there is no looking beyond Him. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." Now the moment I get God resting in anything I get perfection; and the moment I get perfection I am in the last days. God has reached satisfaction, and so have I. Christ may be unfolded in millennial days; but it is the very same Christ that we have now. Shall I get Moses then or Joshua? They are all (treated in the light of Christ) "beggarly elements." All give place one after another; but Christ being introduced to the thoughts of God, God rests in Him; and when you come to see where you are, you are in God's second Sabbath — and see how one thing exceeds the other! The rest of the Redeemer is a much more blessed thing than the rest of the Creator. In Christ you have got perfection  - the rest of God — and you are in the "last days."

Now when we come to chapters 9 and 10 we see Christ, not properly or characteristically in heaven, but on the altar. The glories that surround Him now have been given to us one after another — the glory of the priesthood — the glory of the Purger of our sins — the predestinated Heir of the world to come  - the Apostle of salvation — the Dispenser of the covenant that never gathers age to itself  - the Giver of the eternal inheritance — these are the glories of "these last days."

In Hebrews 9: 10 we see the cross that sustains them all. How blessed it is to track from Matthew to John a path of moral beauty. Was the Lord Jesus in office here? No; He was here in subjection. When I have looked at Him thus I am invited to look upwards. Is it One travelling in moral beauty I see there? No, not that specially; but it is One who has been seated at the right hand of the Majesty with an oath in the very midst of glorious beauties — One whom the satisfied, unrepenting heart of God has seated there. It was the testing purpose of God that seated Adam in Eden. It is the unrepenting heart of God that has seated Christ in heaven.

And now we come to read the perfection of His work as Lamb of God, as the grand foundation of all these glories. He would not have perfected His moral glories here if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. He would not have had Its official glories in heaven if He had not gone on to the cross and died there. When the Lord Jesus was hanging as the Lamb of God on the accursed tree and over His bleeding brows was written the inscription in every language, "This is the King of the Jews," they sought to blot it out — but God would not have it blotted out. He would have the whole creation know that the cross was the title to the kingdom. The inscription that Pilate wrote on the cross, and God kept there, is very fine.

Supposing the cross sustains the glory, according to the inscription, now tell me what sustains the cross itself? Is the cross without a foundation? The secret comes out in these chapters: as the cross sustains your hopes it is the Person that sustains the cross. His personal glory is the sustainment of the cross. If He were less than God manifest in the flesh, all He did was no more worth than water spilt upon the ground. Of all the mighty mystery of official, millennial, eternal glories, the cross is the support and the Person is the support of the cross.

He must sustain His own work, and His work must sustain everything. This is just the argument of these chapters.

There was a veil hanging between the place where the priests ministered and the mystic dwelling-place of God. That veil was the expression that that age gave a sinner no access to God. Were there not sacrifices?

Yes, there were; and God's altar was accepting them. But they were "gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Beautifully then, at this point, He comes to your heart and demands a note of. admiration. "For if the blood of bulls ... sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

Supposing we inspect the old tabernacle, and see the beggarliness of all its elements  - that the blood of bulls could not bring you into the presence of God; and from the beggarliness of all that, look at the satisfyingness of the blood of Jesus, will you not exclaim, "How much more shall it purge our consciences?" That is the way you are to come to the cross — laying doubtings and questionings aside, and losing yourself in admiration. The thing the Spirit does is to take you gently by the hand and lead you up to the altar at Calvary, and tell you who is the victim that is bleeding there. None but one who was personally free could say, "I come to do thy will." Have you any right to a will? Has Gabriel or Michael? To do God's pleasure is their business; but here was One who could offer Himself without spot to God. "How much more," then, shall such a sacrifice purge our consciences and introduce us at once to the living God? That entitled me to say, that while we look at His glories — His official glories — we see that the cross is the sustainment of them all.

But if the soul does not know the personal glory of the Lord, it positively knows nothing. That is the secret you get here. He, for whom God prepared a body, through the eternal Spirit, satisfied the altar. Yes, satisfied the brazen altar before He went into the holy sanctuary to do the business of God's priest. And atonement flows from satisfaction. If I find out that Christ's sacrifice has answered the cravings of the brazen altar, I see that my reconciliation is sealed and settled for eternity.

The Epistle to the Ephesians tells you to stand upon this, and look round about you at the glories of your condition. The Epistle to the Hebrews shows you the glories of Christ's condition in the compass of about three hundred verses. What a world of wonders is opened! You sustained by what He has done; and what He has done sustained by what He is.

Hebrews 10: 19-39.

We are coming now to another beautiful part of the epistle, and as we hinted to a new division of it. We will read from verse 19 to the close of chapter 10. You may have observed the general structure of the epistles. Take the Ephesians, for instance: in the first three chapters we get doctrinal truth, and in the last three the moral application of it. So in Colossians, Galatians, Romans, etc. Now in Hebrews it is the same, and we are just entering now on the practical application of what has gone before.

"Now the full glories of the Lamb adorn the heavenly throne," as a beautiful hymn of Dr. Watts says. Constantly through this epistle we have been looking up and seeing this. But let me ask, do you see glories anywhere in "these last days" that are not attaching to the Lord in heaven? You will tell me that all glory belongs to Him, and I grant it; but I tell you, you ought to see glories attaching to yourselves. Such is the wondrous working of God, that He has made the poor sinner a glorious creature. These same last days that have set Christ on high, in the midst of the glories, have set the poor believing sinner down here in the midst of glories.

I want that you and I be girt up to an apprehension of them. We do not wait for the kingdom to see glories. Is it no glory for you to have a purged conscience? Is it no glory to be fully entitled to be in the presence of God without a blush? no glory to call God, Father? to have Christ as your Forerunner in heavenly places? to enter into the holiest without a quiver of conscience? no glory to be introduced into the secrets of God? If we can lift up our heart and say, "Abba, Father"? if we can lift up our heart and say, "Who shall condemn?" or "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" If we can believe that we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh; that we are part of Christ's fulness, will any one say there is no glory in all that? So that this epistle introduces us to most precious thoughts. It tells me to look up and see Christ adorning the throne, and to look down and see the poor sinner shining on the footstool.

The world sees nothing of these glories. We only apprehend them in the glass of the word by faith; but I do say boldly, that I do not wait for the kingdom to know what glory is. I look up and see the Lamb in acquired glories. I look down and see the saint in gifted glories. Now the moral application begins. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." There I look at myself; and will any one say there is not glory in such a condition? That is my title. Now the exhortation is that you are to enjoy your title. To enjoy is to obey. The first duty you owe to God is to enjoy what He has made you, and what He has given you. "Let us draw near." Use your privilege, as we say. It is the first grand duty of faith, and I am bold to say it is the most acceptable duty of faith.

How narrow we are to enjoy these glories. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass of the word? We are very much accustomed to look at ourselves in the glass of circumstances — in the glass of relationships. If we say in the secret of our heart, with exultation of spirit, "I am a child of God"; if, with exultation of spirit we can say, "I am co-heir with Christ," that is the way to begin obedience. Here it is exactly that. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith."

We should look on ourselves as the priesthood of God. The priests of old were washed when they were put into office. Then every day their feet were washed before they entered the tabernacle to serve the Lord. The pavement of God's own presence was not stained by the foot of the priest. He went in, in a character worthy of the place. Are you occupying the presence of God all the day long in the consciousness that you are worthy of the place? How will you be presented before Him by-and-by? Jude tells you — "faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." You ought to know that you are in His presence now faultless or without spot. We cannot put ourselves in the flesh too low; and we cannot put ourselves in Christ too high. If one may speak for another, we find it much easier to degrade ourselves in the flesh than to magnify ourselves in Christ. That last is what the Spirit is doing here.

Now He tells me, having got into the holiest, what to do there. If I know my title to be in the presence of God, let me know also that I am there as the heir of a promised glory; I am there to be kept there till the glory shines out. We are the witnesses of a class of glories, just as the Lord Jesus is the witness of a class of glories. We are in a wealthy place; and having got in there we are to hold our hope without a quiver. "Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering" (as the word should be). If we got in without a quiver, we are to hold our hope without a quiver. That is what our God has called us to. We are there with boldness; and being there, we are to talk of our hope. And we are to talk of charity also, "to provoke unto love and to good works." What exquisite service! Who can utter the beauties of these things?

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together ... but exhorting one another." When you get into the house, what are, you doing together? Are you to be down in the depths of conscious ruin? No; but exhorting one another to love and to good works. These are the activities of the house. We dwell together in one happy house, exhorting one another, and so much the more as we point to the sky and say, "Look! the dawning of morning is near; the sky is breaking." We want a great deal more to exhort one another to know our dignity in Christ than to know our degradation in ourselves. It is very right to know ourselves poor worthless creatures. Confession is very right; but to gird up the mind to the apprehension of our dignity is much more acceptable and priestly work than to be ever in the depths. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee." Here we see ourselves accepted; holding our hope without wavering; exhorting one another; and saying, as we point to the eastern sky, "The dawn is coming."

Then, having thus conducted us to verse 25, he brings in a solemn passage about wilful sin. We read the counterpart of this in Numbers 15, where presumptuous sin is looked at. Under the law there were two characters of offence. A man might find a thing that was his neighbours', and deal falsely about it, or he might lie to his neighbour, and there was a trespass offering provided. But when a man picked sticks on the sabbath day he was to be stoned at once. There remained nothing for him but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." It was presumptuous sin, flying in the face of the legislator. This is the presumptuous sin of the New Testament. It is running in the face of the God of this dispensation, as the gatherer of sticks ran in the face of the God of the law. We are not to be careless about sin. If we do the least sin we ought to be broken-hearted about it. But that is not the thing contemplated here. It is a defection from Christianity.

Then, having come to verse 31, he exhorts them to "call to remembrance the former days." Let me ask your souls, "Do you all remember the day when you were illuminated?" One might say, "The light shone brighter and brighter upon me." I believe Timothy may have been such an one. Timothy, I have often thought, under the education of his godly mother, may have passed gently into the flock of God. But most people know the moment of their illumination; and if there is a moment of moral energy in the history of the soul, it is the day of its quickening. Why do not you and I carry the strength of that moment with us? Is He a different Jesus that we have now? When I know that the day was. when all was over between God and me, and that now the day has come when all is over between the world and me, that is practical Christianity. What was that day that he called on them to remember? The day when, being illuminated, they "took joyfully" the spoiling of their goods. Why was this? How does he account for it? Their eye was on a better inheritance. Let me grasp the richer thing, and the poorer thing may pass away for aught I care.

We can account for victory over the world just as easily as we can account for access to God. That, let me say, is just the knot that this epistle ties. It puts you inside the veil, outside the camp. In the wondrous, divine, moral character of Christianity, the grace and the 'blood of Christ work exactly contrary to the lie of the serpent. The lie of the serpent made Adam a stranger to God, and at home in this polluted world — inside the camp and outside the veil. Christianity just alters that. It restores us to citizenship in the presence of God, and strangership in the world; and verse 35 of this chapter is the one verse in this epistle that knits these things together.

Hold fast your confidence and it will be the secret of strength to you. Where do we see victory over the world? In those who are happiest in Christ. My are you and I so miserably down in the traffic of the world? Because we are not as happy in Christ as we ought to be. Give me a soul that has boldness and joy in God's presence and I will show you one that has victory over the world.

Now the apostle tells us that a life of patience intervenes between the day of illumination and the day of glorification. I am not to count on a path of pleasure — a path of ease — a path of prosperity — on being richer or more distinguished tomorrow than today; but I am to count on a path of patience. And is not there glory in that? Yes, there is companionship with Christ. No greater glory is or can be yours than to be the companion of your rejected Master. That is your path. "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." He was not ashamed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were strangers here; but if we become citizens here, instead of strangers — strike alliance with the world — He who could say, "I am the God of my strangers," can say to the citizen of the world, "I have no pleasure in him."

May you and I exhort one another to love and to good works, and, pointing to the eastern sky, say, The day is dawning. Amen.

Hebrews 11.

We have reached chapter 11. I think we observed that Hebrews 10: 35 was a connecting link between the two great thoughts of the epistle — that Christianity puts you inside the veil and outside the camp — that is, it undoes the work of Satan, which estranged you from God and made you at home in a corrupted world. The religion of the Lord Jesus just comes to upset his (Satan's) work. Nothing can be more beautiful than the antithesis which thus shows itself between the serpent and the serpent's bruiser.

The "great recompense of reward" shows itself in the life of faith that we are now going to read about. We are called, as John Bunyan says, "to play the man."

If happy within we are to be fighting without. This chapter 11 shows us the elect of all ages "playing the man" in the power of this principle of confidence.

"Cast not away therefore your confidence," for it thus shows that it has "great recompense of reward." Faith is a principle that apprehends two different things of God. It views Him as a justifier of the ungodly, as in Romans 4; but here it apprehends God as "a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." The moment you apprehend God by a faith that does not work, you enter on a faith that does work. And while we rightly cherish a faith that saves our souls, let us not be indifferent to a faith that serves our Saviour. How boldly we sometimes assert our title, but do we value our inheritance? It is a poor wretched thing to boast in our title, and yet show that the heart is but little moved by the hope of the inheritance. Just so, if I boast of a justifying faith, it is a poor thing to be indifferent to the faith that we have here in chapter 11 —  "Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Then you are told that it was the strength of all the worthies in old times, who through it "obtained a good report." It is another proof that, as we have said, everything in this epistle is to set aside law. If I take up the law as the secret power of my soul to do anything for God I am not doing it for God but for myself. The law might chasten and scourge me and call on me to work out a title to life. But that would be serving myself. Faith sets law aside. Then, having established faith as a working principle he begins to unfold the different phases of it from the beginning. I believe verse 3 may have a reference to Adam. If Adam was a worshipper in the garden, it was by faith. He may have looked behind all the wonders that surrounded him, and apprehended the great Artificer.

Now some say they can still worship God in nature; but when we left innocency we left creation as a temple and we cannot go back there. Nature was a temple to Adam; but if I go back to it, I go back to Cain. Here we come to Abel and to revelation. We are sinners; and revelation, which unfolds redemption, must build us a temple. You must take your place as worshipper in the temple that God in Christ has built for you.

Then we come to Enoch. Enoch's was an ordinary kind of life; but he spent it with God.

We are told in Genesis that he walked with God, and here we are told that he pleased God. As the apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 4, "Ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God." To walk with God is to please Him. Can anything be more welcome to us than the thought that we can give complacency to God? There was nothing in Enoch's life to make history; but whatever condition of life may be ours, our business is to walk with God in it. It is beautiful thus to see an undistinguished life going before a life of great events. You may hear some say, "A poor, unnoticed thing am I, compared with some who have been distinguished in service for the Lord." "Well," let me reply, "you are an Enoch."

Now Noah's was a very distinguished life. Faith laid hold on the warning. Faith does not wait for the day of glory or the day of judgment to see glory or judgment. Faith in the prophet did not ask for his eyes to be opened. Faith here for one hundred and twenty years seemed to be a fool. Noah was building a ship for dry ground; and he may well have been the mockery of his neighbours; but he saw the thing that was invisible. How rebuking to us! Supposing you and I lived under the authority of coming glory: what fools we should be!

But I should not have passed over the word I took for my text. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Again, I boldly say, you would not have had that definition of faith in Romans 4, "A rewarder of them that diligently seek him"! "Why, what legal language!" some would say if they read it in a book. Ah! but it is beautiful in its place. The faith of a saint is an intensely working thing. Will God be a debtor to any man? No; He will pay to those who sow bountifully.

Abraham's life is next; and a picture of the varied exercises of faith. There was a magnificence in his faith — a victorious quality — a fine apprehension — all these qualities of faith come out in the life of Abraham. He went out blindfold; but the God of glory led him by the hand. So he came to the land; but to him not a foot of it was given. He must have the patience of faith; but whatever fell from the lips of God was welcome to Abraham. Abraham walked all his life in the power of the recollection of what he had seen under the hand of the God of glory.

Now supposing I tell you that the vision of Stephen has gone before every one of you. You need not be expecting the same vision that Stephen saw, but you have seen it in him. They may carry you to the stake; but you may say, "I have seen heaven opened over me, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." If you and I are simple, true-hearted people, we shall just go forth as Abraham did when he had seen the God of glory.

Then Sarah's was another kind of faith. We must see God as a Quickener of the dead. Noah understood God so. The Israelites, under the blood-stained lintel, received Him in the same character. Death was there, and attached to every house in the land; but the Israelites knew God as the Quickener of the dead. That is what Noah, Abraham, Sarah, apprehended of God. If I make God less than a Quickener of the dead, I make myself more than a dead sinner. It is as a Quickener of the dead I must meet with Him.

The thirteenth is a beautiful verse. The first thing to do to a promise is to apprehend it — then to exercise faith about it — and then to receive it by the heart. They "embraced" them. Their hearts hugged them. How far has my heart hugged the promises? One knows his own "leanness." But surely the closer we hug them the more blessedly we shall consent to be strangers and pilgrims in this world. This is a wonderful picture of a heart put into faith. Did they speak of strangership because of leaving Mesopotamia? No; but because they had not reached heaven. They might have found their way back. Abraham could tell it to Eliezer; but that would not have cured their strangership.

Supposing there were a change in your circumstances, would that cure your strangership? Not if you are among God's people. Mesopotamia was no cure. Nothing could cure, end, or close their strangership but the inheritance. On they went to heaven; and God was not ashamed to be called their God.

In Hebrews 2 we read that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren. Now, we read that God was not ashamed to call these strangers His people. Why is Christ "not ashamed to call them brethren"? Because they stand in one divine, eternal purpose with Him. One family embraces the elect and Christ. How could He be ashamed of such a people? And if you have fallen out with the world, God is not ashamed of you. For God Himself has fallen out with it, and He could not be ashamed of you, because you are one mind with Him. Therefore, when they said they were strangers, God called Himself their God. Our hearts are terribly rebuked here. How much lingers in them of striking alliance and making friendship with the world!

Then we see Abraham in another light.

Every hope of Abraham depended on Isaac. To give up Isaac seemed not only to become a bankrupt in the world, but to become a bankrupt in God. He might have said, "Am I to become a bankrupt in God and in Mesopotamia?" There could not have been a higher stretch in the believing principle. Have you ever feared God making you a bankrupt in Himself? Has He turned away never to return?

Well, he got him back in a figure, sealed as a fresh witness of resurrection. Do we ever lose anything by trusting God in the dark? If ever any one trusted Him in the dark it was Abraham.

After passing him we come to Isaac. Isaac showed his faith by blessing Esau and Jacob concerning things to come. This is the little, single bit of his life that the Spirit looks at. If we inspect his life, we shall find that that is the eminent work in it. That act shines out under the eye of God.

Jacob is more remarkable, as Noah had been more remarkable than Enoch. His was a very eventful life; but the only thing we get here is — "by faith he ... blessed both the sons of Joseph." This is exquisitely beautiful. It shows how much in christian life may be rubbish. I do not believe Jacob's life was an exhibition of a servant of God. It was an exhibition of a saint who went astray, and whose whole life was occupied in getting back; and we do not get this act of faith till we come to the close, when he "blessed both the sons of Joseph." There he came in contact with things unseen, and things that came across the current of nature. His life was the life of a man recovering himself; and just at the close he did this beautiful service of faith to God in the face of the resentments of his own heart and the appeal of his son Joseph.

But Joseph's is a lovely life — a life of faith from the beginning. Joseph was a holy man throughout; but there was magnificent outshining of faith just at the close. He had his hand on the treasures of Egypt and his foot on the throne of Egypt; yet in the midst of all that he spoke of the departing of his brethren. That was seeing things invisible. That was the one thing the Spirit has signalised as an act of faith. Why did he talk in this way? He might have said, "Ah! I do not walk by sight. I know what is coming, and I tell you, you will go out of this land, and when you go, take me with you."

The general course of his life was unblameable, yet we do find in his words as he was departing the finest utterance of faith. And now that is what you and I want. Do you want to be righteous only? You must be so; but will that constitute a life of faith? You must seek to get under the power of things hoped for — things unseen — the expectation of the Lord's return; and till you do so in some energy you may be blameless, but you are not walking that life of faith by which "the elders obtained a good report." Thus, so far we see faith as a working principle. Not the faith of the sinner, which is a no-working faith. The moment the no-working faith has made me a saint I must take up the working faith and live in the power of it.

But we must go on. We will not forget what we hinted — that the whole of Hebrews 11 depends on, and is the illustration of, Hebrews 10: 35. The stronger our faith is, the more our soul is in the possession of mighty, moral energy. This chapter shows how this principle of faith gained the day. Do not read it as if it were the praises of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. It is the praises of faith as illustrated in Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. What a simple, blessed thing Christianity is! I stand in admiration of it when I see how the devil has wrought a two-fold mischief in putting us outside the veil — inside the camp; and how Christ has wrought a corresponding two-fold remedy. Do I rejoice in the thought that I have gained God though at the loss of the world? That is Christianity.

"By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child." What is the meaning of that? It means that when he was born there was an expression in his countenance that faith read. "Beautiful to God" is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of Amram and Jochebed; and they were obedient to it. Was there not a beauty in the face of the dying Stephen? Ought not his murderers to have been obedient to it? They stand in moral contrast to Moses' parents. Under the finger of God they saw the purpose of God and hid the child.

Now in Moses we see a beautiful power of faith. It got a three-fold victory — three splendid victories, and the very victories you are called to.

First, his faith got the victory over the world. He was a foundling, picked up from the Nile and adopted as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. This was personal degradation translated into adopted magnificence. What did he do with it? He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." What victory over the world that was! We like those things that put worldly honour on us. Moses would not have it; and sure I am faith is set to the same battlefield and challenged to get the like victory to this day.

Next we see Moses getting victory amid the trials and alarms of life. "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king." What a terrible thing the life of faith is to nature! You have got a victory today — you must stand again tomorrow. "That we may be able to withstand . . . . and having done all, to stand." Here the pressure of life was coming on Moses after the attractions of life had got their answer.

Then, in the third instance, Moses had an answer for the claims of God. It is magnificent to see a soul braced in the power of a faith like this. "Through faith he kept the passover." The destroying angel was going through the land, but the blood was on the lintel. From the very beginning grace has provided the sinner with an answer to the claims of God; and it is the simple office of faith to plead the answer. God provided the blood and faith used it. Christ is God's provision. He is God's great ordinance for salvation; and faith travels along with Him from the cross to the realms of glory.

Then, "by faith they passed through the Red Sea" — "by faith the walls of Jericho fell down" — "by faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not." And what more shall we say? It is the story that animates the whole of scripture. The story of grace and faith — grace on God's part and faith on ours — gives animation to the whole book of God. We are never called outside the camp till we are inside the veil.

The early chapters of this epistle show the sinner his title to a home in God's presence; and then you are to come forth from that home and let the world know that you are a stranger to it. That is the structure of this beautiful epistle. It tells us our title to be in God's presence before it opens the calling that attaches to us. Before Abraham was called out to a land that he knew not, the "God of glory" appeared to him. Does he ever send a man a warfare at his own charges? Does He ever send you to fight with the world before you are at peace with Himself? Everything is for me from the moment I turn to God. I am called in God, to everything that is for me. I am come "unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," etc. This is Hebrews 12. Before ever David was hunted as a partridge, he had the anointing oil of God upon him.

We must linger a little on the two closing verses. They are very weighty, precious, pregnant verses. These elders obtained a good report, but with the good report they did not obtain the promise. It reminds me of the prophet Malachi. "A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts. in that day when I make up my jewels." They are not His made-up jewels yet, but He has their names in His book, and He will make them up and display them as His jewels by-and-by. So with these elders. Why have they not yet obtained the promise? Because we must first come in, in the rich furniture of this evangelic dispensation, or all they had in their beggarly dispensation would never have done for them.

We find the word "better" constantly occurring in this epistle. "A better testament" — "a better covenant" — "some better thing for us" — "which speaketh better things than that of Abel." And we find the word "perfect" in constant use also; because now everything is perfected. Everything is perfected that gives God rest, as we have already said, and God is not looking for any satisfaction beyond what Christ gives Him. He has His demand answered — His glory vindicated — His character displayed — and all in Christ.

Now what is this "better thing" in the last verse? If we had not brought in our Christ, so to speak, nothing would have been done. God having introduced Christ in this dispensation, all the old saints that hung on it are perfected. For in one light of it, we look at this epistle (as we will now do briefly and rapidly) as a treatise on perfection. Thus, in chapter 2 we read that it became the glory of God to give us a perfect Saviour; not merely my necessity, but God's glory required it — "It became him" — consulting for His own glory. It became Him to give the sinner an author to begin salvation, and a captain to close it. The difference between an author and a captain is just the difference between Moses and Joshua. Moses was the author of salvation when he picked up the poor captives in Egypt; Joshua was the captain of salvation when he carried them across the Jordan right into the promised land. Christ is the One who carries us both through the Red Sea and the Jordan — the One who did the initiative work of Moses, and the consummating work of Joshua.

Then in Hebrews 5 we read, "being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation." Not moral perfection — we all know He was morally stainless — but perfection as "the author of salvation." He would never have been perfect thus if He had not gone on to death; but as it behoved God to give us a perfect Saviour, so it behoved Christ to make Himself a perfect Saviour. Then in Hebrews 6: "Let us go on unto perfection," the apostle says, that is, let us "read our lesson on this subject." Some read this as if they were to go on till they got no more sin in themselves. That has nothing to say to it. It is as if the apostle said, "I am going to read you a treatise on perfection, and you must come and learn it with me."

Then he goes on with the subject in Hebrews 7. He says, you cannot find this perfection in the law. "The law made nothing perfect." You must look elsewhere. By the law here is not meant the ten commandments, but the Levitical ordinances. In the midst of these beggarly elements you must look elsewhere for perfection. Hebrews 9 thus shows you that it is in Christ and tells you that the moment faith has touched the blood the conscience is purged, and Hebrews 10 tells you that the moment Christ touches you you are perfected for ever. Not in moral stainlessness in the flesh — there is no such thing here.

The moment Christ touches the apostleship He perfects it. The moment He touches the priesthood He perfects it. The moment He touches the altar He perfects it. The moment He touches the throne He perfects it. And if He perfect these things He will, as to your conscience perfect you, a poor sinner. So this epistle is, in one great light, a treatise on perfection. God gave you a perfect Saviour — Christ made Himself a perfect Saviour. Let me go on to perfection. If I seek it in the law I am in a world of shadows. When I come to Christ I am in the midst of perfection. "And there I stand, poor worm," as Gambold says.

Therefore these saints could not get the ,inheritance till we came in laden with all the glories of this dispensation. But now they can share the inheritance with us, when the full time comes.

What glories shine in this epistle! What glories fill the heavens, because Christ is there! What glories attach to us because Christ has touched us! Is it no glory to have a purged conscience — to enter into the holiest with boldness — to say to Satan, "Who are you, that you should finger God's treasure?" We creep and crawl when we should be getting into the midst of these glories and encouraging our hearts.

Hebrews 12

We will now read chapter twelve. We have looked at the doctrine of the epistle. We are now eminently in the practical part of it; yet the blessedness of the doctrine shines out too. I would just say this first, we have been looking at the various characters in which the Lord has entered heaven. Now here in verse 1 we get Him in heaven in another character. Do not many crowns belong to Him? Will not you put a royal crown — a priestly crown — on His head? Can you put too many crowns there? What a cluster of glories fill the eye as we look at Christ in heaven by the light of this magnificent epistle!

Now among other characters we see Him there as the One who perfected a life of faith on earth — "the author and finisher of faith." The counsel of God is busy in crowning ,Jesus. It is the delight of the counsel of God to crown Him — it is the delight of the Spirit of God to exhibit Him as crowned — and it is the delight of faith to see Him crowned. God, the Spirit, and the faith of the poor, believing sinner, all gather round Him, either to crown Him or to delight in seeing Him crowned.

Now we see Him owned in heaven as the One who perfected the life of faith. He passed through it to perfection from the manger to the cross and is so accepted in the highest heavens. That of course put Him in collision with man. "Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself." This is beautifully pregnant with the thought that He was "separate from sinners." You would not dare to take that language to yourself. It is too lofty a style for any but the Son of God to take. Was anything like that said of Abraham or Moses? No; the Spirit would not have talked so of one of them. So when you put the Lord Jesus in the wear and tear of life in company with martyrs, you see Him, as in all other things, taking the pre-eminence.

It is so natural for the Spirit to glorify Christ! If He is looking at Him officially, as in the first part of this epistle, it is easy to look at Him with many, many crowns upon Him. Or, looking at Him here, it is easy for the Spirit to put this crown of peculiar beauty on His head. He "endured such contradiction of sinners against himself." It is a description which your heart would condemn you for taking to yourself, though you might be called to the stake.

The cross, in one aspect, was martyrdom. Jesus was as much a martyr at the hand of man as He was a victim at the hand of God. It is as a martyr we see Him here  - and as such we are put in company with Him. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." You have no deeper enemy than your own heart to strive against. It was sin in the Pharisees — sin in the multitude — sin in the chief priests — that carried the Lord Jesus to the cross. But He never had a bit of sin in Himself to strive against. It was sin in others.

The apostle then goes on to put you, as a chastened sufferer, in company with the Father. Here we drop company with Christ. For He never was under the chastening of the Father. The moment I get under the scourging and education of the Father, I have dropped out of company with Christ. I am deeply in His company when travelling the path of the martyr. I am not a step in His company when I am under the chastening of the Father.

So from verse 5 onward you are in company with your heavenly Father. Oh! these sacred, divine touches — that know when to introduce Christ and when to let Him disappear! How, or in what form of excellency to display Him, and how to let Him Gut of sight! There is a glory, a completeness, in the very way in which the task of the Spirit is executed. He walks through life enduring the contradiction of sinners. I walk through it striving against sin. Then I am in company with the chastening of the Father — all resulting in a blessed participation in His holiness, but Christ is not there with me. If you put all the wit of aggregated intellects together, could it give you these divine touches that glitter in the book of God?

In verse 12 we are exhorted not to let our hands hang down. There is no reason why it should be so. Though you are under the scourge there is not one single reason why your hands should hang down or your knees be feeble; for the Spirit has shown you yourself first in company with Christ and then with your Father who loves you. Is there any reason why you should travel as if you did not know the road? This is a beautiful conclusion. We all know how the hands will hang down; but I set my seal to every word of this and say, "Truth, Lord." There is no reason that we should be fainthearted. Then having come to that he looks round. Do not let your own hands hang down; and in connection with others follow peace — in connection with God follow holiness. "What communion hath light with darkness — what concord hath Christ with Belial?"

"Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." If you consult at your leisure Deuteronomy 29, you will find a root of bitterness there spoken of; but it is a different kind from this. There it arose from some man taking up false gods — here it is failing of the grace of God. The whole epistle has it as its bearing and purpose, to nail your ear, in scripture language, to the door-post of Him that is speaking of grace. It is not a lawgiver that is heard, but One who is publishing salvation from the highest heavens. Angels and principalities and powers are made subject to the Purger of our sins; and the Purger of our sins has taken our conscience up to the highest heavens and every tongue that could lay a charge against us is silenced, as we read in Romans 8. (See also 1 Peter 3: 21, 22.)

Now take care lest you fail of the grace thus published. It may end in the profaneness of Esau. It has been said by another that this reference to Esau must have been very striking to the mind of a Jew. "If you fail of the grace of God, you will be left in the position of one whom your nation repudiates." I do not care what you take up in His stead, if you slip away from Christ you may be tomorrow in the position of the reprobate Esau. How does Esau stand before you? As the type of that generation who by-and-by will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But their tears will be as ineffectual as Esau's by the bedside of his dying father. He came too late. So when once God has risen up and shut to the door they will find no place of repentance. This verse 17 is very solemn. It tells me that that action of Esau is the presentation to our thoughts of that which is still to be realised in an Esau generation — and only in such — "Behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish." Esau despised his birthright, and this generation have refused the grace of God and despised the Christ that has passed through the world and died for sinners.

After this, in verse 18, we get a magnificent sight of the two dispensations. It is as if the apostle had said, "I have been showing you a martyr path, but now I tell you that the moment you look to God every thing is for you. The martyr path and the chastening of the Father are only further proofs of love.

Now, leaving Christ and the Father, we come to God; and you see that all the eternal counsels of God have clustered to make you a blest one, as they have clustered to make Christ a glorious One. Do not be afraid. You are not come to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire. Turn your back on it. The more advisedly I have turned my back on it the more advisedly I have met and answered the grace and wisdom of God and rendered the obedience of faith. Am I to be turning round my head — to be looking over my shoulder — to be giving it some glances? Is that the obedience of faith? Then as to my face. Where is that turned to? To a cluster of blessedness. I was introduced by my own self-confidence to law and found not a thing for me. Now I have turned my face right round and I see everything for me. "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and to God the Judge of all." The Lord, even in judgment, is for us, for it is one office of a judge to vindicate the oppressed. Then, "the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling." Everything is for you. And that is where your face is undivertedly to direct itself. Let your face be right fully turned to the one hill, and your back be. right fully turned to the other hill.

But here at this place, in chapter 12, you are at the very beginning of the epistle again. In chapter 2 we read, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord." Now we read, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." From the beginning to the end the Spirit is nailing your ear to the door of the house of the Master of grace.

Then it very solemnly closes: "Our God is a consuming fire," that is, the God of this dispensation. From the fires of Sinai there was a relief by turning and taking refuge in Christ; but there is no relief if God's relief is despised. If you turn away from the relief this dispensation brings in, there is no more relief. "Our God is a consuming fire."

What, I ask you, puts you in company with God like simplicity of faith? As we said before, the purpose of the eternal counsels and the joy of the Spirit is this, to put crowns on the head of Christ; and when I am simple in faith I am delighting to fill the field of my vision with these glories. Thus I am put in the most dignified company I could be in — God and the Holy Ghost. The Lord grant that you and I may be there! If we know these things, happy, thrice happy are we if we rest in them!

Hebrews 13

We are closing the epistle, and we get what is common in all the epistles — some little details. It is eminently the structure of Paul's epistles to begin with doctrine and close with exhortation. So it is here. "Let brotherly love continue."

Then a brother may be a stranger. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers." And to encourage them to that duty they are reminded that some in their own history entertained angels unawares. Then another duty — "Remember them that are in bonds," and the encouragement follows — "as bound with them." Take your place in the body of Christ as His prisoners, not prisoners corporeally but mystically. When he speaks of suffering for Christ's sake he appeals to you in your mystic place; but when he speaks of suffering adversity (ver. 3) in a common, ordinary way, he appeals to natural life "as being yourselves also in the body."

Then we get the divine duties of purity and unworldliness. Unworldliness is expressed in the words, "Content with such things as ye have," not seeking to be richer tomorrow than today. Then the Lord speaks in verse 5, and you answer Him in verse 6. It is the response of faith to grace  - the reply of the heart of the believer to the heart of the Lord God. Then comes the duty of subjection — "Remember them which have* the rule over you." Not a blind following of them, as when they were heathens (1 Cor. 12: 2) following dumb idols. Are you to be led blindfold? No; you are to be led intelligently. "No one calls Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." We are living people of a living temple. So it is, "considering the end of their conversation." They died in faith, as they preached faith.†

*Rather "which have had."

†As one said shortly before he died: "I have preached Jesus, I have lived Jesus, and I long to be with Jesus."

Now he leaves all that and starts in verse 8 from another point; and this verse 8 may be called the motto of the, epistle. Only in one light I grant. What I mean is, that as we have seen before, the Spirit of God in this epistle is looking at one thing after another  - taking a passing glance at angels, at Moses, at Joshua, at Aaron, at the old covenant, at the altars with their victims, and setting every one of them aside to let in Christ. And you would not have it otherwise. With your whole heart and your whole soul you set your seal to that. Let all go to make room for Christ; and when Christ is brought in, do not let Him go for anything. This is what you get in verse 8. He is gazing for a moment at the object of the epistle. "I have displaced everything to let Him in, and now keep Him before you." It is a most blessed peroration of the whole teaching of the epistle.

Then there comes a corollary — a conclusion to that: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines," doctrines foreign to Christ. You have got everything in Christ; take care to hold fast by Him. Then if I get Christ as my religion I get grace. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace." The Lord is set before you and me as the sum of our religion, and that religion is a religion that breathes grace to the poor sinner.

Now do not read verse 9 as if you could to some extent establish your heart with meats. Observe the punctuation; a semicolon after "grace" cuts it off from the close of the verse. Meats do nothing for you; as he tells you in another place — "touch not, taste not, handle not." They bring neither profit nor honour to you. Suppose you accumulate carnal religious observances. If Colossians 2 tells me there is no honour in them, this tells me there is no profit in them. When probed and searched out they are all to the satisfaction of the flesh. The moment I get the Lord brought in, I get the heart established in grace. Did you ever hear it remarked that not a single religion on earth takes grace as its secret but the divine religion? It is keeping God quiet, if you can, with them all. God's religion is the only religion ever thought of that takes grace for its basis. This is exactly contemplated here. Do not be carried about by doctrines foreign to Christ.

"We have an altar." What is the altar of this dispensation? It is an altar exclusively for burnt offerings — eucharistic services. The Jews had an altar for expiatory sacrifice. We have no such altar. Christ has been on the altar of expiation, and now we as priests minister at an altar of eucharistic services. We remember that the Son of God has bled, and we serve at an altar where we know sin as cancelled, blotted out, thrown behind the back; and there at your altar you are rendering a constant service of thanksgiving. But they that go back to the services of the tabernacle have no right, no competency, to stand as priests at the altar of this dispensation. Many a loved and loving soul is struggling with a legal mind, but that is a very different thing from displacing Christ for anything, as the Galatians were doing, putting a crutch under Him. The Spirit in this epistle does not quarrel with the poor struggling soul, but if you are seeking to offer expiatory sacrifices and not holding your altar diligently for eucharistic services, you are blaspheming the sacrifice of the Son of God.

Now, having put you at your altar, and also within the holiest, he shows you your place outside the camp. Jesus was accepted in the holiest by God and He was put outside the camp by men. You are exactly to be with Christ in both these places.' That is where this dispensation puts you; and if ever moral glory attached to a creature of God it is that which attaches to you at this moment. Called outside the camp with Him to bear His reproach! Are angels in such conditions? Did He ever say to them, "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations"? Angels are never invited to be the companions of His sorrow. He has never put such honour on angels as on you. Therefore by-and-by the church will be nearer the throne than angels. "Here have we no continuing city." Christ had none.

But further, we see in verse 16 another beautiful thing, another character of service for your altar: "To do good and to communicate forget not." In various scriptures we find that the more joy we have in God, the more large-hearted we shall be to one another. It is the very character of joy to enlarge the heart. As in Nehemiah 8, where the prophet tells the people, "Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. ... And all the people went their way ... to send portions, and to make great mirth." A man that is happy himself can afford to look round and make others happy with him.

After this the apostle comes to those who have present rule. Those in verse 7 are those who had died. Is this a blind subjection, I ask again? No; you are to take knowledge of them. "They watch for your souls." Office without power, without the unction of the Holy Ghost, is a thing this dispensation does not know; and if we know of it, we have got into the corrupt element of it and out of God's element. It is a part of your fidelity to God to keep the dispensation in purity; and mere official authority is an idol.

This vessel of the Holy Ghost, this mightiest servant that ever served in God's name, comes down to the feeblest saint, "Pray for us," and he asks it on the authority of a good conscience. Could you ask another to pray for you if you were purposing to err? I will answer for it, you could not. And here it is on the ground of a good conscience that the apostle asks prayer. Then he gives them a subject of prayer. Oh! the familiarity of scripture! You are not taken Gut of your own world of affections and sympathies. Then he breaks out into his doxology.

Now, if we remember what we were saying to one another we shall find here something new and strange. We get the Lord in this verse 20 in resurrection not ascension. The great theme of the epistle is, as we have seen from the beginning hitherto, Christ displayed in heaven, but here the apostle does not go beyond resurrection. Why in closing does he bring down Christ from heaven? He has been keeping our eyes straining after Him into heaven, and just at the close He brings Him down to earth. Yes, for it is very sweet to know that we need not travel beyond death and resurrection to come in contact with the God of peace. You have reached the God of peace when you have reached the God of resurrection. Resurrection shows that death is abolished. Death is the wages of sin; and if death is abolished sin is abolished, because death hangs on sin as the shadow on the substance.

The covenant is called "everlasting," because it is never to be displaced. The old covenant was put away. The new covenant is ever new, never abrogated. The blood is as fresh this moment to speak peace to the conscience as when it rent the veil. So when we come to daily life we are brought down to he in all simplicity in company with the God of peace that has raised the great Shepherd from the dead by the blood that has sealed remission of sins for ever. So you may forget sin. In one great sense we shall remember it for ever, but as far as that which constitutes your condition before God you may forget it for ever.

Then he prays that God may adjust and mould us to do His will. What poor adjustment there is in you and me compared with that verse. We are awkward in our business, as if we were not at home in it. And then, at the last, he just closes by a few common words to the brethren. "Grace be with you all. Amen."

CONCLUSION.

We may remember that I have observed several distinct lines of thought running through this epistle. In taking leave of it we may consider it and see how these various lines all meet in harmony and give us in result a conclusion infinitely divine. The lines of thought are these:

(1) The Spirit is displacing one thing after another to let in Christ.

(2) Having brought in Christ, the Spirit holds Him up in the varied glories in which He is now filling the heavens.

(3) The Spirit shows how Christ, being brought in, acts on everything to perfect it; that whatever a glorified Christ touches He perfects; and among other things He perfects our consciences.

(4) This being so, on the ground of my reconciliation as a sinner I am introduced to a temple of praise.

These four things may be looked at independently, yet it is very blessed to see that they acquire fresh glory when seen in connection one with another. Now I do say there is a magnificence in such a divine writing that needs nothing but itself to tell its glory. I am in contact with something that is infinitely the mind of God, with some of the most wondrous discoveries that God can make of Himself to me.

But ere we quit our sweet and happy task we will look a little particularly at these four things. In Hebrews 1 and 2 the Spirit displaces angels to let in Christ. In Hebrews 3 and 4. He displaces Moses and Joshua. In Hebrews 5, 6 and 7. He displaces Aaron. In Hebrews 8 He displaces the whole covenant with which Christ has nothing to do. In Hebrews 9 He displaces the ordinances of the old sanctuary with its altars and services to let in the altar where Jesus as the Lamb of God lay. One thing after another He takes up and sets aside to make room for Jesus. This is a delightful task to the Spirit. God knows His own delights. If the Spirit can be, grieved He can be delighted too.

Then having brought Christ in, what does He do with Him? He keeps Him in for ever. Christ has no successor. When the Spirit has got Him in he gazes at Him. And what is it to be spiritual? It is to have the mind of the Holy Ghost. Have you ever delighted to get out of the house to make room for Jesus? Indignantly the Spirit talks of the things we have been looking at as "beggarly elements." Have you ever treated them so? The Spirit sees no successor to Christ. In the counsels of God there is none after Him. Is it so in the counsels and thoughts of our souls?

So, having kept Him in, He gazes at Him. And what does He see in Him? He sees glory upon glory. In Hebrews 1 He sees Him seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as the Purger of our sins, and hears a voice saying, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." He looks in Hebrews 2 and sees Him as our Apostle talking to us of salvation. Then He finds Him as the Owner of an abiding house, as the Giver of eternal rest, and sees Him in the sanctuary above, seated there with an oath, and hears Him uttering the salutation, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec In these various ways the Spirit delights in Christ. Then in Hebrews 9 we see Him looked at in the heavens as the Bestower of the eternal inheritance, having first obtained eternal redemption.

In Hebrews 10 we see Him seated there in another character, with this voice saluting Him, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool." Have you ever in spirit followed Christ up to heaven and heard these voices addressing Him? We want to give personality to the truth. We are terribly apt to deal with it as mere dogma. I dread having it before me as a thing I could intellectually learn. In this epistle it is the Person that is kept before you; it is a living One you have to do with. These are heavenly realities. Moses pitched a temple in the wilderness. Solomon pitched a temple in the land; God has pitched a temple in heaven. And oh! how it shows what an interest God has in the sinner, when for our Priest He has built a sanctuary, and that because He is our Priest and about to transact our interests. Then in Hebrews 12, when He had ascended, He was received and seated in heaven as the Author and Finisher of faith.

That is the second line, and we see how it hangs on the first. The Spirit, having fixed Christ before us, displays Him to us.

The third thing we get in this epistle is perfection. If I get Christ perfect as Saviour, I get myself perfect as saved. If I am not saved Christ is not a Saviour. I am not speaking now of a feeble mind struggling with legality, but of my title — and I have no more doubt that I have a right to look on myself as a saved sinner than that Christ has a right to look on Himself as a perfect Saviour. Salvation is a relative thing. If I take myself as a sinner to Christ and doubt that I am saved I must have some doubt of the perfection of His Saviour-character. But we have already looked at the epistle as a treatise on perfection. It became God to give me none less than a perfect Saviour. Wondrous! He has linked His glory with the perfection of my conscience before Him. He has condescended to let me know that it became Him. Does it become you to come and serve me in some capacity? You might do it through kindness, but I should not think of saying so. Yet that is the language God uses.

So then, in the third place, we find the epistle a treatise on perfection. Not, however, the perfection of millennial days. Christ will be the Repairer of every breach. But the greatest breach of all was in the conscience of the sinner. There is mischief and confusion abroad in creation still. There is mischief abroad in the house of Israel. Christ has not yet set to His hand to repair that. There is a breach in the throne of David — Christ has not yet applied Himself to heal that. But the mightiest breach of all was between you and God. By-and-by He will turn the groans of creation into the praises of creation; but He began His character as a Repairer by applying Himself to repair the breach that separated you from God; and now we have boldness to enter into the holiest.

And then, in the fourth place, we find in this epistle the Spirit doing nothing less now than building a temple for praise. Is He about to tack up the veil again, which the blood of the Lamb of God has torn in two? Is He going to revive the things that He has indignantly talked of as "beggarly elements"? Unspeakably glorious is this fourth and last thing. The Spirit of God has built a temple for you to praise Him — the fruit of your lips giving thanks to His name.

What have we not in this epistle? Though we may look on each line of thought independently, yet they do lend to each other exquisite and increased glory. The Spirit is, as it were, making a whip of small cords, and telling all to be gone to make room for Jesus. Of course I know they were willing to go. John the Baptist uttered the voices of them all when he said, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled." Moses, Aaron, angels — all were delighted to be put out of the house for Christ.

These things are combinedly serving your soul by introducing you to deeper apprehensions of the Christ of God. What a servant to our souls the Holy Ghost is in this dispensation — as the Lord Jesus was a Servant from the manger to Calvary.

I believe we each need individually to be fortified with truth. We do not know how far Romanising and infidel errors may be getting ahead. If we have not the truth, we may be the sport of Satan tomorrow. I will give you an instance of it. The Galatians were an earnest, excited people (and I do not quarrel with revival excitement); they would have plucked out their eyes for the apostle, but the day came when he had to begin afresh with them from the very beginning. "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." There was excitement without a foundation of truth; and when mischief came in the poor Galatians were next door to shipwreck — and this epistle is a witness to the same thing. The Hebrew saints were unskilful in the word. But we must be fortified by truth. A state of quickening wants the strengthening of the truth of God.

And now what shall we say? O the depth of the riches! O the height of the glory — the profoundness of the grace — the wonder of the wonders — God unfolding Himself in such a way that we may well cover our faces, while we trust Him in silence and love Him with the deepest emotions of our souls.' But some of us can surely say, "My leanness, my leanness!"

Woollen and Linen

Woollen and Linen.

J. G. Bellett.

"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together" Deut. 22: 11.

The path of the church of God is a narrow path, such a one that the mere moral sense will continually mistake it. But this should be welcome to us, because it tells us that the Lord looks that His saints be exercised in His truth and ways, unlearning the mere right and wrong of human thoughts that they may be filled with the mind of Christ.

The case of Elijah judging the captains of the king of Israel, referred to as it is in the course of the gospels, brings these thoughts to mind. (See Luke 9: 52-56) The Lord had steadily set His face toward Jerusalem under the sense of this, that "he should be received up." Something of the thought of glory and of the kingdom was stirring in His soul. I believe the consciousness of His personal dignity and of His high destiny, as we speak among men, was filling Him as He began His journey toward Jerusalem. "It came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face." The expression of conscious dignity breaks forth from this and gives character to the moment, and the disciples feel it. They appear to catch the tone of His mind, and therefore, when the very first village through which the path of their ascending Lord lay refused. Him entrance they resent it, and would fain like Elijah in other days destroy these insulting captains of Israel.

This was nature, the natural sense also of right and wrong. Why then did the Lord rebuke it? It was not wanting in either righteousness or affection. The day will come when the enemies of Christ, who would not that He should reign over them, shall be slain before Him. There was nothing unrighteous in the demand, "Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?" if we but think for a moment of the person and rights of Him who was thus wronged and insulted. Nor was there a wrong affection in this motion of the heart. Jealousy for their divine Master stirred it; this motion may be honoured, the moral sense may justify it fully; but Christ rebukes it: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," said the Lord to them.

But why, again I ask, this rebuke? Was it because they were exacting beyond the claims of Him whom they sought to avenge? No, as we have said, for such claims will have their day; but the disciples were not in the spiritual intelligence of the moment through which they were passing. They had not "the mind of Christ"; they did not discern the time so as to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chr. 12); they were not distinguishing things that differ; they were not rightly dividing the word of truth. This was their error: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." It was not a wrong principle of moral action which the Lord discovers in their souls, but ignorance of the real or divine character of the moment through which they were passing. They did not perceive — what thousands (disciples of this day, as they were of that day) do not yet perceive  - that the path of Christ to glory does not lie through the judgment of the world, but through the surrender of it; not through self-vindication, but through self-renunciation. This was their mistake, and this is what the Lord rebuked. They naturally thought that this indignity must be recognised; that, if the prospect of glory was filling the mind of their Master, and if they themselves, in the spirit of such a moment, had gone before His face to prepare His way, whatever stands in the way must surely be set aside. Nature judged thus; and nature thus judging would be justified by the moral sense of man.

But the mind of Christ has its peculiar way, and nothing guides the saint fully but that: analogy will not do, there must be the spiritual mind to try and challenge even analogies. Certain correspondences were remarkable here: Elijah was but a stage or two from the glory, just going onward to be "received up," when he smote again and again the captains and their fifties. He was on a hill, full of great anticipations, we may say, and the chariots and horsemen of Israel and his heavenly journey were lying but a little before him in vision. The soul of their Master appeared to the disciples on this occasion to be much in company with that of Elijah. But analogies will not do, and the use of them here was confounding everything, taking the Lord Jesus out of His day of grace into the time of His judgments; inviting Him or urging Him to act in the spirit of the times of Revelation 11 when He was in the hour of Luke 4. The witnesses of Revelation 11 may go to heaven through the destruction of their enemies, fire going out of their mouth to consume them that hurt them, as after the pattern of Elijah; but analogies are not the rule. They must be challenged by that "mind of Christ" which distinguishes things that differ, and which teaches in the light of the word that Jesus goes to heaven through the salvation and not the destruction of men; through His renunciation of the world and not His judgment of it. Elijah avenged himself on the insulting captains and then went to heaven; the witnesses will ascend to heaven, and their enemies shall behold them: but Jesus takes the form of a servant, and is obedient unto death, and then God highly exalts Him. And so the saint: so the church. "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed me."

Here was the mistake: here was the not knowing what manner of spirit they were of. Analogy strongly favoured the motion of their minds. The moral sense, which judges according to man's thoughts and not in the light of God's mysteries, justified it. But He who divinely distinguishes things that differ rebuked it: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." The way of the disciples here would have disturbed everything, counteracting all the purpose of God.

They remind me of the servants in the parable of the tare-field. The disciples were right according to man, and so were those servants. Is it not fitting to weed the wheat? Are not tares a hindrance, sharing the strength of the soil with the good seed, while they themselves are good for nothing? The common sense of man, the right moral judgment, would say all this, but the mind of Christ says the very contrary: "Let both grow together until the harvest." Christ judged only according to divine mysteries. That is what formed the mind in the Master, perfect as it was; and that is what must form the like mind in the saint. God had purposes respecting the field. A harvest was to come and angels were to be sent to reap it, and then a fire was to be kindled for the bundled and separated tares; but as yet, in the hour of Matthew 13, there were no angels at their harvest-work in the field, nor fire kindled for the weeds, but all was the patient grace of the Master. The Lord will have the field uncleared for the present. The mysteries of God, the counselled thoughts and purposes of heaven, precious and glorious beyond all measure, demand this; and nothing is right but the path that is taken in the light of the Lord, in the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Nor is the church to go to heaven through a purified or regulated or adorned world, any more than Christ would have gone to heaven through a judged world. This is to be well weighed; for what is Christendom about? Just practically gainsaying all this. Christendom affects to regulate the world, to keep the field clean, to make the path to heaven and glory lie through a well-ordered and ornamented world. It has put the sword into the hand of the followers of Christ. It will not wait for the harvest, nor will it go into "another village." It avenges wrongs instead of suffering them. It orders the church on the principles of a well-regulated nation and not on the pattern of an earth-rejected Jesus. It is full of the falsest thoughts, judging according to the moral sense of man and not in the light of the mysteries of God. It is wise in its own conceits.

I know full well there beat in the midst of it a thousand hearts true in their love to Christ; but they know not what manner of spirit they are of. I know that zeal, if it be for Christ, though misdirected, is better than a chill at the heart or indifference as to His rights or His wrongs. But still, the only perfect path is that which is taken in the sight of the Lord in the understanding of the mysteries of God, and the call of God, and the directions of the energy of the Spirit, and not merely after the fashion or dictates of the morals and thoughts of men. And the call of God now demands that the tare-field be left unpurged, that the indignity of the Samaritans be left unavenged, that the resources and strength of the flesh and of the world be refused rather than used, and that the church should reach the heavens, not through the judgment of the world by her hands, but through the renunciation of it by her heart and separation from it in company with a rejected Master.

"He that gathereth not with me scattereth" (Luke 11: 23), that is, he that does not work according to Christ's purpose is really making bad worse. It is not enough to work with the name of Christ; no saint would consent to work without that, but if he do not work according to the purpose of Christ he is scattering abroad. Many a saint is now engaged in rectifying and adorning the world — getting Christendom as a swept and garnished house; but this not being Christ's purpose it is aiding and furthering the advance of evil. Christ has not expelled the unclean spirit out of the world. He has no such present purpose. The enemy may change his way, but he is as much "the god" and "prince of this world" as ever he was. The house is his still, as in the parable. (See Luke 11: 24-26.) The unclean spirit had gone out, that was all; he had not been sent out by the stronger Man  - so that his title to it is clear; and he returns, and all that he finds there had only made it more an object with him. He finds it clean and ornamented; so that he returns with many a kindred spirit and thus makes its last state worse than its first,.

Mistakes of this kind are very old mistakes. David was erring this way when he purposed to build a house for the Lord; but it was an error, though committed with a right desire of the heart. The time had not come for building the Lord a house because the Lord had not yet built David a house. The land was still defiled with blood: and till it was cleansed there was no place for the rest and kingdom of the Lord. David therefore greatly erred, yet not through double-mindedness but through ignorance. David's error was this, that the Lord could take His throne in the earth before the earth was purged. The servants in the parable erred on the other hand in this, that the church was made the instrument of purging the earth or the world.

I might say, in the language of the Levitical ordinance, that David was about to put on a garment of "divers sorts," but the Lord prevented it. The motion of his heart — as far as it was expressive of himself — was acceptable with the Lord, but still it was hindered and disappointed. Something to tell us how jealous the Lord is that His own principles be observed and the position in which He has set His servants and witnesses be maintained; nay, that even the most affectionate and jealous desire of the saint, though it be valued by the Lord and get its personal reward or acceptance, can never reconcile the mind of the Lord to an abandonment of His thoughts and purposes. All would be confusion. David's thoughts, however innocent and in some sense to be approved of God, would have confused everything, bringing about this strange result — the Lord taking His throne in an uncleansed kingdom and allowing His servant to give Him rest before He had given His servant rest! What confusion this would have been! What an evil testimony these mixed principles would have produced! Who could have read in the result, had it been allowed, either the grace or the glory of the God of Israel?

The rebuke of Peter at Antioch was more peremptory; for Peter erred, not like David, through ignorance, but through the occasional fear of man, which, as we are taught and as we experience, "bringeth a snare"; and it was something worse than confusion, it was perversion (in Deut. 29: 19, 20 we have an ordinance against perversion, or turning things to a wrong use). But still, even if it amount only to confusion, and that by the hand of the dearest and most loved servant, it is not to be allowed, as this case of David shows; as also in his other act of bearing the ark from Kirjath-jearim. The confusion there was not made excusable by all the true-heartedness and religious joy that attended it (1 Chr. 13): it could not be. Place by subjection was not to be given to it for an hour, and, however acceptable with God the motion of David's heart was, these ways must be withstood, because the way, and purpose, and counsel, and thoughts of the Lord are precious in His sight and are to stand for ever.

It is not that David and Peter were men of mixed principles, as the word is, or were wearing, as the ordinance speaks, garments of woollen and linen, but these instances in their history illustrate a serious truth, which is much to be remembered, that the Lord will vindicate His own principles in the face of even His dearest servants, that He will and He must withstand the motions of their hearts if they go to obscure or disturb His purpose and His testimony, even though such motions have much of a personal, moral character in them which He can accept and delight in.

But, beside these cases of David and of Peter, and of the disciples in Luke 9, who, in mistaken, misapplied zeal for the Lord whom they loved, would have avenged His wrongs with a true and righteous affection, there is a generation who are seen apart from the way of God through double-mindedness. Such a generation may be tracked all through scripture, a people of mixed principles, as we say, who wear garments of woollen and linen contrary to the call of God and the pure ordinances of His house. It may be humbling to oneself more than to most others to look at such a generation, but it has its profit for the soul and its seasonableness in this hour.

Lot was associated with the call of God. Like Abram, his uncle, he left Mesopotamia, and then after the death of Terah, his grandfather, he came with Abram into Canaan, and he was a righteous man, there was no palpable blot upon him. Abram betrayed the way of nature, again and again recovering himself, with shame too, from the snare of Egypt and of Abimelech. But Lot was not so rebuked all the time he sojourned in Sodom. We only read of him that his righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. But withal, he was sadly of the generation I am now speaking of.

If Abram's garment was soiled now and again it was not "a garment of divers sorts," but Lot's garment was "woollen and linen." He was untrue to the call of God; he became a citizen when he ought to have been only a sojourner, choosing well-watered plains and taking a house in a city when God's witness was going over the face of the country from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another. Fewer mistakes are recorded of him; but what then? He was a man of mixed principles all his days, while Abraham all his days was true to the call of God. And his life of false principles leads him into sorrows that are his shame, and that is the real misery of sorrow.

He was taken captive while he lived in the plains of Sodom, and was nigh unto destruction after he had removed to the city of Sodom; and he is still, and ever has been in the church, the witness of one, saved it is true, but "so as by fire." He had no comfort in his soul; his righteous soul was vexed day by day. This is told of him, but no brightness is there; no joy, no strength, no triumph of spirit is told of him. The angels held much reserve towards him, while the Lord of angels was in nearness and intimacy with Abraham. He had to escape with his life as a prey when Abraham was on high beholding the judgment afar off. And, what is full of meaning, we observe that after he had taken his own course and become a man of mixed principles, departing from the track where the call of God would have kept him, be and Abraham had no communion. Abraham will run to his help in the day when his principles were bringing him into jeopardy; but there is no communion between them. They could not meet in spirit. The saint of God will own him as his kinsman, and do him the kinsman's service; but there is no present communion between them. And this is no uncommon case to this day.

Such was Lot. Instead of making his calling and election sure, he is one whom the people of God receive on the extraordinary testimony of the Holy Ghost, rather than on the necessary and blessed credit of his assured call of God, or as one of that people of whom Paul could say, "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God."

Nature prevails sadly and variously in all the recorded saints of God; in some more, in some less, just as the fruitfulness of the Spirit is seen in them in affections and services; in some thirtyfold, in some sixty, and in some an hundred. But this is a different thing from being men of mixed principles. It was so with David. Nature prevailed in him at times, but he was never a man of mixed principles. He never deliberately sat down in a connection which was untrue to the call of God under which he had to act. His character was formed by that call and his ways were according to it; but it was not so with his friend Jonathan; his life was not formed by the call of God, and the energy of the Spirit working in the rule of that call. He acted nobly and graciously at times, but still he was not the separated man. He was not true to the pure principles of God made manifest in that day. He was a man of faith, and of many endearing spiritual affections, such as give him, without reserve, a place in the recollections of the saints. But withal he was not where the call of God would have had him.

Saul's court was a defiled, even an apostate, place then. God was with David then. The glory was in the wilderness with him; the dens and caves of the earth hid it in that day. The ephod was with David, the priest, the sword of God's strength, the witness of victory. The flower and promise of the land were with him also, those who gain a name in the cave of Adullam, or in the day of vengeance at Ziklag. Such sons of Israel as these, such as shine afterwards in the court and camp of the kingdom, were all with David then.

The call of God was then to the caves and dens of the earth with the son of Jesse, and the energy of the Spirit worked there; but Jonathan was not there. That is the sad story. Jonathan was not where the glory was, where the priest with the ephod was, where the rejected man after God's own heart was, where all the promise of the coming kingdom was. That is the sad story. Jonathan was lovely individually, he had done some noble deeds and was breathing some heavenly affections; and to the end we may be sure David lived in his heart, and many misgivings about his own father we may be equally sure that same heart was troubled with. He never personally gave David anything but joy; while we know those who companied with him, even in his afflictions, were betimes both a shame and a sorrow to him. But still his position was not true to the call of God in that day. It kept him apart from all that was of God then, though he had the Lord with himself personally. Till he falls on Mount Gilboa, he is with the camp and the court that fall with him there, dishonoured and defeated as they were, having ere then lost the glory, and all that was of God nationally departed from them. A common case he illustrates. Was it ignorance of the call of God, or double-mindedness? We will not say; but still in this our day there is, like Jonathan, many a saint dear to one's heart, and outshining in personal graces the larger number of the day, who is found apart from the place where the energy of the Spirit, according to the rule of the dispensation, works. Noble and generous deeds are done by them individually, but their connection is their dishonour, as it was Jonathan's — linked with a world which is speedily to meet the judgment, and in courts and camps which are to lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that be slain with the sword. "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon." Jonathan illustrates this, and this is known abundantly to this hour.

But Jonathan cannot sanction the place; Jonathan's presence did not make Saul's camp or court other than it was. The only impression the soul has of Lot in Sodom is that of a tainted Lot and not of a sanctified, purified Sodom. According to the word in Haggai, "If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No." But "If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean."

There are, however, "things that differ," and the soul exercised of God is to distinguish them. There is a soiled garment which is, however, at the same time not a mixed garment, a garment of "divers sorts," of "woollen and linen." Our way under the Spirit is to keep our garments undefiled; and anything other or less than that is not the way of communion with the Lord. But still, a soiled garment is not a mixed garment; nor is a garment with a thread now and again of another sort to be mistaken for one whose texture is wrought on the very principle of "woollen and linen." Scripture, ever fruitful and perfect, exhibits characters formed by what has been termed "mixed principles" and characters which occasionally become tainted by such, but are not throughout formed by them. The life of Lot, as we have been seeing, was formed of mixed principles throughout. There was double-mindedness in Lot; I say not the same with the same clearness of Jonathan; but still the life of each of them from the outset to the close, when the scene of temptation set in, was tainted by connection with evil. Lot, though associated with the call of God, was a man of the earth; Jonathan, though witnessing the sorrows and the wrongs of David, continued in the interests of the persecutor unto the end. Their life was thus formed by connections which were untrue to the way of God and the presence of the glory all through. The garment upon each of them was made of divers sorts, of woollen and linen. But look at Jacob in contrast, and in him we find one of another generation; he was a cautious man who had his worldly fears and schemes and calculations; and they greatly disfigure several passages of his life. His building of a house at Succoth, his buying of a piece of ground at Shechem, were things untrue to the pilgrim life, the tent life, which a son of Abraham was called to know. But Jacob is not to be put with Lot; his life was not formed by Succoth and Shechem, though we thus see him there and out of character there, but he was a stranger with God in the earth. And in the closing days of his pilgrimage, when he was in Egypt, though with many a circumstance around him there to tempt him to have it otherwise, we have many a beautiful witness of the healthful and recovered state of his soul.

The days, for instance, of Ahab king of Israel, king of the ten tribes, were fruitful in illustrations of this kind. There were in those days an Elijah and a Micaiah, a Jehoshaphat and an Obadiah, beside seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal; and all these in the midst of the foulest departure from the ways of God, the times of Jezebel and her abominations.

But all these are not to be classed together. To use the language of "woollen and linen," or "garments of divers sorts," I might say there was no mistaking the cloth of Elijah and Micaiah. The leathern girdle of the one and the prison bands of the other tell us what men they were and bespeak their complete separation.

The seven thousand we cannot speak of particularly; we know them only under the hand of God as "a remnant according to the election of grace," and that in an evil day they "had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal." But Obadiah was not Elijah, and again, as between him and Jehoshaphat, we are still to distinguish; such was the moral variety illustrated for our admonition in these days.

Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, of the house and lineage of David, was a separate man, but a man who at times, and that too pretty largely, is found in defiling connection. He was of Jacob's generation, though it may be more faulty than Jacob in that generation. Vanity betrayed him again and again, as worldly policy betrayed the patriarch. Jehoshaphat joined affinity with Ahab. In the day of the battle he put on the royal apparel, a garment sadly and shamefully of "divers sorts"; and it was near costing him his life, as the same clothing nearly cost Lot his life in the city of Sodom. He acted there in terrible inconsistency with the sanctity and separateness of the house of David. But, though all this is so, I am not disposed to put Jehoshaphat in company with Lot. His life was not one of mixed principles; his garment was not advisedly wrought of "woollen and linen" together, though sadly and shamefully untrue to the testimony which became a son of David and a king in Jerusalem. Very noble deeds were done by his hands, and very dear affections were breathed by his spirit, and the God of his father owned him; but, like Jacob, and to a more painful extent, he was betrayed; he was betrayed into connections which make his testimony a very mixed, imperfect thing. It was not merely nature prevailing at times — that may be seen in all, in those of the best generation, in Abraham, and in David. It was not merely a soiled garment whose blot is palpable, but a garment the texture of which is scarcely discernible, whether indeed it be of one sort or a condemned garment of "woollen and linen"; so shamefully do the "divers sorts" appear in it at times, but not throughout.

But the garment which Obadiah wore in those days cannot be mistaken. It needs no close inspection to make out what it is. The "divers sorts" of woollen and linen are to be seen in it from head to foot. His life was of that texture. It was not that he was betrayed at times merely, nor was it that his way was stained at times, but his whole life evinces a man of mixed principles. He was a godly man, but his ways were not according to the energy of the Spirit in that day. He had respect to the afflictions of the prophets, hiding them in caves from the persecution and feeding them there; but all the while he was the adviser, the companion, and the minister of king Ahab, in whose kingdom the iniquity was practised. The "linen and woollen" thus formed the garment that he wore all his days. It was not the leathern girdle of Elijah; and when they come together this difference is preserved and expressed most strikingly. Obadiah is at some effort to conciliate the mind of Elijah. He reminds him of what he had done for the persecuted prophets of God in the day of their trouble and tells him that he feared the Lord; but Elijah moves but slowly and coldly towards him. Painful all this between two saints of God, but it is far from being rarely experienced; it is a common thing, I would say, but much more commonly felt than owned. (1 Kings 18)

There could have been no blending of the spirits of Abraham and Lot after Lot took the way of his eye and of his heart and continued in that direction — a citizen of Sodom. We are not told this, it is true, in the history; but we find from the history, as I observed before, that they never meet after that, and we may easily know why. Because such things are real and living things still. The Abrahams and the Lots of this day do not meet; or if they meet it is not communion. They do not enjoy refreshment in the bowels of Christ. Abraham rescued Lot from the hands of the king Chedorlaomer, but this was no meeting of saints; they could not blend. And if the people of God cannot come together in character they had better be asunder. In spirit they are already severed.

So was it in a far more vivid expression of it in Elijah and Obadiah. The man with the leathern girdle — God's stranger in the land in the days of Ahab — could not be found much in company with the governor of Ahab's house. But they meet in an evil day, a day which may remind us of the day of the valley of the slime pits, the day of Lot's captivity. Ahab his master had divided the land with Obadiah to search for water in the day of drought. The Lord his God had put the sword of His servant Elijah over the land to give it neither rain nor dew; and in an hour of Obadiah's perplexity and of Elijah's commission under God they meet.

The occasion is one of interest and meaning and has lessons for our souls.

There is effort on the part of Obadiah and reserve with Elijah. This is naturally and necessarily so. Obadiah seeks to combine with Elijah, but Elijah resents the effort. Obadiah calls Elijah his lord, but Elijah reminds him that Ahab is his lord. For this will not do. We are not to be serving the world and going on in the course of it behind each other's backs and then, when we come together, assume that we meet as saints. This will not do; but the attempt to have it so is very natural, nay, it is very common to this hour. But Elijah acted in character, faithful to his brother now as he had been to his Lord before; and beautiful this is, and precious it ought to be whenever we get it. Obadiah had been walking with the world in Elijah's absence, and Elijah cannot let him now assume that he was one with him though in his presence.

Obadiah pleads: "What have I sinned?" says he. But why this? Elijah had not accused him of sinning. Why this alarm and perturbation of spirit? Elijah was not hazarding his life or safety, or any of his interests; he was disturbing nothing that belonged to him. Why this alarm and taking refuge in the thought of finding his plea in the fact that he had not sinned? It is a poor, low state of soul when a saint has only the consciousness of this, that he has not sinned. Is that enough to enjoy the communion or understand the mind of an Elijah? Had not Obadiah been in Ahab's palace when Elijah was by the brook Cherith? That is the question, and not the question whether he had sinned or not. Had Obadiah been with him over the barrel of meal or the cruse of oil? Elijah had not told him that he had been sinning; he need not shelter himself or commend himself thus. But Elijah cannot but let him know that their spirits were not blending for they had met from different quarters. "Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets?" What was all this to the point? Elijah had not been going over his past history; it was better to leave the most of it untold; and it is a miserable thing for a saint of God to be trading after this manner on his character or his past ways. This is no title, no sufficient title, for the present communion of the saints, nor competency for either.

And these are Obadiah's thoughts and refuges and pleadings now that he is in the presence of a faithful witness of Christ. He had not sinned, and in days past he had done service. What a low sense of the common calling of the people of God the soul must have that can think it can be maintained and that saints can go on together on such a title and competency as this! If the world be served when we are behind each other's back, though we may not have sinned, as people speak, and though we may have had character and done services in past days, we are not fit for each other's presence as saints of God.

Have we been in heaven or in Ahab's court? Have we been making provision for the flesh or desiring the things of Christ? There are other things than pleading "we have not sinned," or trading on established character and past services. These are what alone fit us for the true communion of saints. Obadiah was governor over Ahab's house; how could such a one as Elijah be comfortable or at ease with him? He felt reserve, and he expressed it in manner if not in words. Obadiah is the man of words on the occasion — that was natural also, and is the ordinary style of such occasions or of such intercourses between Elijahs and Obadiahs to this hour. For indeed it is not communion when there is effort on the one side and reserve on the other. This is surely not the communion of saints. But it all has a voice in it, and is common enough now-a-days. They were not in company with each other; that was the fact. Their spirits could not blend. The garment of divers sorts, of woollen and of linen, which a saint of God could not but wear in Ahab's court, ill-matched the leathern girdle of a separated, suffering witness of Christ. We see this saint of God thus in his parti-coloured dress but once; but this voice is thus full of holy, serious meaning to us. The poor widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah had lately left, enjoyed the full flow of Elijah's sympathies; and that humble, distant homestead, with its barrel of meal and its cruse of oil, had witnessed living communion between kindred spirits, and presented a scene which had its spring and its reward with God. But Elijah and Obadiah were not thus in company with each other. Elijah is too true to let Obadiah come near to him in spirit or to answer the effort he was making to conciliate him.

There is character in all this I am fully  sure. Abraham and Lot never met, as we have said, after they parted on Lot's lifting up his eyes on the well-watered plains of Sodom. There was moral distance quite sufficient to keep them asunder, though a sabbath day's journey might have brought them together. Very significant evidence that is! And so Elijah and Obadiah: their meeting was no meeting. As well might Abraham's rescue of Lot out of the hands of Chedorloamer be called a meeting. This was not "the communion of saints." This was not refreshment of bowels in the Lord. But all this repeats for the heart an oft-told tale.

Ebed-melech, in the days of another Elijah, was a man of this Obadiah generation, not, however, so strongly marked as his elder brother. Like him he loved the prophet of God, and in the face of an injurious and insulting court, and hindered by the timid policy of the king, pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with gracious personal service. But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the Chaldean (Jer. 39: 17), the sword of the Lord's anger, and such was not the condition of the Lord's witness. But his weakness was not despised in the rich grace of God. His measure received its measure again, and in the day of the judgment of the Lord Ebed-melech got his life for a prey when Jeremiah was had in honour. Ebed-melech was saved then, but that was all; the prophet was rewarded.

Thus have we seen a generation in other days who, though the people of the Lord, show themselves sadly apart from the place to which the call of God would have led them. Such was Lot and such was Jonathan, and such were Obadiah and Ebed-melech. It was more or less double-mindedness in them or love of the world in greater or smaller power in their souls. But such a generation is abundant to this hour. Saints are seen in situations and connections from which the call of God would separate them just as surely as it would have kept Lot out of Sodom. But this may be added with equal sureness in a multitude of cases: this impure connection arises from ignorance or want of hearts instructed in the kingdom of God. They have not listened to the voice of the mysteries of the kingdom but conferred with flesh and blood. They have not heard the Shepherd's voice calling them outside. They have not understood the church as a heavenly stranger on the earth, and that connection — religious connection — with the world is Lot in Sodom, or an Israelite with a garment of "divers sorts, as of woollen and linen."

The world is marked for judgment even more surely than Sodom was; ten righteous would have spared the cities of the plain, but nothing can cancel the judgment of "this present evil world."

Here let me add, however, that the distinction of Lot and of Jonathan may be seen in many a soul now-a-days. Lot had nothing to sanction Sodom to him; all that he knew to be of God was outside; and even nature had no plea to plead for Sodom. Abraham and Sarah were outside, the witnesses of the call and presence of God, and his kindred in the flesh. All that was sacred in religion or nature were outside; and providences pleaded with him to the same end, for the plains of Sodom had already brought him into jeopardy of life and liberty, and warned him to dread the city. It was the world and nothing else that was heard in Lot's heart in favour of Sodom. But with Jonathan nature had a plea. All that was of God, it is true, was in that day outside Saul's court and camp; but the claims of kindred, the voice of nature, nay, the authority of nature, were known and felt from within. The father and the family were there though David and. God were not.

And so now-a-days. There is many a thing that pleads from within. Nature, things moral and religious, plead there; opportunities of service and testimony, obedience to authority, maintenance of order, the dangers and evils threatened to the social well-being, the peace of families, and example to children and servants: these things are pleaded, and they all come from within, and put in various claims for the course of the world.

But these, and all such put together, can never speak to the saint or plead with him with the authority of the call of God. If the church be a heavenly stranger on the earth alliance with the world defiles her, nay, ruins her as a witness for God; and to defile after this manner, to seduce from the place of testimony, is the enemy's purpose and has been so from the beginning. Was not the serpent in the garden seducing Adam from the place the Lord God had set him in? Nay, earlier even than that, are we not told about the angels that sinned that they kept not their first estate?

So afterwards with Israel, "Ye are my witnesses," says the Lord of them; but the enemy prevailed till the testimony was gone. "His house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a. den of thieves." Here were successful attempts of the enemy to drag from the place in which God had set His witness. It is not merely that there was a soil, or a blemish, or a rupture, but a revolt, a departure, a yielding up to the enemy the great purpose or thought of God.

The contrary effect precisely, in the precisely like attempt, as has been observed by another, is seen in Jesus. "If thou be the Son of God," said the tempter. His design was to lead Him to the abandonment of His place, His place of perfect and entire subjection which knows only God's will. But all was perfection and victory in Jesus, but in Jesus only, whether before Him or after Him; for the witness of this dispensation has been as corrupted as others. That which was set to be a heavenly stranger on earth, the companion of the rejected Christ, has faithlessly allied herself with the rejecting world; and what ruin can be more complete than this?

The "man of God" who was deceived by the old prophet would have had security in the divine principles had his soul been alive to them. The word received, it is most sure, would have secured him; for it expressly forbade his eating and drinking in that place. But divine principles would have been his shelter also. The word he had received when he set out on his journey was founded upon them, as we may easily perceive. For how, I ask, could the Lord employ an unclean vessel? The old prophet had been clearly laid aside as unfit for the Master's use. He was dwelling in the very city where the Lord had a business to be done, but he was passed by. The Lord had gone down to Judah to get a witness against the altar at Bethel, though a saint of His own was living on the very spot. How could "the man of God" think that the Lord could employ the prophet of Bethel as His vessel? He had already passed him by. He had already after this manner treated him as unfit for His use according to the principles of His own house that an unpurged vessel is not lit for service. (2 Tim. 2) How could the man from Judah be careless about all this? The word he had received was enough to tell him how this principle of God's honour was at that moment, so to speak, alive in God's thoughts, because he was enjoined neither to eat not to drink in that unclean place, nor was he to return by the way that he came: so particular was the commandment in keeping him apart from all fellowship with that against which He was employing him to testify. And yet "the man of God" is beguiled to receive a message as from the Lord by the hand of one who was in contact and communion with the unclean thing against which he has been brought all the way from Judah to testify! Strange forgetfulness! sad and shameful carelessness about the principles of the house of God. A saint as he was, and servant as he was, faithful too in the face of the offers of a king — his carcase is not to come to the sepulchre of his fathers. (1 Kings 13)

When the eye is single the whole body is full of light. There is consistency and harmony in the action when the moving principle is maintained single and unmixed. Micaiah's action in 2 Chronicles 18 was of such a nature, but Jehoshaphat's body was then anything but "full of light." In the hour when he left Micaiah to go to the prison of the king of Israel while he himself accompanied that same king of Israel to the battle, who would have known him to be a saint of God Where was the body "full of light" then It was the clouding and overcasting of all the illumination which he really partook of. There was no harmony, there was no pure and cloudless noonday marking the pathway of Jehoshaphat then; no making of "his calling and election sure," as the apostle speaks.

It is happy to follow that dear man a stage farther. (2 Chr. 20) For in the days of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, Jehoshaphat's body is again "full of light." He acts as a son of David ought to act; he seeks the Lord and the Lord only; and all is faith and victory and joy. But when in the, earlier day Micaiah was sent to the prison of Ahab and he himself went to the battle of Ahab, where was the son of David then? The whole body was full of darkness.

The captives, returned from Babylon to the land and city of their fathers, in like manner read us an instructive lesson on this subject of the garment of "divers sorts"; and their history affords both encouragement and warning. They do not refuse to accept the punishment of the nation's sin, and therefore they take their place in subjection to the Gentile power whom God had set over them for their sins. They accept the favour of Cyrus, of Darius, and of Artaxerxes, in the spirit of the injunction "honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear." They speak of a Gentile power as "the great and noble Asnapper," and evidently feel grateful for the kindness shown to them by one after another of these powers, blessing God because of them, and ready-hearted, I am sure, to pray for the life of the king and of his sons. But with all this they were a separated people. Their refusal of Samaritan connection was as earnest as their acceptance of the favours of the Gentiles.

The zeal and revenge, and clearing of themselves of the mixed principle and of the abomination of bringing Greeks into the temple to pollute that holy place, was as simple and firm as it would have been in the days of Joshua or of David. They refused the garments of divers sorts. If they would have worn that livery, it might have saved them much trouble in the progress of the work of their hands, which was also the work of the Lord; but they could not and would not. The thing was not according to the ordinances, and they would not.

Paul might have saved himself a prison if he had accepted the testimony of the damsel at Philippi; but it was Samaritan help again, or something worse, and he could not; and the man who on that occasion refused the garment of woollen and linen must therefore for his faithfulness have his feet made fast in the stocks and wear prison bands. But all is right in the end whether with Paul or the returned captives. Their God pleads their cause.

Here, however, some new and serious points of instruction on the matter of mixed principles occur. I feel I can pursue this with a sense of personal need and application. The further history of the captives from Babylon warns us as well as instructs us. They refuse the strange alliance, they will not wear the garment of divers sorts, but then they wear their own garments without a girdle; that is the moral of the story. They go to build their own houses when the Samaritan enmity stops their building of the Lord's. This is warning to us, as it was shame to them, and the Spirit of the Lord has to awaken. them as from sleep and intoxication. They served themselves when the service of the Lord was interrupted. Ease and indulgence and self-pleasing take the place which had now been left vacant. Haggai and Zechariah have to call them to the girding of their loins and the trimming of their lamps. By no means do they send them back to make terms with the Samaritans. They do not tell them that they erred in refusing the garment of divers sorts, they only call on them to gird up the pure garments they were wearing, to do the Lord's work in the Lord's way though Samaritans might again withstand them.

All this is full of meaning for us. The Spirit of God, let the exigency be what it may, will never have the saint in "woollen and linen"; but at the same time He would have the pure garment girded. An ungirded garment though pure is not after His mind, and often does He find that wanting, as in the days of Haggai and Zechariah, and this is our deep rebuke — a pure position kept with little spiritual grace. The returned captives were in the right position. Their place was a better place than that of their brethren who dwelt still in the distant cities of the uncircumcised, and they did well, as I have been saying, when they refused alliance with the Samaritans; such alliance would be but the wearing of garments of divers sorts, of "woollen and linen." This they did not do; but those who stand such a trial fail under another. Though they thus refuse to wear mixed clothing their garments, as we have seen, were not girded, and even worse than that they were sadly doing much worse than their brethren who were soiled and spotted. These returned Jews were off in. the distant lands of the heathen. Their ways in the Holy Land were deeply rebuked by the ways of their brethren among the Gentiles.

The Jews abroad had redeemed their brethren from the heathen to whom they had been sold, while the Jews at home or the captives returned to Jerusalem were selling their brethren for debt. (Neh. 5) What a sad sight! What a humbling and searching fact! Is there not much that is miserably kindred with this to be known still? This is something like "form without power." "The kingdom of God is not in word but in power." Position may be quite according to God, but the practical, godly grace with which it is tilled and occupied way be scanty and poor. And how should this warn us not to count on the virtue of a merely pure and separated position! If it be trusted in, or held with an unjudged and unwatched heart, even they among the uncircumcised may rebuke us. Much love and service is often to be found within, as I have been speaking, while little of the power of holiness and of the mind of heaven accompanies those who go outside. What I mean is this, that there is often less grace and moral power in the purer position than there is in the defiled connection. As with Jonathan, David loved him dearly and yet he was not David's companion. But the companions of David's temptations were at times a trial to him, talking on one occasion of even stoning him, while Jonathan personally was always pleasant to him. What an outside and an inside was this! And yet David's outside place was the place of the glory then, and his companions were in the right position. But what exhibitions are all these! And yet we see the same around us at this hour. There is no lesson I would more press on the attention of my own soul than this, and I think I can say I value it: Position without power, principles beyond practice, jealousy about orthodoxy, and truth and mysteries with little personal communion with the Lord — all these the soul stands in constant fear of and in equal judgment and refusal.

The earnestness about many, and many a right thing that was found at Ephesus, the stir and activity even of a religious nature that prevailed in Sardis and the orthodoxy of Laodicea, were all challenged by the Lord, and we deeply justify the challenge. (Rev. 2, 3) The tithing of mint and anise when judgment and mercy were passed by, was exposed by the divine mind of Christ; and in the Spirit the saint joins in the exposure, "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt."

We refuse position without power as we would principles without practice; or truth and mysteries and knowledge without Christ Himself and personal communion with Him. But in the stainless, perfect page of the word we find all honoured, and nothing thoroughly according to God but where each and all is in its place and measure honoured. As He says Himself, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." But here I will turn aside for a moment to what is sweet relief to the soul: that to know Him in grace is His praise and our joy. We instinctively think of Him as One that exacts obedience and looks for service. But faith owns Him as the One that communicates; that speaks to us of the privileges rather than of the duties; of the love, and the liberty, and the blessings of our relationship to Him rather than of the corresponding returns from us.

This is truth, beloved, we need also now-a-days, though it may be a little beside my leading thought just now.

The call of God separates us, but we need the Spirit of God to occupy the place according to God, and the loving devoted mind. "Salt is good," the divine principle is the good thing. But salt may lose its saltness. The right position or the divine principle may be understood and avowed, but there may be no power of life in it.

What variety of moral instruction is thus provided for the soul in the words of the Lord! But let us still listen and we shall still learn, for the mine is never exhausted.

The history of the two tribes and a half has its peculiar instruction for us. They do not stand in company with the Lot of the days of Abraham, though in some respects they may remind us of him. For, as I have just said, it is wonderful what a variety of moral character and of christian experience puts itself before the soul in the histories of scripture; the lights and shades are to be traced as well as the leading features. This strikes us forcibly in the history of this people. They are not Lot but they remind us of him. Like him their history begins by their eyeing well-watered plains for cattle. While yet on the wilderness side of the Jordan they think of their cattle: Abraham their father had never been on that side of the river. Moses had said nothing to them respecting those plains of Gilead. Nor did their expectations when called out from Egypt stop short of the land of Canaan. But Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had cattle, and they sue for an inheritance there on the eastern or wilderness borders of the river, for there cattle might graze to advantage.

They had no thought whatever of revolting, of sacrificing the portion of Israel, or of separating themselves or their interests from the call of God. But their cattle would be nicely provided for in Gilead and there they desired to tarry, though, of course, only as Israelites under the call of God. How natural! how common! They hold to the hope of the people of God though not walking in the suited place of that hope. In power of character and conduct they were. not a dead and risen people but they are one in faith with such. They would declare their alliance with the tribes which were to pass the Jordan though they would remain on the wilderness side of it themselves. They were not, like Lot, a people of mixed principles who deliberately form their lives by something inconsistent with the call of God; but they were a generation who, owning that call and prizing it, and resenting the thought of any hope but what was connected with it, are not in the power of it. Again I say, how common! This is a large generation. We know ourselves too well to wonder at this.

Moses is made uneasy by this movement and he expresses his uneasiness with much decision. He tells this people that they bring to his remembrance the conduct of the spies whom he had sent out years before from Kadesh-barnea, and whose way had discouraged their brethren and occasioned forty years' pilgrimage in the wilderness. There was something so unlike the call of God out of Egypt in the hope of Canaan thus to linger in any part of the road, and Moses resents it. And it is bad when this is produced, when the first instinctive thought of a saint walking in the power of the resurrection of Christ is that of alarm at what he sees in, or hears from, a brother: and yet how common! Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh have to explain themselves and to give fresh pledges that they by no means separate themselves from the fellowship and interests of their brethren; and they do this with zeal and with integrity too. In this they are not like Lot. They would not have taken the eastern Gilead had this been the forfeiture of their identity with those who were going to the western Canaan.

But Moses cannot let them go as Abraham parts with Lot; they are not to be treated in that way. Neither does the judgment of God visit them as it did the unbelieving spies who brought up an evil report of the land. But Moses eyes them and fears for them and has his thoughts anxiously and uneasily occupied about them. What shades of difference do we find in these different illustrations of character! What various textures may we inspect in these woollens and linens! Different classes among the people of God and shades of difference in the same class. We have Abraham and Moses and David; we have Lot and Jonathan and the tribes in Gilead; we have Jehoshaphat and Obadiah — and yet these are the people of God. Sodom was Lot's place, Saul's court was Jonathan's place, and the palace of Ahab was Obadiah's; while Abraham dwelt in a tent, David in a cave of the earth, and Elijah with the provisions of God at the brook Cherith or in the Gentile Sarepta. Here were distances! And so as between Jonathan and others, for Jonathan was (strictly speaking or distinguishing) neither Lot nor Obadiah, though we generally set them together as a class. Neither was Obadiah Lot exactly. And as between Lot, Jonathan and Obadiah on the one side, and Moses, Abraham and Elijah and such like on the other, we see the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh, a generation who will not admit the thought of their separation from the call and the people of God, but who betray in moral action that which is inconsistent with that call.

And this is indeed a common class; nay, this is the common class. (See Num. 32) One's own heart knows it full well. Joshua, who had the spirit of Moses, holds this same people in some fear and suspicion, just as Moses had done before. He calls them to him and he addresses to them a special word of exhortation and warning when the time of action in the camp of God begins. (Joshua 1) Little things of scripture are at times very symptomatic. It is so, I doubt not, in Joshua 1. As to the tribes generally, Joshua has but to say, "Prepare you victuals, for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it." They were free; they were in travelling order; they had but to know the hour of departure. Like Noah all was ready for the voyage into another world and he needed only time to put himself and his family into the vessel. The two tribes and a half were not so equipped in travelling order. They were encumbered, and instinctively, as it were, Joshua acted towards them as towards a heavy baggage in the hour of decamping. He had to challenge them — at least he felt he had — to remind them of their pledges to Israel, for they were not under his eye as if they had been altogether Israel themselves. In measure he is to them what the angel who came to Sodom was to Lot.

So mark this same people again in Joshua 22. The ark had gone over, the feet of the priests bearing it had divided the waters of the Jordan, and the ark had gone over conducting and sheltering the Israel of God; and it is true that Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had gone over too. But Israel and the ark remained there and the two tribes and a half return, return to settle where their brethren had but wandered; return to present this questionable and strange sight: Israelites finding their place and their interests outside the natural boundary of their promised inheritance, finding a home where the ark had never rested.

Ere they set out on the return Joshua seems to feel this and specially warns and exhorts them; and as soon as they make the passage and but touch the place which they had chosen they begin to feel it also. They are not quite at ease in their souls, and they raise an altar. This is full of language in our ears. An Israelite in the land of Gilead at this living day of ours understands it.

Jehoshaphat was after this manner uneasy when he found himself on the throne with Ahab, and under the pressure of that uneasiness (which attends on the heart of a trite Israelite in an uncircumcised place) he asks for a prophet of the Lord. This is the language of the renewed mind in a foreign land. The two tribes and a half raise an altar and call it "Ed." It was a witness, as they purposed, of this: that Israel's God was their God; that they had part in the hopes and calling of the Israel of God. But why all this? Had they taken up their portion in they would not have needed this: they would have had the original and not a reflection. Their souls would have had the witness within, and "Ed" would not have been needed without. But they were not in Canaan but in Gilead. Shiloh was not in view and they had to give themselves some artificial, some secondary help, to prop up their confidence by some crutch of their own devising, that it might be known that, they and the Israel of God were one.

All this is full of meaning and is much experienced to this day. Some witness of what we are and who we are as saints is craved by the soul and called for by others when we get into a position in the world with which the call of God does not fully combine. Some artificial or secondary testimony is felt desirable; the countenance or acceptance of others, the examination of our own personal condition, with many a restless action of the soul, reasonings with ourselves about it all, remembrances of better days invoked now and again. Something of this secondary character like the altar at Ed is needed where the soul is not fully simple and faithful: all this is still known, and all this I judge is the writing on this pillar in the land of Gilead. Lot's wife, the pillar of salt, has a writing upon it which the divine Master Himself has deciphered for us; and I doubt not the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, would have us under His anointing read and learn the writing on this pillar which Israelites outside the natural bounds of the promised inheritance once reared. It may warn our souls, if we love quietness and assurance of heart and deep peace of soul, not to return and find a settlement where the church of God has duly found a pilgrimage. Does my soul read this writing Every heart knows its own humiliation. These disturbances of spirit, this demand of Jehoshaphat fort prophet of Jehovah, this altar of Ed, witness both for and against us. They bespeak the saintly or renewed mind, but they bespeak it in such conditions, such exercises and experiences, as a more single-eyed and full-hearted love to Christ would have spared it.

Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh are challenged a second time. Joshua and the tribes in Canaan have to challenge them now as Moses had to do before. Their altar in Gilead awakens suspicions now as their desire to settle in Gilead had awakened suspicions then. This is all natural and common, and all symptomatic. Saints in Gilead are not such as "make their calling and election sure" to the hearts of their brethren, at least without some inquiry.

A great stir is made among the tribes who were now in Canaan and within the conscious possession of Shiloh and of God's tabernacle there, and an embassage is formed to inquire into this matter. Something, they know not what, struck their eye which appeared to be at variance with the common call of Israel: and it must at least be explained. What a living picture this is. We are surely at home in such a spot as this and know the customs of the place. I believe the apostle in the Epistles to the Corinthians is very much. in the New Testament form, a Phinehas, a son of Eleazar the priest, crossing the river to inquire after the pillar in the land of Gilead. There were things at Corinth which alarmed Paul, symptoms of sad departure from the common call of the heavenly saints. They seemed to be "among the princes of this world," to be "reigning as kings on the earth." His ministry in the meekness and gentleness of Christ was getting to be despised and others were getting to be valued because of their place and advantages in the world. The way of the schools, the way of wisdom of men, was regaining its authority, and saints seemed as though they were returning to settle where the church was to be but an unknown stranger. In the zeal of Joshua 22 Paul crosses the river, and whatever the discovery may be the action is a painful one and the need of it a scandal in the history of the church. The tribes of Gilead may satisfy Phinehas and his brethren more than the Corinthian saints satisfy the apostles; all such differences and varieties in the conditions of the people of God are known at this hour, but there is this common sorrow and humbling that the calling and election is not made sure, and we have either to take journeys or to occasion journeys that our ways, our Ed, our altars, our pillars, the bleating of our flocks in the plains of Gilead, may be inspected and inquired after instead of our resting and feeding together, and together gathering around and learning the secrets of the tabernacle and altar at Shiloh."

In the New Testament the church at Corinth was the Israelite on the wilderness side of the river. The apostle's fears respecting the saints there were not respecting Judaising influences; nor were they on account of the working of liberty of thought and infidel speculations, at least at the time of the second epistle; nor were they respecting the turning of grace into lasciviousness. These fears occupy the mind of the Spirit in addressing other saints and churches: but at Corinth it was worldliness that was dreaded. A certain man appears to have gained attention from the saints there; he was one who had, both from nature and from circumstances, something to attract the mere worldly heart of man. He was, I believe, as modern language speaks, a gentleman. He had a fine person and an independent fortune, and the Corinthian saints had evidently to a great extent got under his influence. To some extent they were beguiled. They had begun to look on things after the outward appearance; they were suffering a man to vaunt himself and to take occasion to be somebody among them, simply from the advantage he had from nature and from circumstances.

Such a bad condition of things the apostle had to withstand. Affection and confidence towards himself had been withdrawn in measure because he had no such advantages to boast which they were thus beginning to prize. And surely he was purposed not to affect such things at all, And though he had certain things "in the flesh" of which he might glory, still he would glory rather in his infirmities. He would be "weak in Christ." The natural or worldly advantages which this man had and used among the saints our apostle exposed, as Moses would expose the woollen and linen garment or other mixtures. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," says he to the saints now, as Moses had said of old to Israel, "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together." But Paul himself was not thus yoked and clothed; indeed he was not. He was, among the foremost of the tribe of Judah in crossing the river.

Surely I may say all these things illustrate profitable lessons for us. We are not to be mixed up with that from which the call of God separates us; we are not to wear the garment of divers sorts. But if we refuse it and put on only the pure clothing, take the place and be found in the connection to which the call of God leads, we are to be there with a girded as well as with an unmixed garment, and to watch, too, that it be unspotted. The world is that, not to the improvement of which Christ calls us, but to separation from which He calls us. But if, beloved, in form we take the separated place, let us seek the grace and the power which alone can adorn and furnish that place for the Lord!

And such is the character of the hour we are now passing through. The god and prince of this world is allowing the citizens to sweep and garnish his house, and they are led to flatter themselves that it is by no means the same house that it once was. But this delusion is solemn; it is as much the home of the unclean spirit as ever it was, and only the more suitable for him because it is swept and garnished, and ere long he will use all these operations of the citizens for his final and most awful purposes. "He that gathereth not with me scattereth." Is our labour according to the purpose of Christ? Is it by the rule of His weights and measures? If it be not, though we may labour in His name we are but doing what the enemy will soon turn to his own account. In the parable the sweeping and the garnishing turn out at the last to have been all for the unclean spirit to whom the house as much belonged as ever it did, though it be true he had left it for a season. Whatever is done for the improvement of the house is done for the master of the house, and Satan is the god of the world as much as ever he was, and will be till the judgment of it by the Rider on the white horse takes place.

The lengthened peace of the nations which Europe so long and till lately enjoyed gave abundant occasion to the sweeping and garnishing  of the house. In man's way the sword  was turned into a ploughshare. The earth and its resources, man and. his skill, have been produced and cultivated beyond all that ever was known, and the house looks different from what it was now that it is under these cleansing and ornamenting labours of its servants. Advancement in letters, morals, refinement, and religion is immense; peace societies, temperance societies, literature for the million, and music for the million, with the general confederacy of the nations, loudly tell all this, as do the boasts in the age which are heard every hour. But this diligence is according to the mind of the real master of the house, or the god of this world. This is serious truth: "He that gathereth not with me scattereth." This is a serious word: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." It is confusion. It is the illicit weaving of woollen and linen together. But, beloved, while one says this, the heart owns it and would be humbled by the confession of it, that many a dear, honest-hearted servant of Christ who is labouring with a mistaken purpose, and working (not by the weights and measures that are according to the standard of the sanctuary) with a true affection and zeal, may be before others of us who have clearly discerned their mistake.

I dread indifference more than mixture. I would shun Laodicea more than Sardis. May we learn the lesson in both its features — Sardis, with its religious bustle which gave it a name to live, will not do: Laodicea, with its selfish, cold-hearted ease and satisfaction, will not do. Let us be diligent but in pure service; occupying talents but occupying them for a rejected Master; looking for nothing from the world that has cast Him out, but counting on everything in His own presence by-and-by.

FAMILY CHARACTER AND FAMILY RELIGION.

FAMILY CHARACTER.

(Gen. 11: 28)

THERE was, as we know, a day of visitation of the house of Terah. The family of Shem had become very corrupt, and in the days of Terah, the sixth or seventh from Shem, they were serving false gods. But the power of the Spirit and the call of the God of glory visited the ear and the heart of Abram, the son of Terah, and separated him from that corruption.

We also know that a godly influence extended itself from this in the family. Terah the father, Sarah the wife, and Lot the nephew join Abram in this, and they all leave the land of Mesopotamia together.

Nahor, however, another of Terah's sons, did not come within this influence. He was comfortably settled at home with his wife, and at home they remained, when Terah, Abram, Sarah, and Lot took their departure from the land of their fathers. (Chap. 11)

This is to be much observed, for the like of it we may witness every day. One of the family becomes the first subject of divine power, and then family religion, or the knowledge of the Lord Jesus in the household. spreads itself, but some remain uninfluenced.

Of course we know that each quickened soul must be equally the object of the hidden effectual drawings and teachings of the Father. (See John 6: 44, 45.) But I speak of the history or manifested character of the scene. And, as we have seen in the history of this household, Nahor remains unmoved in this day of visitation. He and his wife continue in Mesopotamia, and they thrive there. Children are born to them; goods and property increase. They pursue an easy and respectable journey across the world; but they do not grow in the knowledge of God, and bear no testimony, or at least small and indistinct testimony to His name.

The character of Nahor's family was thus formed. They were not in gross darkness like the people of Canaan, descendants of Ham, among whom Abram had now gone to sojourn. They had a measure of light derived from their connection with Terah and Abram, and as descendants of Shem; but all that was sadly dimmed by the cherished principles, of the world from which they had refused to separate themselves. And a family character and standing were thus formed.

This is serious — and all the principle of this is of daily occurrence among us, and of constant application to our consciences.

We lose sight of this family for a time altogether, for of course they are not the direct object of the Spirit's notice, but being connected with Abram may naturally come within view; and accordingly, in process of time, tidings about them do reach Abram in the distant place of his pilgrimage. (Gen. 22)

Bethuel was the son of Nahor — one of his many sons rather, and the one most brought into view. He had flourished in the world, and though perhaps a man of little energy or character himself, had a son named Laban, who most evidently knew how to manage his affairs exceedingly well, and to advance himself and all who belonged to him very advantageously in life. He seems, as we say, to have known the value of Money; for the sight of gold could open his mouth with a very hearty and religious welcome even to a stranger. (Gen. 24) Here, however, we reach a period in the history of this family which is chiefly to be considered.

A fresh energy of the Spirit is about to visit it. As I have already observed, this family is not in the gross darkness of the Canaanites, nor in the simple idolatrous condition of Terah's house (see Joshua 24), we may assume, when the God of glory called Abram. They had been brought into a certain measure of light, and within a certain standing by profession as Abram's act and word seemed to allow. (Gen. 24: 4) But this being so, this being a professing household in some sense apart from the dark state of the men of the world, it becomes serious to notice the nature of that visitation which the Spirit makes to it, for it will be found to be a separating power or visitation. As the call of the God of glory had before disturbed the state of things in Terah's house, so now the mission of Eliezer disturbed the state of things in Bethuel's house: Abram had then been separated from home and kindred, and so is Rebecca now to be, all this leaving behind it this serious impression, that a respectable professing family may need to be visited by the very same energy of the Spirit as a more worldly or idolatrous family.

This is a serious thought. It is a disturbing or separating power of God which now comes into this family, and not simply a comforting or edifying power. This has meaning, I believe. The ministry of Eliezer, God's servant as well as Abram's, came to Bethuel's house to draw Rebecca out of it, and to lead on that very journey which, two  generations before, the call of the God of glory had borne Abram. I do indeed judge that there is a lesson in this which is much to be pondered. A professing decent family have to be aroused, and a fresh act of separation produced in the midst of it.

But there is another lesson in the history still.

Rebecca, we know, comes forth at this call. But her character has been already formed, as it is with us all, more or less, before we are converted. The moment of quickening arrives. The separating call and power of the Lord is answered. But it finds us of a certain character, a certain shape and complexion of mind. It finds us, it may be Cretians (Titus 1), or brothers and sisters of Laban, or the like, and the "Cretians are always liars." Character and mind derived from nature, from education, or from family habits, we shall take with us, after we have been born of the Spirit, and carry it in us across the desert from Mesopotamia to the house of Abram.

This too is serious. It is serious, as I observed before, that a respectable professing family is visited by a separating, and not merely by an edifying, energy of the Spirit; and it is serious, as I now have been tracing that, with the quickening or converting power of the Spirit, nature, or the force of early habits and education, or of family character, will cling still. And these serious lessons the story of Rebecca reads to us.

For I need only briefly speak of what her way was in the further stages of it. It is a well-known story among us, and well known too as very sadly betraying what we may call the family character. Laban, her brother with whom she had grown up and who was evidently the active stirring one in his father's house, was a subtle, knowing, worldly man. And the only great action in which Rebecca was called to take part gives occasion to her exercising the same principles. In the procuring of. the blessing for her son Jacob we see this Laban — leaven working mightily. The family character sadly breaks out then. The readiness of nature to act and take its way shows itself very busily. A mind she had too little accustomed to repose in the sufficiency of God, and too much addicted to calculate and to lean its hopes on its own inventions.

What have we to do then but to watch against the peculiar tendency and habit of our own mind — to rebuke nature sharply, that we may be sound or morally healthful in the faith (Titus 1: 3); not to excuse it because it is nature, but rather the more to suspect it therefore, and to mortify it for His sake who has given us another nature.

These lessons we get from the story of this distinguished woman. Beyond this her way is not much tracked by the Spirit. Was it that He was grieved with her and leaves her unnoticed? At any rate she reaps nothing but disappointment from the seed she had sown. No good comes of her schemes and contrivances, but the reverse. She loses her favourite, Jacob, and never sees him after the long exile to which her own schemes and contrivances had ended in sending him.

But there is this further to tell: Jacob got his mind formed by the same earliest influence. He was all his days a slow-hearted, calculating man. His plan in getting the birthright first and then the blessing; his confidence in his own arrangements, rather than in the Lord's promise, when he met his brother Esau; and his lingering at Shechem, and settling there instead of pursuing a pilgrim's life through the land like his fathers: all this betrays nature and the working of the old family character.

What need have we to watch the early seed sown in the heart — yea, and to watch the early or late seed which we are helping to sow in others' hearts! For the fuller details of this history warn us of such things still.

The birth of Esau and Jacob is given us at the close of Genesis 25, and as they grow up to be boys, occasion arises to let us look in at the family scene; but it is, as we shall find, truly humbling.

This was one of the families of God then on the earth, nay, by far the most distinguished, where lay the hopes of all blessing to the whole earth, and where the Lord, eminently above all, had recorded His name.

But what do we see? Isaac the father had dropped into the stream of human desires; he loved his son Esau because he ate of his venison! We need not Atop to consider Esau himself. As a child of the family he was entitled to the care and provision of the house — that is most true — and Isaac and Rebecca should surely have given him all that, together with their parental love and diligence; but for Isaac to make him his favourite because he ate of his venison, this was sad and evil indeed. Even in this, however, do we not see some further illustration of our subject? Isaac had been reared tenderly. He had never been away from the side of his mother, the child of whose old age he was. But his education perhaps had relaxed him too much, and he appears before us as a soft and self-indulgent man.

But, oh, what sad mischief, what grievous defilement, opens here to our view in all this family scene! Are we saying too much, that one parent was helping to comfort one of the children and the other the other? Indeed there is something like it here, and ground for fears so terrible. Isaac's love of venison may have encouraged Esau in the chase, as Rebecca's cleverness, got and brought from her brother's house in Paran, seems to have formed the mind and character of her favourite Jacob.

Oh, what sorrow and cause of humiliation is here! Is this a household of faith? Is this a God-fearing family? Yes. Children of promise and heirs of His kingdom are these: Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob. Looked at in other actions they would delight and edify you. See Isaac in the greater part of Genesis 26, and his conduct is beautiful, altogether worthy of a heavenly stranger on the earth: suffering, he threatens not, but commits himself to Him who judges righteously. He suffers, and takes it patiently; and his altar and his tent witness his holy, unearthly character. So see Rebecca in Genesis 24. In faith she consents to cross the desert alone with a stranger, because her heart was set upon the heir of the promises, leaving home and kindred, forgetting her father and her father's house. But here looked at (in Gen. 27), what shame fills the scene, and how should we blush and be confounded that heirs of promise and children of God could so carry themselves!

But shall we go on to expose this even more? I feel that I could; for the heart is not only base and corrupt, but it is so daring also as to take its naughtiness even into the sanctuary, as the close of this story shows me.

The word to Aaron, long after this, was, "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation." (Lev. 10: 9) For nature was not to be animated in order to wait on the service of God; nature was not to be raised, or set in action, by its own proper food, for the fulfilling of the duties of the sanctuary; strong drink might exhilarate and give ebullition to animal spirits, but this was not the qualification of a priest.

But even into such a mischief as this, Isaac seems to have been betrayed. "Take, I pray thee," said he to Esau, "thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; and make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die." He was going to do the last religious act of a patriarchal priest, and he calls as for wine and strong drink, the food of mere nature, to animate and fill him for the service of the temple! Terrible abomination! "Whose god is their belly," it might be almost said, thus to deliberate on the venison. We may all be conscious how much of nature soils our holy things, how much of the excitement of the flesh may be mistaken for the easy and strong current of the Spirit. We may be aware of this in the places of communion, but this is to be our sorrow; we confess it as evil, and weakness, and watch against it; but to prepare for this, thus carefully to mix the wine and the strong drink, thus advisedly to take a hearty draught after this manner — surely this is sad abomination!

We all know full well the guile that Rebecca and Jacob practised in this scene. I need not rehearse it. As I have said before, it is a well-known story. But the holiness of the Lord consumes every bit of all this. Nothing comes of this subtlety and fleshliness. The holiness of the Lord lays it all in ashes. Isaac loses his Esau, Rebecca never sees Jacob again, for her promised few days were an exile of twenty years, and the calculating supplanter finds himself in the midst of toils and an alien from his father's house for that long and dreary season. Nothing comes of all this, whether we look at the carnal policy of the one party or the fleshly favouritism of the other: all is disappointment, and rebuked by the holiness of the Lord.

Serious, but most precious lesson! Precious surely it is to see the Lord thus resenting the uncleanness of even His dearest, choicest servants.

But it remains for us to see grace assuming its high, triumphant place and attitude. Its holiness is established thus by the Lord with great decision, setting aside all advantages which sin had promised itself, and then grace reigns.

In the great mystery of redemption, grace takes its triumphant, place in the promise that the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head; but there is also the full execution of all the decrees of holiness against the sin — for death came in as was threatened, and penalties fell on the man, and on the woman, and a curse upon the serpent. So here: Isaac loses his purpose touching Esau, Rebecca has to part with Jacob, and Jacob himself, instead of getting in his own way the birthright and the blessing, has to go forth a penniless exile from the place of his inheritance, and the scene of all his promised enjoyments. For the only wages of sin is death. But then grace takes its high place and bearing. Way is made for it, by all this burning holiness, to ascend its throne, and there it shines, delighting in the splendour of its own glory. (Gen. 38)

And it is glorious. Even the misery to which his sin had reduced the object of all this grace only sets off its glory. When even the servant of the house had of old gone forth on a like errand (Gen. 24) he had his camels and attendants, and all entertainment to make his journey across this very desert honourable and pleasant. But now the son and heir, the promised bridegroom himself, for whom the honour of the house and the joys of the marriage were preparing, has to lie down alone, unfriended, uncared-for, unsheltered, the stones of the place his only pillow. But grace, which turns the shadow of death into the morning, is preparing a glorious rest for him; he listens to the voice of wondrous love, and he is shown worlds of light in this place of solitude and darkness. He dreams, and sees the high heavens linked with that very dark and barren spot on which he then lay, and with unwearied feet the heavenly people keeping up the happy intercourse; and he hears the Lord of heaven Himself, at the top of this mystic scene, speaking to him in words of promise, and of promise only. He sees himself, though so erring, so poor, and so vile, thus associated with an all-pervading glory, and heirs of his own present mercies, and consolations, till all this glory were ready to appear. The holiness of grace still leaves him a wanderer; but the riches of grace will tell him of present consolation and of future sure glories. And this is surely so. But it has borne me a little beyond my immediate subject.

There is then such a thing as family character; and the recollection of this, when we are dealing with ourselves, should make us watchful and jealous, over all our peculiar habits and tendencies; and when we are dealing with others should make us considerate and of an interceding spirit., disposing us to plead this fact that there is family character, or force of early habit and education, working more or less in all of us.

The remembrance of this may in these ways be healthful. But I would not forget to add, that if we are more than likely to gather a certain character from the family, or the habits with which birth and character have already connected us, so are we debtors to exhibit that character with which our birth and education in the heavenly family have since connected us.

In John 8 the Lord reasons upon this ground that our sonship or birth, or family connections,, is to be determined by our character or doings. "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." This He says, and more of the same kind. And thus we see the necessity of our bearing the family character.

But we are exhorted also to the same thing  -  to take after our Father, as we might say. In the cultivation of all charities and unselfish, unrequited kindness, the Lord says, "Be ye perfect"; and the apostle takes up the same thought in pressing the duty of love and forgiveness, "Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children."

Oh then that we may be set on the cultivation of family character! let the old man go down in us, and the new man rise and assert his place in us! let the character, be it what it may, which we have gathered from natural ties or natural habits be watched against; and the character of our heavenly birth be cherished and expressed to His praise who has begotten us again as alive to and with Himself from the death in which we lay.

FAMILY RELIGION.

(GEN. 10)

THIS is a history which will be found, I believe, to suggest much occasion for the searching of the heart. I desire grace to handle it wisely and to profit.

Shem, among the sons of Noah, was the sacred branch. Religion was connected with him rather than with his brothers, and from him came the separated people.

In the progress of a few generations, however, this religious family became corrupt; for in less than three hundred years, and we know not how much earlier, we find them serving other gods. (Joshua 24: 2)

This is a common history even to this day. Families as well as churches are seen in a sadly degenerate and corrupt condition, though once they were known for their zeal and service.

The Spirit of God, however, in the sovereignty of grace, visits a son of Terah, who was removed eight generations from Shem. The call of the God of glory came to Abram and separated him from those corruptions, and from country, and from kindred, and from father's house, to fashion him as a new piece of workmanship for the Lord. (Acts 7: 2)

Abram, it appears, made this call known to his family, and as is often seen to this. day among ourselves, this communication has a certain influence among them. Family religion springs from this. The power of the gospel is known at first by one member, and from thence it spreads. And the Lord would have it so. It is a bad symptom, as we may see presently, where this does not take place.

So here. Terah the father gets ready. Nahor, one of his sons, from the whole narrative, we may presume, was not much under this influence; for he, his wife, and children, all abide where they were. But Abram and Abram's wife, and Lot, the son of Terah's deceased son Haran, set out on the divinely appointed journey, and Terah the father apparently takes the lead. (Gen. 11)

But ere I go farther with this narrative I would ask, was all this entirely right on Abram's part? The call had been to him. On him the energy of the Spirit had come. Within the range of that energy or influence the family, it is true, may be brought; but still, did it not belong to Abram to fill that place which this energy had manifestly assigned him? Was there not some conferring with flesh and blood on Abram's part ere Terah could have been allowed to take the lead in this great movement under the Spirit of God? There may have been. And I rather judge that there was, and that this has to account for the delay at Haran and for the death of Terah there, and for the putting forth of a second energy from the Lord in calling Abram from Haran. (Gen. 11: 31 - 12: 1)

This is all admonitory to us. Family religion is beautiful; but family order or human claims are not to assume the rights of the Spirit. Beautiful to see Cornelius, or any other in like circumstances, bringing his friends and kindred within that influence which was visiting his house; but if flesh and blood, or human relationship, disturb the sovereign progress of the Spirit, we may expect a halt at Haran or at the half-way house again, and the need of a second call (in some sense a second) to set the soul in the path of God afresh.

We may mark and distinguish these things for profit and admonition. However, under this renewed energy of the Spirit Abram renews his journey, and Sarah his wife and Lot his orphan nephew accompany him. It is a scene of family religion still And in Lot we see one who was within the verge of the general or family influence. We read of no distinct call on him, or of any sacrifice from him. Not, that, he represents a mere professor, or one who attaches himself for some end to the people of God. No; he was a righteous man and had a living soul that could be and was vexed with the wickedness of the wicked. (2 Peter 2) But his entrance into the household of faith expresses no energy. It was effected in a family way, as I have been observing — as a thousand cases in our own day. And good such things are. Happy when Sarah the wife, or Terah the father, or Lot the nephew, of these latter days will go along with our Abrams. This would not be, we know, without the drawing and teaching of the Father. And Lot was as surely an elect one as Abram. But the energy of the call of God is not manifested in him as in Abram — distinctions which we cannot fail to mark continually. It was a personal thing characteristically with Abram; it was a family thing characteristically with Lot. And according to all this, in the very first scene in which Lot was called to act in an independent way we see his weakness.

Abram gives him the choice of the land. And he makes a choice. Now it is not merely in his choosing the goodliest that our hearts condemn him, but in his making a choice at all. In every respect Abram had title to have the first choice, as we speak. He was the elder both in years and relationship He was principal in all that action which had drawn them to this distant land, and Lot was but, as it were, attached to him. He was noble and generous in surrendering his right to his younger. But Lot was insensible to all this, and he undertakes to make the choice, and then (naturally in the course of such a beginning) he chooses on an entirely worldly principle. He takes the well-watered plain for his flocks and his herds, though that took himself near the defiled city. (Gen. 13)

This first trial of Lot is thus a painful witness against him. It argues the weakness in which faith or the kingdom of God had been brought forth in his soul. Abram's way was very different, for the voice of the God of glory had been powerfully heard by him, detaching him from that world to which Lot was still adhering. And all this has language in our ears.

It is soon discovered what a disappointing world Lot was choosing; The well-watered plain soon becomes a field of battle; and had it not been for Abram, or Abram's God, Lot would have lost his liberty there and all his. possessions.

But it is still more sad to have to tell it, that this first disappointment does not free his heart from its unholy attachment. He takes up Sodom a second time till he is forced to remove by the hand of God Himself. If when the watered plain became a field of slaughter Lot refused to learn its character and to leave it, he shall learn it by its becoming burning heaps in the day of the Lord.

Melancholy catastrophe! shameful end of an earthly-minded believer! What a voice for us all this has! Here, was a saving so as by fire, a running out of a house in flames, an inglorious departure from the world! We may lay the admonition to heart and watch against the first look toward the watered plains of Sodom. (Gen. 14 - 19)

In the whole of this, indeed, we get great lessons, whether of comfort or of warning. It tells us that family religion is a beautiful thing, and that true godliness may begin in that way as in Abram's house. But it admonishes us that each one in the scene should take good care to cultivate the power of godliness in a very personal way, lest our religion betray the weakness of a mere general or family influence, and in a little season leave not a trace behind it.

Under Abram family religion, as I was observing, did spread, but not under Lot; for his wife continued with the mind of Sodom in her and is made a beacon-light to warn passengers on their way to this hour. His two daughters defile themselves and become the parents of two such corrupt seeds as are denied, under special prohibition (Deut. 23: 2), any place in God's house; and his sons-in-law, when he spoke to them of judgment, profanely thought that he was a trifler or a fool.

Here surely is serious matter for our souls to deal with! If our religion or profession of Christ have sprung up under the influence of a family atmosphere, we have warning here to watch and cultivate a deep and personal power of godliness, in holy fear and suspicion of the weakness of the root of such a plant.

But again, if our profession of Christ have not more or less, as in the case of Abram, spread an influence in the family, we have great reason to be humbled and to fear that it is so because like Lot we have not in our own persons exhibited faith in its separating and victorious power.

Lessons of serious and holy importance on the subject of family religion are in that way read to us by this little history. It tells us, as I have said, that we ought to be the means of spreading it, but that if we ourselves are the subject of its influence, we should watch specially as those who have special reason to suspect their weakness. For it is equally said by the same perfect, unerring Spirit, "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have. rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another "; and again, "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Family religion is thus honoured by the Lord, but the thorough and the personal power of it is also assisted. The fathers to the children are to make known the truth (Isa. 38), but each man must be born again or he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Beautiful to see the "unfeigned faith dwelling in one generation after another of the same family, as in the grandmother Lois, the mother Eunice, and the child Timothy; but it is beautiful also to read in the third of those family generations the tears and the affections which draw up the full persuasions that their religion is not imitative or educational, or the mere catching of a family influence, but the precious inwrought power of a kingdom which God Himself has set up in the soul.

"What we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, we will not hide from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done." (Ps. 78: 3, 4)

J. G. B.

London. G. MORRISH, 20, Paternoster Square, E.C.

Answers to Objections

Answers to Objections.

J. G. Bellett.

(From Manchester Tracts Vol. 2 p. 35. given as Part 2 of No. 88 'On the Return of the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven to meet His Saints in the Air.' Part 1 being 'The Church at Thessalonica.')

"The important thing is having Jesus in the glory as our hope; a very subordinate thing, the question when shall we be in the glory with Him. If anyone's teaching made the saints value Jesus as their hope less, it would be sufficient to show their teaching to be faulty. But if it be only to the effect of making them think the time when they shall be in the glory farther off than they supposed, I have nothing to say. Those who have such a hope ought to be able to wait."

Fully do I consent to these words of a brother much loved in the Lord; and though I may go a little into details on the subject, nothing I trust may at all arise to contend with this judgment. But some have judged that inquiry into these details has been evaded, or at least that the word of God concerning them has been treated carelessly, and confidence upon this ground ought not to be lightly shaken.

For though it may be true that, in the progress of our thoughts upon them, haste has been betrayed, and conclusions have either been assumed unguardedly, asserted too strongly, or adopted merely from the teaching of others, yet the sole and supreme authority of Scripture has been (at least intentionally) upheld, and not a jot or tittle of it treated with a wilfully careless mind. This indeed we would say, and seek for happy common confidence herein. But let me add what I believe is very important also, that while Scripture alone is to form all our thoughts, it is also to give to our minds the relative place and proportion of the different branches, if I may so speak, of divine knowledge. As to the knowledge then of prophetic truth, it is, like every other branch, to have only its due measure of importance given to it.

And upon this I would observe, that when in the course of his teaching St. Paul comes to touch upon it he merely says, "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant" (Rom. 11); a style surely which he would not and could not have used had he been about to propound some of the essential parts of gospel or saving truth. But not only is its proportionate value to be thus considered, but also seasonableness in the pursuit of this knowledge. The intercourse of the Lord with Nicodemus shows us this; for the Lord would not meet his inquiry or desire after heavenly mysteries till the state of his own soul was called into question and settled. Paul's treatment of the Corinthians intimates the same; for he would not feed them, as they were carnal and walking as men, with that hidden wisdom which was seasonable only for the perfect (1 Cor. 2: 3).

And again, I observe that there is to be a measure in our expectations about this knowledge; for it is told us that our present knowledge, compared with what it shall be, is that of mere childhood; that we know only in part, and see as through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13). And Peter intimates the same. For while he speaks of the prophetic word as a light or a lamp, he gives us to know that the lamp does not shed the morning, for the day-dawn is to spring in another season* (2 Peter 1). And it is morally important to remember that our expectations are to be thus measured, for it will help us to a lowly mind, and rebuke a spirit of authority and self-complacency.

*[I doubt that this is Peter's meaning, but rather the value of the prophetic word allowed while the superiority of the heavenly hope is asserted — ED.]

But then I fully grant the value of prophetic knowledge. It has been again and again used to verify the claims of Jesus, and affirm our holy faith. It is of use to nourish right affections and a godly mind. It feeds our hopes. It secures us (under the Holy Ghost) against the working of Satan and his deceits; it prepares us for the opening circumstances of the world, so that we may not be surprised by them; and it teaches us something of our dignity, as saints, by letting us see how the Lord entrusts us with His secrets, and brings us into greater nearness to Himself.

These are among the blessings to our souls which attach to this knowledge. And if I hint at the measure of importance to be given to it, the expectations to be indulged respecting it, or that there is to be a season for pursuing it, I am not daring for a moment to discourage it: that would be the enemy's work. It was the communicator of prophetic light whom "the prince of the kingdom of Persia" would have kept from Daniel (Dan. 10).

And let me say that a habit of thoughtful reading of every passage I would also cultivate.

But there may be error on the one side as well as on the other. If the imaginative tendency of some minds is to be watched, so has the literal or exact method of others. It was an error of too much exactness in interpretation to say, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" because Jesus had been speaking of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. It was an error of too much liberty in interpretation to say, "that disciple should not die," because Jesus had said, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" This is so, I believe; but I pass it, desiring now. in the first place, to notice the principal Scriptures, on the authority of which it is judged by many that we should give up the hope that the Lord may return from heaven to meet the saints in the air at any time, or the thought that the moment of that return is not made necessarily dependent on events not yet transpired; and then, secondly, though briefly, to notice the grounds on which that thought rests. May we all he conscious, in handling the precious things of God, that we have no credit of our own to sustain and no opinions of our own to promote! May we tremble at His word as well as rejoice in it, surrender our minds to it through the Spirit, and seek the profit and joy of all the saints! And may the Spirit who dwells in us keep our hearts in holy charity and like-mindedness continually!

Psalm 110: 1 — It has been said that this passage forbids the thought that the Lord Jesus can leave His present seat in heaven till all the earth is put in readiness for His treading down His enemies, and executing vengeance on the matured wickedness or lawlessness of the world.

If this be just interpretation, surely I must grant that this Scripture witnesses against the thought that nothing now hinders the Lord's return from heaven to meet the saints in the air. But we must patiently consider it, and in doing so I think I have the warrant of Scripture itself for more than questioning this. And here let me say, or rather remember, what all of us would readily admit, that Scripture must always be read in the light of Scripture: in other words we must act on this principle "it is written again." The Lord Jesus, when tempted, did not answer the tempter by telling him that he had not quoted Scripture exactly, but by saying that there were other Scriptures, to be listened to also. The latter light must be consulted (see 1 Cor. 5: 9, 10). As to this very distinguished verse in Ps. 110, the inquiry is — does this language hinder the Lord leaving the seat He then took till the moment of His exercising the power here pledged to Him? It teaches us that His next action In the earth shall be that of taking vengeance; but does it teach us that He is to do nothing in heaven till then but sit on the right hand of God? I believe not, for two reasons drawn from the light of other words of God.

1. The word the Holy Ghost is commenting on is το λοιπόν "from henceforth," and not ἐκεῖ "there" (Heb. 10: 12, 13). That is, we are told that all along the time till the promise be made good He would be expecting; but we are not told that He would be seated in His then place while thus expecting.

2. In entire accordance with this suggestion, which we get from this passage, we find that His sitting has been interrupted; for Stephen saw Him standing (Acts 7), and John saw Him walking among the candlesticks in Asia, taking a book, descending to set His foot on sea and land, and then standing on Mount Zion with 144,000 (Rev. 1, 5, 10, 14). This is all consistent. And if He come to meet His saints in the air, there will be no more violence done (Psalm 110: 1), than when He filled those actions which Stephen and John witnessed. So that, rightly to interpret that inspired verse (Ps. 110: 1), I get two inspired commentaries. I get Heb. 10: 13, which leads me to know that His present expectation is not linked with His sitting, but simply with the interval from the time of the promise to its accomplishment; and I get such passages as Acts 7: 56, which lead me to see that His sitting has been interrupted.

All this is very simple, as I judge; but the passage is so full of meaning and value to our souls that it invites and will excuse a further meditation.

The death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ are spoken of under two very distinct characters, or looked at in two different lights.

1. The death is treated of as that of the Lamb of God for us sinners, inflicted by the righteous gracious hand of God Himself, accomplishing the remission of our sins. The resurrection is treated of as flowing from such a death, and furthering the ends of blessing to us; and so is the ascension (see Rom. 4: 25, Rom. 8: 34; Heb. 8: 1).

2. The death is also considered as having been endured at the hand of man, his wickedness and unmixed enmity to God. In such character, the Lord continually anticipates His death, and speaks of it in the gospel (see Matt. 16, 17, 20; Mark 8, 9, 10; Luke 9, 18). His resurrection is also spoken of in each of those passages, and is anticipated no doubt in harmony with this character of His death, and, therefore, not as resurrection for our blessing as sinners, but for His vindication as wronged and rejected by man (see also Acts 17: 31). And so also as to His ascension. As the death was at the hand of wicked men, and as the, resurrection was a vindication of Jesus, so the ascension was the exaltation of Jesus in order to capacitate Him, so to speak, to execute the judgment upon wicked man. The figure of the stone made the head of the corner in heaven, for the purpose of falling and grinding the enemy to powder, sets forth this truth (see Matt. 21).

Now Ps. 110: 1 is the same. It is Jehovah welcoming Christ, after His rejection here, to heaven, promising Him rest in that bright and holy place, that place of all honour and power, till the due season come for His putting His enemies as the footstool for His feet. And on the ground of this solemn truth, Peter warns the whole house of Israel to take care how they still reject Jesus (Acts 2: 36); as Jesus afterwards warns Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9: 5). The ascension of the Lord is thus noticed in Ps. 110: 1. Jehovah undertakes to maintain Jesus in the place of honour and power till the day of public vindication and vengeance come. This is the view of the great fact of the ascension given there. It is not looked at as for the saints, but as against the world. It is Jesus, exalted in defiance of man, and not in behalf of sinners; and it does not hinder His acting for His people, or His sympathy with them. That word could suffer no wrong — His present vindication, in defiance of His enemies, will suffer no abatement by Jesus rising from His seat at the right hand of God, either at the martyrdom of Stephen, or His coming down to meet Saul on the road to Damascus, or to meet His ascending saints in the air, or being present at the celebration of His own marriage supper; though such acts might take place before His enemies be made his footstool. His washing His disciples' feet, and preparing mansions for them in the Father's house, even now, are not at variance with His constant session at the right hand of God in the real divine sense of Psalm 110: 1. Hebrews 10: 13, shows us the affection with which the Lord Jesus seated Himself in this appointed place of honour and power, or (to speak of the manner of men) how He understood the words of Jehovah in Psalm 110: 1. He heard them as a promise of vengeance upon His enemies, and expected accordingly. He did not know the time, but He did the truth of the promise; and He therefore expected, and would expect: be the time long or short, He was kept by it in prospect of the day of vengeance. This, I must say, forbids our impressing such a sense on the word "until." In every day's intercourse with one another, we use this word "until" as meaning "in prospect of" — a sense, which it is manifest the Spirit simply puts on it in 1 Tim. 6: 14, and several kindred passages; where St. Paul did not intend to say Timothy was 'to continue in his ministry up to the very moment of the Lord's return in glory, but was merely urging him to a faithful discharge of that ministry in prospect of such return, come when it may. He was speaking morally and not prophetically  -  to the conscience, and not to the mere intelligence of Timothy. He was stirring up his diligence, and not instructing him in the circumstances of the second glorious advent of Jesus. pass from this.

Romans 11: 25. — The next Scripture to which I will refer is suggested by the preceding, because it depends on the value of the same word "until" (ἂχρι).

This passage, strictly read, only tells us that the Lord will not deal with "the blindness of Israel" till He has elided His work with "the fulness of the Gentiles." It does not determine that He is to enter on the second of these actions immediately on His closing the first. But even if that be implied, it does not interfere with any previous thoughts we may have had; because, as I have been just reminded by another, all of us own that the Spirit will begin to move the hearts of the remnant in Israel when the moment thus marked off arrives. So far all is consistent, and our thoughts and judgments quite in common. But on the authority of this verse it has been asked, can we conceive that Israel will incur their time of thickest darkness (as they will when they consent to the pretensions of the wilful king) at a period subsequent to the taking of the saints out of the world, and therefore subsequent to the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles; while this verse so clearly intimates that their darkness or blindness lasts only up to the time of the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles?

This Scripture is surely most worthy of being strongly pressed on our attention on such a subject as the present. But I must still inquire from the whole book of God whether the conclusion drawn from it is sanctioned by the great standard and test of all conclusions? Now I find in Galatians 3 this language, "the law was added because of transgressions, till" (ἂχρι) etc. We all glory in knowing that our blessed Lord is the Seed here anticipated; and when I remember that, and then bethink me what His life was, I find that after the Seed did come the law both exacted and received its fullest, nay, its only answer; and by. that Seed was magnified and made honourable. The very Seed Himself, when He came, said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." And the law was discharged only by the death of the Seed. (Rom. 7: 4; Eph. 2: 15; Col. 2: 14.) And if the law only received its highest honour and fullest vindication after that Seed had come, there is divine or scriptural analogy to warrant our saying that the blindness of Israel may be the thickest after the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. The error is altogether in our own minds. I need not say that, save for the joy of justifying the oracles of God; for wisdom is justified of her children. The Scripture needs no apology nor defence from us, but the error is in our own minds. We have not the divine method. We are accurate after a human model merely. And I am sure that in Romans 11: 25, the Holy Ghost was only marking out large dispensational truths; taking the great landmarks, by the hand of the apostle, in the vast scenery which lay before him, and leaving it, if I may so speak, to be surveyed more particularly by, others, if the Lord of the country should so please it. For such had been the divine method from the beginning. The words of the prophets must open to let in the further revelations which we get through the apostles. I need not instance this 3 it is known too well among us. A paper, entitled "Things New and Old," in the Christian Witness. gives full illustration of this. And I am sure that it is so in these passages from Galatians 3 and Romans 11. Am I offended by finding that the law was making its fullest claims and receiving its highest honours after the period to which Galatians 3: 19 refers? Not at all. I only learn by this that the apostle is speaking of grand dispensational truths, and not of exact moments of time; and I admire the divine method suggested by all this. I can delight in the extensive view which the more distant position up to which the Spirit led me affords, as I can delight in the more minute and varied undulations which a nearer sight gives me to discover. "Thou son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, and if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house." The second discovery was more minute than the first. And this is the constant way. And we are not to say, that because the Lord is graciously telling us of grand dispensational matters (as He does in Galatians 3 and Romans 11), that therefore the whole secret is exhausted. The house was shown, but within the house there was a form and a fashion, and ordinances, and laws, and goings out and comings in, which the more distant and earlier sight of the building itself had not discovered, but which, in due season, were all to be exhibited (see Ezek. 42).

Matthew 13 — The parable of the wheat and tares has been much used to the same intent, forbidding, as is judged, the thought of our meeting the Lord in the air till the end of the age, or the time of the judicial cleansing of the earth.

I take leave to look at it therefore a little particularly, desiring to remember that the word is the teacher, and we are only to learn. At the close of chapter 12 our Lord had looked on the apostate condition of Israel and found all there ready for judgment. In the figure of the unclean spirit returning to dwell in the desert house, He gives notice of the matured state of evil in Israel (Matt. 12: 45); but then, in the course of the next chapter (Matt. 13), another thing shows itself: that He is only leaving one scene of apostacy for another — that He is to find apostacy or corruption in that dispensation called "the kingdom of heaven," as He had just found it in Israel (i.e., in the field of the world, as well as in the house of the Jew). Being disappointed of all fruit in Israel, He becomes a sower again — a sower of good seed; but His ground soon yields Him a mingled crop of wheat and tares. This is the first impression, I believe, to be received from this chapter.

But of course there is much more, for the Lord goes on to give the history of the two kinds of seed in a general way,  - onward to the harvest. Thus, as to "the tares," He presents them under two figures of the "mustard seed." and the "leaven." As to the "wheat," they also appear in two characters — the "treasure" and the "Pearl." The quality and value of the two kinds of seed are thus, as in figures, taught us; and at the close, in the parable of the drag-net, the separation of the two is declared, or the putting apart for ever the tares and the wheat, the good and the bad fish, the children of the kingdom and the children of the wicked one. I therefore quite allow that this chapter deals with the history of Christendom, but as surely judge that in this history of the dispensation the Lord does not design to fill out the whole scene, or give every feature in the picture — quite according to the divine method. I have already noticed certain details in a great, grand subject, remaining untold for awhile, or reserved for a more due season — as the great Teacher Himself says, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." The taking of the saints into the air to meet their descending Lord before He reach the earth in judgment was a part of the great mystery which might well have been reserved for a season beyond the time of Matthew 13; and it appears from the clearest testimony of the passage itself that it was so reserved, and advisedly passed without notice, because in this parable of the wheat and the tares the removal of the "children of the wicked one" is made the first action: "Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them." The judgment of the wicked is made the first act in the proceeding here contemplated; and we all know and acknowledge that it will be prior to the manifestation of the saints in the kingdom, but as surely ulterior to the ascension of the saints into the air. That is, the wicked will be cleared away by the judgment before the righteous shine forth in the kingdom, but not before they meet their Lord in the air. This is of common consent among us. We may differ as to the length of the interval, but we may assume it to be a point of common consent that the meeting the Lord will precede the cutting off the ungodly,* or the burning of the tares. And this determines the suggestion that the Lord has passed by the rapture in the circumstances of this parable. And accordingly He speaks of the harvest as the shining of the saints in the kingdom. This is language which also verifies the same suggestion. The rapture into the air and the shining or manifestation of the kingdom are not the same action, as the house of the Father and the kingdom of the Father are not formally the same place. I may therefore conclude that the strict language of the parable (if we try its value by the rule of strict literal exactness) compels us to say that the taking of the saints into the air is advisedly passed by.

*[Not their gathering and binding in bundles. — ED.]

And I may just add that the word, "let both grow together until the harvest," had more of a moral character than has been given to it. It was said to check the impatient thought of present judgment. The Lord's word was rather to the heart and conscience of His mistaken servants — happy, by the way, to see they were spoken of as servants, though mistaking. May we have increased grace and wisdom from Himself!

Luke 19: 12-27. — It has been observed that this parable gives us to know that the saints of the heavenly places are to continue here in the place of service till the Lord come back — or that when He returns to the earth He will find them at their work. My observation on Matt. 13 may generally, I believe, apply to this. For such a construction of the parable as the above conclusion gives it, I have no doubt is too literally exact. For it is plain that the Lord had no design by this parable to instruct us fully in all the mysteries of His absence in the distant country. For much more, as we know, awaited Him then than the getting Himself a kingdom; and more was to attend on His return than the rewards of His servants and the excision of His enemies. In this parable, therefore, He does not design to tell the whole secret, but He set Himself to correct the thought that the kingdom of God was immediately to appear; and He gives such a view of the mystery as fully answers that end. It is the kingdom He is treating of; for it was the kingdom and its time of appearing that the thoughts of the multitude were now upon. The rewards of that kingdom, and the clearing the scene of it of the rebel citizens, He anticipates and teaches; and if these things, if these features in the mystic picture are all that are taught, there is something omitted, just as in the preceding case of the wheat and tares. The Lord postpones the kingdom to His absence in the distant country and return here. That is most sure, and the rewards of His servants wait for that kingdom most certainly also. But we all consent, on the testimony of many Scriptures, that ere His feet again touch the scene of His kingly power He will have met His saints in the air. And therefore to say that He is to find them at work here is too precise. I am sure, from these samples of a certain character of interpretation, that it errs in a too literal exactness from not duly considering the purpose of the Spirit in the given Scripture. If the purpose be moral, designing to affect the conscience or move the heart, and I read it as if it were prophetic or historical, designing to teach mysteries, I shall miss my way through it. If, for instance, I read Psalms 105, 106 as a piece of history, or as purposing to give me merely God's dealings with Israel, and Israel's dealings with God, I should say, and contend for it too, that in the land of Egypt the plague of darkness came before that of frogs, and that in the wilderness the sin of Korah preceded the sin of the golden calf. But this would all be error, and great historical inaccuracy, though strict interpretation and accuracy as to the Psalms. The moment, however, I discover that the Spirit's purpose in these Psalms is not historical but moral — to convict the conscience of the Jew, and not merely to remind him of the history of his nation — then, instead of being stumbled by this inaccuracy, I am delighted with all, and admire it; for I; find, in it the language which is spoken; among ourselves every day. For when we refer to past events for the purpose of illustrating some moral lesson or enforcing some duty, we feel warranted in not observing strictly the times or other mere circumstances of such events; whereas, were we proposing to convey historic information about them, integrity, as well as a desire to accomplish our purpose, would make us careful of every circumstance. I strongly feel this, and discern in it God's most perfect as well as most precious word. For He speaks to us (blessed be His name for it!) in our well-known language, and not with the voice of a barbarian — nay, with the wisdom of the schools of man. But accuracy of a certain character (human or scholastic, and not scriptural or divine, I am sure) spoils all this, and robs the soul of the mind of God. I suggest this, as it occurred to me while considering the conclusion drawn from the parable in Luke 19. But as to the parable itself, I might again say that we cannot, I surely judge, sustain such a conclusion; because, as I observed, we must all admit that the Lord has passed by some of the action in the scene of His second advent, designing principally, if not merely, to correct the thought of an immediate kingdom here on earth. He passes by the act of our meeting Him in the air, before He comes to share the kingdom with us, which is as clearly declared in another Scripture as that He will have a kingdom in the earth is declared here. For I cannot but assume it to be a truth of common consent that the meeting in the air will go before the kingdom, or even judgment on the earth. I assume that none of us will suppose that the Saviour will have come here and parcelled out the honour and authorities of the kingdom among His faithful servants, and then go back in order to come again to meet them in the air according to another Scripture. Our meeting Him in the air must be before He touches the earth.

2 Thess. 1. — This chapter has been much used to affirm the thought that the saint cannot possibly be removed from the present scene of trial till the Lord return to the earth in judgment. I do not wonder at the influence which it has had to such an end. I own that it appears to have much that favours it; and let me say that I have never, even in thought, held lightly those dear brethren who have adopted the opposite view on the great and interesting question I am considering in this paper. I have not, for a moment, with a disparaging thought wondered at them, or felt that they had nothing to say for themselves, or judged them as not duly reverencing God's word — never for a moment. I have not, I may say, even been tempted to such thoughts of them. But still I am to "prove all things," and not be divided either by my respect or love for them. I do not think then that the support which they have derived from this chapter is more than apparent or superficial. The apostle is speaking of judgment or recompense. Tribulation, he says, is to be recompensed to the one and rest to the other; and that too on the same day, at the one great discerning moment — the hour of the Lord's return to the earth in flaming fire.

This is the teaching of the chapter. I read it as giving me the great action of awarding or recompensing righteously after this manner between the persecuted and their oppressors, between the saints and those who have been tormenting them. But this is a different action from that of taking the saints into personal rest. To be recompensed with rest is not the same thought as to be taken into rest. I believe, moreover, that other Scriptures forbid me to confound them. 1 Thess. 4, for instance, shows the saints taken into rest, and that too before the Lord comes to the earth in flaming fire. In that chapter the apostle exhibits Him on His way from heaven to the air; in this chapter (2 Thess. 1), the same apostle — the same Spirit, let me rather say  - exhibits them coming to the earth. The voice of the archangel and the trump of God attend. Him to the air; flaming fire and angels of power accompany Him to. the earth. But none will say that the saints have not been actually or personally borne into rest by their ascension into the air to meet their Lord. Nay, to more than to simple rest does that journey conduct us; for all admit that Rev. 19, the marriage of the Lamb, is a scene in heaven after the saints have ascended, but before the Lord comes in judgment; and that is something more than mere rest, — as all our hearts ought easily to know. So that it is plain to me that we must, let. me say, with a little more exactness read this chapter, and take care not to confound personal and recompensed rest; and then we shall join in our judgment. For I fully grant that the saints will not get rest adjudged to them till the revelation of Jesus in power, or the great "day of the Lord," when He will clear the earth of all things that offend, and share the honours of the kingdom with His faithful ones. And I may say that Rev. 11: 18 is another expression of this. But our meeting Him in the air would be a moment of displayed or recompensed rest and reward.

And what affirms this distinction between rest personal and recompensed is the apostle bringing himself into the scene. "Rest with us," he says. For none of us doubt that the apostle at this moment is in actual or personal rest, though he himself thus tells us that he has not received the kind of rest which he is speaking of in this chapter. By way of illustration, I might say that nothing is more common in the affairs of life than circumstances after this pattern. Flow many maltreated persons are brought into actual rest and security ere the case can be. brought to trial, and the injured party be publicly vindicated and the offender punished! It is of the righteous thing with God the apostle speaks, and the exhibition of that righteous thing. It is the kingdom of God, and judicial rest and tribulation as between two parties. But the air, when the saints alone meet their Lord, could present no such character as this. And though it may detain me over this Scripture a little longer, I must add another thought. When the Lord was instructing His disciples in Matt. 24 or Luke 21, He warns them of coming troubles, such as the beginning of "sorrows" and "the great tribulation." But here to the Thessalonians the apostle does not speak of coming but of present troubles;* according to which I see this plain distinction, that the Lord (Matt. 24, Luke 21) guards His disciples against the words "the time draweth near," or against any promise of immediate rest, on this ground, that ere He should come for their relief, they must pass through sorrows. But, on the contrary, the apostle (2 Thess. 2) guards the disciple against similar words — "the day of Christ is at hand" (or present) — on this ground, that ere the Lord should come for judgment they would be gathered to Him; advisedly separating the "coming" from the "day," linking our gathering to Him with the "coming," and His judgment of the earth with the "day," the same words (παρουσία and ἡμέρα) being severally used here (2 Thess. 2) as before in 1 Thess. 4: 15, and in 1 Thess. 5: 2.† I do not at all say that the coming and the day are always thus distinguishable: I believe not, the purpose of the Spirit not requiring it. But here the distinction is marked, and intended, I believe, to be so. And I cannot but think that the "coming" and "gathering" are made the ground of stability and comfort to the saints in 2 Thess. 2: 1, and not merely introduced as a subject concerning which the apostle is about to treat. But I add no more.

*As when the prophets speak of Israel, they speak of a certain time of trouble (see Jer. 30, Micah 4, etc. etc.). And the cities and kingdoms of the earth, as well as Jerusalem and Israel, are said to have their time of sorrow and travail. Thus Damascus and Babylon (Jer. 49: 4). But as to the heavenly saints, there is no such special hour of travail spoken of; but they are represented as always in the sorrow till they see Jesus again (John 16).

†It is true that Bengel does give to ἐπιφανεία τῆς  παρουσίας the force of an earlier stage than the παρουσία (2 Thess. 2: 1-8). "Hic autem apparitio adventûs ipso adventu prior, vel certe prima ipsius adventûs emicatio." Without having the slightest pretention to be a critic, or affecting Greek scholarship, I ask, is not the mid-day power of the day, rather than the dawn of it, intimated in the use which the New Testament makes of this word? In 1 Tim. 6: 14, the "Potentate" is to show this ἐπιφανεία, and we can scarcely say that it is as the "Potentate" the Lord will meet His saints in the air. As Potentate He will be manifested on earth. In 2 Tim. 1-10, it is connected with Christ perfecting the everlasting purpose of God in the abolishing of death. But surely that was not done in the dawn, but at the full, or rather evening, hour of His course, as at Calvary. In 2 Tim. 4: 8 it is connected with giving crowns of righteousness; and surely that will not be at the earliest moment of His coming, but rather late in the great action, when servants are rewarded in the kingdom. And surely if Bengel had seen the common truth, that the saints are to meet the Lord in the air before He takes His journey in judgment to the earth, he could not have interpreted the action in 2 Thess. 2 as being the earliest moment in His returning journey.

Matthew 24 — I am aware that we have been much condemned for not seeing another witness against our thoughts in the prophecy of this chapter, and for not receiving all the words of it fully to ourselves. The whole of the moral application of this grand prophetic word I desire to let in with full power upon our hearts and consciences, for I doubt not it all belongs to each of us. "What I say unto you, I say unto all — watch." But I cannot judge that the saints now gathering for heaven are in the prophecy itself. I judge that those whom this chapter contemplates as being killed (verse 9) will surely be borne by a glorious resurrection to heaven, as well as the saints from amongst the Gentiles now gathering. But the preserved ones of this chapter, I believe, are preserved for the earth, like Noah in his day. For it is flesh that is saved (verse 22), and the heavenly people have no interest in the saying of flesh. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." And after we have received the clearest instruction on this — that it is in the air that we are next to see the Lord (1 Thess. 4), would the words "he is in the desert," or "he is in the secret chambers," have seducing or deceiving attractions for us ) How must we have surrendered all the light of such teaching ere we could listen to such reports! I cannot think that the Lord is anticipating us or the present election from the Gentiles in this prophecy. And I surely grant He is not addressing His words, and instructions, and warnings, to the Jews considered in their present unbelief: I know not how such a thought could have risen for a moment. I judge that He is looking at that remnant in Israel who, in coming days, are to be separated from the apostate or unbelieving nation. Scripture largely speaks of such a people, and, let me add, largely speaks of their state of soul, describing it, I believe, as being much more advanced in knowledge of God and His truth than many among us (beloved ones as they are) apprehend, but who are still to be His Israel on the earth; which, in connection with Matt. 24, I might notice a little further. Thus I believe it is His earthly people who are not to see Him till they say, "blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." And what intelligence there is in that cry! For it is the rejected stone, the rejected Christ, which is welcomed back in those words; and this tells us that they who utter it must be acquainted with the mystery of the death of Jesus.

And what witness does Psalm 79 bear to their condition? The preserved remnant in that psalm look to their being a people on the earth; they have no heavenly expectations, but they are able to appreciate their martyred brethren, and in a great sense identify themselves with them. And how do they, in the very next (Psalm 80), express their trust in the man at' God's right hand as all the hope of their wasted vineyard? And must not such language be that of precious and intelligent faith? That there is a man in heaven (blessed thought! while the pen writes it down) to whom alone the expectant possessors of God's fruitful hill in Canaan are looking! All this is very strong in forming my thoughts on the spiritual condition of the elect remnant in these coming days. And again, I ask, is not "if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established" the standing oracle? And upon it must they not believe ere they can be established? An oracle, too, that connects itself expressly with the name and revelation of Immanuel (see Isa. 7), as Peter attaches the hope of Israel and the expectations of the earth on Israel's repentance and conversion (Acts 3). And what could that required repentance and conversion be, but the believing that testimony which Peter was then delivering? I am not saying that heavenly portion of the remnant may not he distinguished by larger attainments both in knowledge and in devotedness. But I believe there will be but one remnant, so to speak, in those days — one in the general character, I mean, of their moral or spiritual state; and martyrdom will be the distinct feature of the heavenly portion of them, of which Revelations 14: 13, and 20: 4, are, I judge, further witnesses. The dwelling together of Abraham and Lot at the same time and in the same land, the former being in principle a heavenly man, and the latter an earthly, may help us, as by analogy, to apprehend this. Abraham may have been more advanced and more devoted, I grant it. But, in a great sense, they were morally one. Lot was a righteous soul in God's account, in the heart of a Sodom world. I do therefore judge that there will be a people in Israel by and by, whose position will be in the earth, but whose hearts and consciences the Spirit will have been dealing with before Jesus manifests Himself personally. They look on His wounds under the Spirit of grace in Zech. 12: 10, but personally and actually He does not stand in the land till Zech. 14: 3. These things and others of like character are strong on this point.

And in this connection I may notice Daniel 7 also, which links itself much, I believe, with this Matthew 24. For there again the imperial misleader, under the symbol of "the little horn," is spoken of as one that is to shed the blood of the heavenly saints. This I entirely admit, and those martyred heavenly saints I identify with those killed according to our present chapter (verse 9). But Daniel, in a very decided way, passes over the present dispensation: for those heavenly saints of his are only in connection with the little horn. But we know full well, and we ourselves are the witnesses of it, that there are heavenly saints before that time, whose history, consequently, Daniel never even touches. This, however, does not disturb or annul anything found in Daniel. Surely not: that could never be. Scripture cannot be broken. But in company with Daniel's words we are to read other words.  - That is, we are to remember, "It is written again," as I have observed before. And we have to look to other words of God, beyond those by Daniel, for the full history of the heavenly saints. Daniel 7: 25, Matthew 24: 9, and the prophetic part of the Apocalypse, treat only of a portion of these, and such as are connected with Israel, and the coming day, or time of the end. But I will add no more to this.

Dan. 7 — A Scripture of extensive signification this surely is, involving truth also of serious character, and, as we all know, suggesting matter about which there is large diversity of judgment. These considerations may lead us to meditate on it with great interest, with recollected and serious minds, and in a modest forbearing spirit. We should greatly desire the grace of unprejudiced thoughts, that we may come to learn what it teaches, and not to read it in the mere light of any previous conclusion of our own.

In a night-vision the prophet sees the four winds beating upon the great sea, and out of the agitated waters rising successively four great beasts, the last of which had ten horns, in the midst of which came up another, little in comparative size, but in action more terrible than all, destroying three of them, and having in it the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking very boastfully.

After thus looking along the whole line of these earthly powers, the prophet is given another vision. He sees certain thrones set, and the Ancient of days taking His seat for judgment with His myriads of attendants, and books opened before Him; and in the progress of judgment he sees the fourth beast slain, because of the boastings of the little horn. And he sees the Son of man come up to the Ancient of days and receive from Him the glory and power of an everlasting kingdom.

Such was this night-vision in its two parts, its earthly and heavenly. Daniel was troubled at it, and craves instruction about it. And he is, in a general way, told that the four beasts represent four kingdoms that were successively to arise in the course of the world's history, but that after their dominion the saints should take an enduring kingdom.

How large, how awful, how blessed is the scene which here lies before us! How engaged should our hearts be when we look at each part of it! In extent it ranges over the history of the earth, from the fall of Jerusalem under the Chaldean to the exaltation of Jerusalem under the Messiah. In awfulness it tells us of the lengthened domination of certain powers, which in all divine reckoning were as rabid and as heady as wild beasts. In the blessedness it assures us that the good and great God, the Lord of all, will close the scene in the glory and joy of all His saints.

Daniel's heart was not unmoved by what he saw. His affections were stirred, and so should ours, or we read and acquaint ourselves with these things very undivinely. The apostle seems to stand. somewhat ill the presence of all this truth as well, though not so formally, as the prophet, and in like manner encourages our souls to the due affections, saying, after he had contemplated the departure of all beside, as the prophet does here of one kingdom after another, "We receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved (as the prophet had been told of the saints' kingdom), let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." The assurance of our immovable kingdom should plant our souls, according to this commentary of the apostle, in the joy and worship which such grace may well inspire, while the sight of such consumption of all besides may mingle that joy with other suited sentiments of heart. But these reflections I have followed rather by the way.

The prophet, it appears, was not satisfied with this general interpretation, and makes special inquiry after the fourth beast and his ten horns, and the distinguished little or eleventh horn which as he saw, made war with the saints, till the Ancient of days came, and the kingdom was given to the saints. And the interpretation, accordingly, goes into, this special matter, telling him that the fourth beast was the fourth kingdom, that the ten horns were ten kings that should arise, and that the little or eleventh horn was another king that should rise afterwards, the mightiest of all, but whose kingdom should last only a time, times, and the dividing of time; for that then the judgment of God should close it, and the whole power under the heavens be transferred to the saints of the Most High.

The vision thus interpreted is made plain in all its great features, and the general history of the world, within the given time and territory, is communicated to us. Some incidental inquiries will of course arise. And I judge that, in pursuing them, we are most chiefly bound to consult Scriptures kindred with this. And of such, in the most eminent degree, is the Revelation by John.

I believe then that that book is much to be used in considering this chapter; and my present judgment is this, that the course of that book will be found concurrent with that of this chapter, where this chapter takes up the act of judgment, or the act from heaven upon earth. Thus:

Dan. 7: 9 . . . . . . Rev. 4

Dan. 7: 10 . . . . . Rev. 5

Dan. 7: 11 . . . . . Rev. 13, Rev. 19

Dan. 7: 12 is parenthetic.

Dan. 7: 13, 14 . . Rev. 20.

I place these passages as having correspondence in general import, though details are far more opened and incidental matter is introduced in the Revelation.

The Revelation is the ulterior writing of the Spirit, and we might, therefore, count upon its being more full. and admit it to be our simple and natural way to read the previous writing in its light. Nothing in the ulterior word can be allowed to gainsay a single jot of the earlier, but it may enlarge upon it, and be used as a light by which, as I have said, we shall surely read it. Now this chapter in Daniel tells us nothing of "saints of the Most High" till the times of the little horn. The book of Revelation confirms the fact that there will be such saints in those times, but adds the further truth that there have been the same before (as we know all the New Testament Scriptures do), and we ourselves are the witnesses of it, being saints of the Most High, or heavenly people, ourselves.

This is very plain. These Scriptures do not interfere with each other, but the latter goes into larger matter than the former. And it does more. It affords a light in which to read this chapter; and, accordingly, I read verse 9 in the light of Rev. 4, and I gather the fact that, ere this judgment sits (at least I so read it), there have been conveyed to heaven a company of saints; for I see them already there as twenty-four elders. The thrones are set in Dan. 7: 9; but they are. occupied, as well as set in Rev. 4.

Were there a single word in Daniel to deny the previous existence of such, were there a single word in his prophecy to forbid the thought that any heavenly saints could have been taken to heaven before the times of the horn, then indeed we must renounce our conclusion. But none such do I find; for I do not believe Daniel once in this chapter tells us that the judgment sits in heaven in consequence of the boasting and blasphemy of this little horn. I grant that, in consequence of such blasphemy, the Judge causes the fourth beast to be slain, and also the dominion of the little horn itself to be consumed and destroyed. But that, I believe, is all we learn from either verse 11 or 26. The prophet does not make the sitting in judgment to depend on the words of the horn. Had he done so, of course we must have read the book of Revelation under the control of such a word from him; but, not having done so, I see that Daniel's testimony is quite consistent with that of John, who shows us the judgment sitting in Revelation 4 and doing many things before even the horn appears in the scene, which is not until Revelation 13.

Nothing, therefore, is disturbed or annulled — surely not. That could not be. The only thing is, we are to let every word of God instruct us, and if an ulterior Scripture bring out larger materials, we must let them in to take their place, not with a disturbing and rude violence, but for the filling out of the revealed purpose of God.

1 Cor. 15: 23. — On the authority of this verse, some have concluded that the Lord will not come till all who are His, and are children of resurrection, are brought to know Him, and are ready to rise together to meet Him in the air at one and the same moment. I admit the apparent force of this. But I believe it is but apparent, and will not abide the light of the whole Scripture. Because, if we have nothing further, we have the ascension of the two witnesses, after the quickening of their dead bodies in Rev. 11 — ground, may I not say, for denying that this verse includes all that are Christ's. This would be enough for checking confidence in the unimpregnableness of this conclusion. But I believe, further, that the Apocalypse teaches us that there will be other saints taken up at other times than that contemplated in this passage. For instance, in Revelation 12 there appears to be a remnant who are heavenly in their destiny, after the man-child has been caught up; and there are companies seen at times, through the action of that wondrous book, apart from the living creatures and crowned elders, and yet in heaven — such as the slain ones on the sea of glass in Revelation 15, as, at the close, distinction is still preserved in Revelation 20: 4. And, again, I observe, this is not disturbing Scripture.  - It leaves previous revelations untouched. It does in nowise break 1 Cor. 15: 23. But it again shows us, that in His perfect method, the Lord so orders and fashions His word under His various "ready writers," if I may so call them, as to provide that the earlier light should let in, not the rebuking or disturbing, but harmonising light of His further revelations. And to help our apprehensions of the heavenly position of Israel joining "the fulness of the Gentiles," now gathering in the heavens, I might remember such ones as Hobab and Rahab. Canaan had been espied by the Lord as the portion of the twelve tribes. But at least these two strangers sit down in that inheritance with them. This, however, was no disturbance. It involved no infraction of the family settlement. It was not a new thing or an after-thought with God. Our exactness may be offended, but God's provisions were quite ready for those things. But I by no means speak of this as a type, but only as a little helping of our thoughts.

Rev. 16: 15. — This verse has been read as marking the moment of taking the saints into the air. I would therefore consider it a little, desiring ever to do so in fear and yet delight before Him. There is a promise that the day of the Lord shall not overtake the saints as a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5). A question may arise — in what way will this Scripture be fulfilled? for, like every other, it cannot be broken. There are two ways in which the goodman and his household might be secured from a nightly thief. They might be either removed previously from the house, or kept from their guard in it. Both of these ways will, I believe, in the varied and perfect doings of the Lord, get their illustrations. For when His day comes, and in the majesty and power of judgment He touches this rebel earth again, He will find His elect Israel ready. "Blessed is he that cometh," they will be prepared to say, or have already said, like a guarded watchful household; though they know neither the day nor the hour they will be in readiness. They will not be injuriously surprised by the solemn visitation which is to destroy the wicked. But in that hour the saints of the heavenly places will be seen in the train of Him who comes as the thief. As the heavenly army they will then accompany him (Joel 3: 1-11, see verse 9). For we are abundantly taught that to exercise the power of that day in company with the Lord is part of their promised honour (Col. 3: 4; Rev. 2: 26, 27, Rev. 17: 14, Rev. 19: 14). Two distinct companies, therefore, exhibit these two things. Israel will be delivered from the judgment of "the day of the Lord," by being prepared for it in the place where it enters; and the heavenly saints, by being taken away from that place, belonging, as children of the day, to that sphere out of which the day is to pour down its light and terrors. I say not how long this previous removal may have taken place. Other Scriptures may lead to that inquiry. I speak here only of the fact of that removal, and thus of the mode of the security of the heavenly saints against the day of the Lord. But I may add that it is morally fitting, I judge, that "the more excellent way," so to call it, should be prepared for them.

And these two modes of deliverance can scarcely fail to remind us of Enoch and Noah. Enoch knew that a day of the Lord was coming, for he prophesied of it (Jude 14, 16); so did Noah, for he was told of it (Gen. 6), and that day did come (of course I know that it is still to come, in the full sense of Enoch's prophecy). But Enoch had been previously removed (Gen. 5). And Noah was prepared for it in the place it visited. And all this, I quite believe, has mystic or typical meaning for us. Now in reading 1 Thess. 5,* I do not at all doubt that the fear of being kept here on the earth for the hour of the thief might arise in the mind of the disciples. And I believe that it did; for that fear, as I judge, becomes in its season the occasion of the second epistle, in which the apostle sets himself to correct the error which sprung from that fear. For, as I observed under another meditation, he separates the coming of the Lord from the day of the Lord, attaching our gathering to His coming, and the exercise of judgment in the earth to His day. And in this way their minds, which had been in fear, would be fully relieved. Their fear had come from an imperfect reading of the first epistle,* or from some source which would have worked in the same way, and that epistle at least had not given them ease. But their relief would come from the second, telling them that they should be separated from the house ere the thief enter it. And let me add, that the coming of the Lord in the character of a thief in the night is always (if I judge rightly) connected with this return to the earth, or the coming of the Son of man, i.e., the day of the Lord (Matt. 24; Luke; 1 Thess. 5; 2 Peter 3). It is connected with the manifestation of judgment, and not with the Lord meeting His saints in the air, or with His coming again to receive them unto Himself.

*[It is to me certain, however, from 2 Thess. 2: 2, that the true source of the terror in the minds of the Thessalonians was not from reading 1 Thess. 5, but from a false word and lying spirit — a forged epistle, purporting to be Paul's, but not that which we have. In 1 Thess. 5 the fear of that day is shown to be for the world; false teachers sought to urge its terrors on the saints. — ED.]

The duty of watchfulness, most surely, is a moral duty of common enforcement. "What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch." Nothing that could be said as to the strict prophetic application of the Lord's coming as a thief in the night should for a moment be allowed to weaken the sense of the common duty of watching. It is therefore in the full spiritual power of this, as being of common concern. that it is said, "If therefore thou wilt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief." But still I say that, as prophetic of a given step or action in the divine purpose, the coming of the Lord as a thief in the night intimates His surprising the earth in the day of His judgment of it. "As a snare shall it (the day of the Son of man) come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth."

According to this I read Rev. 16: 15. I find the coming of the Lord there spoken of under this figure, and announced as belonging to the time when that faction has been formed on the earth which is to bring Him back. And the reappearing* of this figure. "the thief in the night," at this place of Scripture, is evidence to me that this word of Scripture contemplates an earthly action. And let me ask — let me put it to the thoughts of brethren — does it suit our minds or our hearts to speak of the Lord's coming to meet His saints in the air under such a figure as this? Jesus then comes, and; His reward is with Him. He comes as the morning star. He comes again to receive us to Himself, having prepared mansions in heaven for us. He comes with the voice of the archangel. Our conversation is already in that very place from whence He comes, and the bride is ever in spirit bidding Him welcome. Is a coming, thus variously and gloriously spoken of, to take its likeness from the coming of a nightly thief? Never, I believe, does the Spirit give it such. "That day shall not overtake you as a thief." His day will surprise all who dwell on the face of the whole earth after that pattern; but He meets His heavenly ones, already in the spirit of their minds there from whence He comes, with other thoughts altogether.

If we therefore consult all the Scriptures which speak of "the thief in the night," we shall find, I think, that such a coming of the Lord does not connect itself with the mystery of His meeting the saints in the air, though it most surely addresses our souls in the power of an exhortation to watchfulness. Rev. 16: 15 is not, I therefore in submission suggest, a note of the time at which the saints of the heavenly places are borne upward to meet the Lord. On 2 Peter 3, where the same figure, as we know, is used, I would just add a word — that in the brilliant and distinguished prophecy which occupies that chapter, the apostle clusters objects together (not confusedly, most surely, but still together) very much in the style of the prophets, It is as though the mantle of the prophets of the circumcision had fallen upon the apostle of the circumcision when he prophesies. But of course I say this as remembering that all was but the penmanship of the Holy Ghost; believing, however, that this style is to be observed as a help to a right interpretation of that grand prophetic Scripture.

Here I will now leave this deeply interesting subject, desiring, I trust unfeignedly, that the light of His own word may either rebuke or sanction all our thoughts as they need.

2 Pet. 2 etc., etc. — It has been observed that in the epistles we get constant warning of certain things which were to happen in the course of the present dispensation, which is sufficient notice to us of delay being put on the coming of the Lord. I grant that we have this warning again and again. "Latter days" and "latter times" are marked by strong moral character. Grievous wolves also were to enter. Perverse things were to be spoken, and thus both from without and within danger and evil were to come. False teachers were to appear, as in Israel there had been false prophets. These and more than these are announced. The deep and deadly shadows of many corruptions are definitely forecast. I grant all this most surely. How could it be denied? And, further, I grant that the history of the dispensation has already been making good, and, as long as it lasts, will continue to make good all these notices, and reveal the substances and terrible forms of these appalling shadows. But the apostles, who severally declare these things, attach them to that present generation, warning those to whom they ministered personally about them, and giving them instruction as to the security of their own souls against them.  And at length, under the ministry of one of them, the crisis of the churches or candlesticks arrives, the lights of the sanctuary are all gone out, and in the next moment the scene is changed from earth to heaven, and the elect are there (Rev. 1-4). The longer, however, the time of the present gathering from among the Gentiles goes on, and with it the unjudged field of wheat and tares, all these awful notices, I quite admit, will only be the more and more realised, as they hitherto have been. The only thing I suggest here is, that this has not made a necessary delay to our passing upward to meet the Lord, since that .great crisis of the candlesticks. Certain things were to be, surely; but the saints of that day are counselled as though they were, even before that crisis. But after that crisis the heavens are opened and the elect are seen there, as it were, like Enoch, without any necessary passage through either evil or sorrow any farther, and without the needful measuring out of days and years.

I will not go on with any other Scriptures which I have heard or read as used on this subject. I have taken what appeared to be principal. Much, I doubt not, has been urged which I never heard or read. And I could say with simplicity, I wait to be further instructed, if so be there is light from the Lord.

I would not close, however, without adding a few suggestions of a freer character as to the ground on which my present thoughts rest. And in the first place I ask if the seventieth week of Daniel be reserved, as we know it is, and if the previous sixty-nine weeks concerned Daniel's city and people, Jerusalem and the Jews. are we not to conclude that the reserved seventieth week concerns itself with them also? And if the Apocalypse treat of the last week, are we not to read it also in connection with the same, that is, with Jewish saints? I believe so; though I fully admit that they, in a sense, represent us, inasmuch as they will then stand, as we do now, in the faith and confession of Jesus. I fully admit, also, as to the same book, that the Lord Jesus is hidden during the action of it till Revelation 19: I never had a thought that He was personally manifested till then. And, further, I admit that, in the same wondrous book, He is not on His own throne: I altogether allow that — surely I must. This, however, I must also add, that in the action of that book He does not appear as a priest in the sanctuary, but though presented in different aspects and under various symbols, yet in not one of them as High Priest of our profession, making intercession for us. This is much to be observed. It shows that the action is peculiar. And I judge that the throne in Revelation 4 which presides over the whole action till Revelation 20 is therefore peculiar also. It is not simply the present throne nor the millennial throne, but the throne in the heavens, having taken to itself certain attributes and powers suited to the peculiar action of those days which the book itself contemplates.

I have thus cleared my way a little, in order to state what is my strong conviction, long since suggested to me by a much loved brother, and never since then removed from my mind, that, the election now gathering from the Gentiles is to be removed to meet the Lord in the air before the time of Rev. 4. There had been nothing, I believe, in the earlier part of. Scripture to hinder this. The consideration I have been giving to different Scriptures had that point in view. But while, as I have judged, there is nothing to hinder this, there were some notices to prepare us for it. Jesus had said, "I will come again and receive you unto myself." Paul had taught that we should be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and on account of His coming he had comforted the saints against His day. All the apostles had kept the hearts of the elect in the attitude of hourly expectation. But these were but notices faint and precursory till we get the disclosure of the great fact that the saints have been borne away to heaven at some untold moment, from whence it is given them to survey, and be interested in, the terrible action of the last days (Rev. 4, 5, 6, 14, 15, 19).

The crowned elders represent or symbolise a company of redeemed sinners, whose place and inheritance are heavenly. The inquiry is, "Where are they who are thus represented during the action of the book of the Apocalypse?"

This is a question among us, suggested by the Scriptures — lawful, therefore, to be entertained in a spirit of godly fear, as well as in a spirit of liberty. My judgment is that they are actually in heaven, having previously ascended there in their glorious bodies. The grounds of thus judging I would submit to my brethren, companions of the joy of these inquiries of the temple.

These mystic personages, when first presented to our view, form part of the order and court of heaven. Nor do they then appear as though they had only that moment reached the place, for there is nothing of the freshness of admiration which might suitably be expressed by those who were just opening their eyes on the celestial glory, but there is the calmness of a people familiar with it.

Revelation 4 — A central throne appears in the scene, having taken to itself this expression that the time had come when the Lord in heaven was again conceiving remembrance (so to speak) of the earth, for the rainbow is seen round it. But as the earth is not to be brought into the joy and full power of its covenant till it be purged of all that corrupts it, we find lightnings, thunderings, and voices, in attendance on the throne, as well. as the rainbow; all this giving witness that the time had arrived when the earth becomes the object of interest and attention in heaven. For the power on the throne there must put forth destructive judgments, which shall destroy the destroyers of the earth, before it can array itself with the earth, its desired companion in the glory; as it is written, "heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool."

The mystic personages of whom I speak are part and parcel of this august scenery. But if, as I said, they do not appear there as though they were only fresh in the admiration of the heavenly beauties, so they do not appear as though they were personally anxious about the tremendous action, for which the powers in heaven are getting themselves ready. They are not awed by the thunder, or scared by the lightning, or quake, like Moses, before the voice; but clothed in white, crowned with gold, and seated on thrones, they keep up the constant worship of God, and, in conscious elevation above all water-floods, glory in all that is round them. In this manner they are introduced to us.

The question of the inheritance of that earth which has now, as we have just seen, become the object of' attention in heaven, arises after this, and very naturally so. If the earth be now to be purged, and then brought into connection with heaven again; if the moment have arrived for thunders, and lightnings, and voices to break from the throne, and for the bow to encircle it, the time has also come for settling the inheritance and government of the earth, or for the book or title-deed of that inheritance to be opened.

Accordingly this in its order is done. The book is seen in the right hand of Him who sits on the throne; and after a general challenge of all creation, none is found either "worthy" or "able" to take it and open it but the Lamb that, was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. But His taking it at once becomes the occasion of universal joy. Everything and everyone in their several way and measure express this; for this taking of the book had given notice that the whole creation was soon to be made again the inheritance of Him whose right it is.

Revelation 5 — But here I would pause a little. This burst of joy is but anticipatory — no doubt of that. For the time of Rev. 5 is not the time of millennial kingdom — the restitution of all things, or creation's jubilee. This universal pulse of gladness is therefore all anticipative,* most surely. But this we observe, that it is in heaven the living creatures and crowned elders sing their anticipated joy. It is in heaven they sing as much as the angels. Every creature joins, but each in its proper place. For, as at the moment of Adam's sin, the creatures, in the ear of the Spirit, became groaners after deliverance (Rom. 8), so now, when the Lamb is owned as "Lord of the world to come," and as about to possess Himself of His kingdom, in the car of the same Spirit these groans are turned into praises. The prisoners of hope get bright pledges of a glorious deliverance. Beautiful and precious is this momentary and universal rapture. And in the midst of it we hear the mystic ones of whom I speak uttering their part in their heavenly places, even angels themselves forming a larger and outer circle around them.

*The book of God is full of these anticipative exercises of soul. The Spirit delights to raise these in the saints, and Jesus (may I speak so?) often indulged them.

But I proceed. The book of the inheritance, which conveys the government of the earth to the Lamb, and which has now found its way into the hand of the Lamb, is sealed with seven seals, as it were closing up some action which, is to be gone through or performed ere this government can be settled under the Lamb. The living creatures appear  in the: closest personal intimacy with the act of opening those seal's by the Lamb. The Lamb alone opens, but they are very near Him. Perfect in its place all this is. The Lamb, as we saw, alone had "worthiness"' or "ability" to touch the book. But the living creatures have just owned their share in the now expected inheritance and government, and therefore are naturally and fitly near the book; and as being already in the secret of it, they call the servant of God "to come and see," while the Lamb opens the first four of the seals. This is a high notice of these honoured creatures. We saw them before exercised in heavenly worship, forming a company nearer the throne even than angels; but here we see them intimate with heavenly secrets, which the prophet of God had to learn. This bespeaks (if we hear it, beloved) the joy and thankfulness and praise of our hearts. Are the heights of glory thus ours? Are intimacies of, heaven thus ours? But we are to see greater wonders yet.

After the opening of the sixth seal, among other things, we get presented to us a company who had been delivered out of the. great tribulation; for such tribulation will immediately precede or wait upon the period of the sixth seal. But then we again see the living creatures and crowned elders; for one of them, one of the twenty-four elders, explains to John who this delivered company had been. Rev. 7. Surely this too is full of the same dignity, and very significant. Here they appear in the place of heavenly knowledge again, able to instruct the chief of the prophets; and they are also apart from the noble army of martyrs. And I feel that we are not to pass by all this, for these are high and heavenly places surely.

The first series of actions that are under the seals ends here. On the opening of the seventh seal another action begins, that of the seven trumpets. Over these seven trumpets seven, angels preside. But upon the blowing of the seventh of them, our mystic objects are again seen. For the time of this seventh trumpet brings the course of events up to the eve of the kingdom, and in that bright prospect the twenty-four elders celebrate the Lord God Almighty, and all the glorious results of His taking to Him His great power. And in this we get them connected, though but shortly, with the trumpets as well as with the seals (Rev. 8 - 11).

There is an action then which may be termed that of the dragon and the beasts with its results, in which the living ones are again for a moment noticed, and ,noticed in a place of much honour, in close neigbbourhood to the throne, and apart from the company on Mount Zion, as we saw them. apart from the martyrs in the seventh chapter (Rev. 12 - 14).

I pass this however, and look more particularly at the next series of actions, or the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath. Seven angels come forward, and one of the four living creatures gives them seven vials containing the judgments of God, and the angels empty these vials, or pour out these judgments on the dire and doomed places.

Here then, in this action, our personages fill a place of distinguished. honour. In the mystery of seals they were in the place of wisdom, calling John the prophet to the secrets of the book; but here they are rather in the place of power, committing the instruments of vengeance to the ministers of vengeance. Through other parts of the book they have been seen in greater intimacy with the throne than angels; but here was something beyond that — they arm angels with the implements of their service (Rev. 15, 16).

Babylon is the scene of the next great mystery in this book of wonders. But in it the living creatures and crowned elders do not expressly appear (Rev. 17, 18).

The marriage in heaven then takes place, and for the last time our mystic ones appear. The twenty — our elders and the living creatures worship God with their hallelujah, because He had judged the great whore, and had avenged the blood of God's servants upon her; and this, I may say (though they do not appear by name in the two preceding chapters), connects them expressly with Babylon, as we have seen them connected with each of the preceding actions, because Babylon is the great whore (Rev. 19). Here, however we lose sight of them. But continuously (I may say, after this review) from the moment the heaven was opened to take up John in Revelation 4 to this moment in Revelation 19 when the heaven is again opened to let down the white-horsed rider and His army, we have seen them there in all the calm and happy sense of home, acquainted with the secrets, and entrusted with the resources, of that high and holy place — John, the prophet, instructed by them, angels that excel in strength armed by them, and other redeemed ones at times taking their place apart from and around them.

I ask then where have they been all this time? As all this mystic scene passes before us, does it convey no certainty as to the inquiry? Where have those who are symbolised by these mysteries had their place all this time? Does it betoken that they have been actually in heaven or on earth? I wait to learn why I am not to consider them in heaven as really as the throne itself, the Lamb, or the angels. Are they seen in the place out of which the judgments come, or upon which they come? Is the sphere where they move above or below? Are they in company with the throne all through these actions, or tossed amid the agitations of the earth? Nay, are they not distinct from those who pass through the great tribulation itself, speaking of them most expressly as apart from themselves? Were I to go through these chapters unaffected by any prejudices, I know not that I could get more full and clear answers to these inquiries than they afford me. I grant, however, that I am to read them in company with all Scripture, and if any other part of God's most precious book note this point, I must re-read these chapters, not allowing myself to take them or listen to them alone. But as yet, at least, I have not found such.

I fully admit that, during the action of these chapters and in different stages of it, certain other companies take their place in heaven. I have no doubt that there is a heavenly people on earth during this action, or at least the greater part of it, and that such in their season will be taken to their distinct heavenly places.

But this leaves me still at liberty to say that those who are represented by these mystic persons have been there throughout the whole of it, The action itself is neither that of the present dispensation, where Christ is in heaven alone interceding for us, nor is it that of the coming or millennial dispensation, when the heaven and earth will be parts of one temple with their several happy families, but an intervening action of a corrective or judicial character preparing the way of the kingdom.

Here then I rest, waiting for further instruction from any, if there be light from the Lord, as He gives it now through His word. But at present I cannot gainsay the conclusion that arises from all this. I cannot feel warranted to depart from the simplicity of the word, or to assume anything beyond what the first impression naturally conveys, that there is a company of redeemed ones actually in heaven, or in the place of the throne of God, before this action of the Apocalypse begins.

Perhaps, however, I might suggest a few objections.

1st. It may be said that the four-and-twenty crowned elders express only the disembodied spirits of saints. I would answer that I do not think we can give this interpretation, because they not only appear in so different a place and condition, and are as tangible and visible (so to speak) as angels themselves, but they actually minister, as we have seen, to the action that is going on, and help to conduct it to its great issue.

2nd. It may be said that their, appearance in heaven is only in anticipation of their place (that being heavenly) in the age of the kingdom. I would answer that I do not think we can say this, because the action here is so entirely different from what it will be in the kingdom. Here it is corrective or judicial upon an unpurged earth; there it will be in happy government of a restored earth. And beside, they are as crowned elders all through this action. but as soon as it is over, and the kingdom comes, they are lost to our sight as such, and we see them only as the Lamb's wife.

3rd. It may be said that those represented by these symbols are the saints still really on the earth, and only in spirit, or in the purpose of God in heaven, as we read in Eph. 2. But I answer, the analogy seems to me to fail, because the Epistle to the Ephesians shows the saints to be in heaven only. as in Christ, or in the spirit of their calling, but actually on the earth; the Apocalypse shows these mystic ones to be actually in heaven, and only in spirit or in sympathy (as watching an action at a distance in which they are deeply interested) on earth. And this is to me rather contrast than similitude. Besides, during this action, the heavenly and earthly spheres are kept very distinct, and those of whom I speak are always in the heavenly. And again, John, who in spirit is called there, is at times down on earth, and even when in heaven, appears there in a way different from them. He appears to be there as a stranger or a visitor, but they are as fully at home as the throne, or the Lamb, or the angels.

Again I say, I wait to be instructed; but I cannot but judge that these testimonies from the book itself, and these considerations, lead to a conclusion very simple to a mind unprejudiced.

I do indeed judge that there has been a mistake in confounding the saints who form the elders with the saints under the last apostasy and the beast. This has been suggested to me by another; and I believe most justly. The saints of the Most High (Dan. 7) cry "how long wilt thou not avenge?" (Rev. 6) — at least this is characteristic of them. And their prayers bring earthquake and thunder (Rev. 8). They have part in the first resurrection; but such as this is their characteristic; and they pass to the throne, as I have already said, only through death (Rev. 14: 13; 20: 4), on which character of journey, so to speak, we know that the saints now gathering do not depend* (1 Cor. 15: 51). And this again distinguishes the two classes — death being not, in this way, a necessary stage now to the heavens as it will be (Rev. 13: 15). For as being killed, the title of the Apocalyptic saints to take part in the first resurrection comes. How then, I may ask, can 1 Cor. 15: 51 wait for the time of the Apocalypse? This long since occurred to me, and I find that it has struck the minds of others quite independently. But what say we to all these things? Why, though they may be clear to one's own mind, yet how happy is it to know that these things and the like are the very material in which Peter says that there is much hard to be understood (2 Peter 3), and that may give us happy forbearance one with another.

I however press on for a little longer. In the fourth chapter, as I observed, we see the living creatures and crowned elders round the central throne of God Almighty in the heavens. The action in the course of the book changes; the place of these mystic personages never does. They are interested in the action, they sing and rejoice at certain stages of it, but they are never engaged in it, nor leave their high habitations. This chapter exhibits them there, every succeeding one confirms this; and must we not say therefore that they had been previously taken there?

*Daniel and the Apocalypse alone give days and months and years — another striking witness that they deal with the same scenes, and are separate from the apostles who never talk to the present churches of such computation.

I believe that we have many notices which are enough to prepare us for such an event as this, though I know it is a difficulty to many — I mean the event here intimated, a secret rapture of the saints. I do not say that we have a single type of it, but only this, that we have many things which might prepare us for it. Horses and chariots filled the mountains, but the prophet's servant had no eye for them till the Lord gave him one. Neither would that prophet himself have witnessed the flight* of his master if his soul had not passed through a testing and fitting process. Daniel was given to look on a very glorious and heavenly stranger, and to hear his voice as the voice of a multitude; but the men who stood beside him saw nothing: only a terror fell on them. The glory on the holy hill shone only in the eyes of Peter, James, and John, though there was brightness there like that of the sun, which might have lighted up all the land. Many bodies of saints arose, but it was only those to whom it was given that ever knew of their resurrection; for no mere eye or ear of man, as such, conversed with that great occasion. The heaven was opened to Stephen, and Jesus and the glory seen by him there; but the assembled people saw nothing. If Paul went to paradise in the body (and whether he did or not, we will not say), none saw him. As when Philip Was borne from Gaza to Azotus, no one traced his flight, for the Spirit carried him. In the presence and voice of Jesus, which arrested Saul on his journey to Damascus, there was no word for the ear of his companions, nor form of man for their eyes — all was mere glare and sound; but Saul saw and heard it all, and for a time conversed with it. Have not therefore all the circumstances which are to attend on the rapture of the saints been thus anticipated? And yet silence and secrecy, in a great sense, mark them all.

We have in these several visions and audience, resurrections, flights, and ascensions, the glory down here, and the heavens opened up there, and yet man a stranger to it all. And this is simple and easy. For all the things belonged to the regions 'and energies of the Spirit lying beyond the range of the natural faculties. "The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God." The eye and the ear are not attuned to the appearances or voices of the Spirit, if the Spirit please it not. And let me add that, beyond all these, Jesus rose, and rose too forth from a tomb of hard-hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers; but no g ear or eye of man was in that secret. And this resurrection of Jesus is a first-fruits.* And after He was risen, though He might have walked the earth before, He was seen only by those to whom it was given Him to appear (Acts 10: 40). And He could vanish out of sight as He pleased, or appear in various guises as He pleased, and none could trace Him. This last is the greatest instance; but all of these are notices helping us to apprehend how silence and secrecy may, if the Lord will, wait on the coming of the Lord from heaven to meet His saints in the air. I am sure that this presents a difficulty to many who would not dare in their own strength to grapple with the plain words of God.

*It was an unnoticed fact, the moment of which was not known. The angel afterwards descended, accompanied by an earthquake, and rolled back the stone. He then sat on it in triumph, 'putting the sentence of death into the keepers of it, and cheering the women who loved and sought Jesus. Does all this tell us that, after the silent secret rapture of the saints, there will come the appointed hour of display, when the power of the risen Lord shall be manifested in confusion on the enemy and joy to the waiting Israel? The secret rapture of Jesus did not affect the keepers of the stone they were unconscious of it. It did nothing for anyone. It was its results in due time that told upon the enemies and the disciples, either in judgment or in joy.

But at present I feel that I should be doing wrong to the claims of Scripture were I to refuse to believe that there are saints gathered into heaven at some untold moment between the times of Revelation 3 and 4. The joy of Revelation 5 has been said to be but anticipatory: I grant it most surely. How could it but be so, seeing that the time of that chapter is not the millennium nor the season of creation's joy? But this I say also, that this anticipation is felt by each of the three companies — the redeemed elders, the angels, and all creatures, in their due places at that time, and the elders or living ones feel it in heaven. All whom the Son of man takes away in His day He will take away in judgment, after the pattern of the wicked antediluvians (Matt. 24: 38, 39). But the saints are not to be taken away in judgment,, but to glory. Their removal finds its pattern therefore in that of Enoch, who was borne away to heaven before the flood or day of the Lord swept off the wicked from the face of the earth. Enoch was first taken to glory in heaven at some moment which did not depend on any event; and no one, we may suggest, saw his rapture. Then comes the hour of ripened iniquity in the earth; and in that day the generation of the ungodly are taken away by a flood, and the earthly saint left for the new world here.

But, beloved, no more. With  entire freedom of heart I can say, I do not desire to lead the opinions of others. Even our knowledge of truth itself is but little worth to the soul if it have not been attained by exercise of the renewed affections before God. And opinions are poor human things, the fruit of man's midnight lamp, at which he cats the bread of literary carefulness. And how can the saint value them? But if we walk together with right desires, though it may be in much remaining ignorance, we may assure ourselves, even at this still later hour of the day, that our Lord will not refuse us both His light and His company, as once to our brothers on their way to Emmaus. Do not, however, let me intimate that I find no difficulties in considering this great subject. Indeed I do; and besides difficulties, I am going to say this, that I think there may be some indistinctness as to it purposely left on the page of Scripture, in order to keep the saints in health of soul, maintaining them in spirit still, and ever longing for Jesus till His return, and yet being in divine strength, ready to reach Him by death through flames and floods. For indeed the soul's lively, hopeful, suffering energies are far beyond well ordered and carefully digested conceptions of these things. And sure, sure I am, that our Lord has another purpose touching us as His disciples or pupils than the merely having us of one opinion by dint of the study of the Bible. For poor is the communion our souls have tasted as the fruit of that.

And I will add one other thought — that though I see nothing necessarily delaying our rapture into the air, nothing put as a drag upon it, yet I know and allow that many things are to be done on the earth before the full form of evil be revealed, or the reserved week of Daniel begin. The nations of the East may have either to be reproduced or organized, and all of the prophetic words about Babylon, Edom, Tyre, and the rest of these may have to be accomplished in the ancient sites of these famous cities and lands of the peoples. I do not deny this; and we know that much is to be done with Israel and with Judah, morally and politically, and with the land that is theirs by gift of God. And the West is to be got ready as the platform of a serious action ere the crisis comes, or its precursors in the seventieth week. Nor would I deny that a full 6,000 years as to man's world is to tell itself out ere "the world to come" be displayed in its holy fruitfulness and beauty. And I grant that the present dispensation may still go on, because God's long-suffering is salvation. and He waits to be gracious. But still I add, that none of this is made necessary to our removal. We are not to be remembering days and years, though of course the longer we live the nearer is our salvation. Nor have we to ponder the ways of the nations, though of course the maturer the iniquity the more fit for the iniquity, the more fit for the judgment.

But "come, Lord Jesus" is ever to be the desire of the utterance. "Hope of our hearts, O Lord, appear" is a song, I believe, most suited to the worship of our congregations. And let me just add, that I grieve very specially over sonic prevailing thoughts on this subject, because they threaten to sully the heavenly atmosphere of our assemblies, and give check to the happier and more abundant flow of hope and joy in our souls. This would be bad indeed. Even increase of knowledge, with decline in the spirit of worship, would be bad. With this, however, I desire that our souls may be kept in patience. We should count the resistance of the world no "strange thing," take it what shape it may. We should all deem it a very likely thing that, instead of being at once with the Lord, we may have to answer for the profession of His name at the stake, or in captivity and loss of all things. Oh for the great conquering grace! Oh for hearts big with the expectation of Jesus, but ready also not only to suffer shame but to die for His name?

I say no more. May the Lord hinder the confidence of our hearts together from being soiled by suspicions and conjectures! A second journey across the Jordan will be worth the time and labour, if it hinder that, to prove that no altar has been raised to our own imaginations. Let us call each other's spiritual senses into exercise, but not seek either to frighten or to school others into our way of thinking. For on such subjects even an inspired apostle, as I noticed before, used this chastened style, "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant;" at the same time, as he also tells us in the same place, opening these mysteries, not for the filling of the mind of the disciples with opinions, but for the guiding of their hearts with right affections, saying to them, "lest ye should be wise in your own conceits." Let us then, beloved, get the apostle's taste and spirit, as well as his knowledge. A brother's spirit is more edifying than his communication. We experience that every day. And let us take a hint from another, "to aim to gather knowledge more from meditation than from study, and to have it dwell in us, not as opinions, but as the food of communion, the quickener of hope, the husbandman of divine charity, and the blessed refreshing of the kingdom of God within us." I esteem it holier to confess difficulties than to grapple with them in either the ingenuity or the strength of intellect. And surely it is bad when some fond thought or another is made the great object. It soon works itself into, the central place, and becomes the gathering point. The order of the soul is disturbed, and the real godly edifying of the saints hindered. For we have to remember that knowledge is only a small part in the wide field of our husbandry (2 Peter 1: 5-7). An appetite for it needs to be regulated rather than gratified. And many who in their husbandry have raised far less of it than others have more abundantly prospered in bringing forth richer fruits in service, and in charity, and in personal love to Jesus.

May the Lord deepen in the souls of all His saints the power of His own redeeming love, and shed more and more among us the savour of His precious and honoured name!

But I desire still to add another thought. The sense of the nearness of the glory should be deeply cherished by our hearts, and we need to be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us richly in the word. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified," is a sentence which intimates this. It tells us of the path and the title to glory. When by faith we stand justified by the blood of Christ, we are at once made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. And the path to it being thus simple, the place of it is near, and its capacity to unfold or manifest itself lies in the compass of a moment or of the twinkling of an eye, if the Lord please.

The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the tabernacle to acquaint themselves with their high priest and his ways. They took knowledge of his consecration and services, and then the glory appeared. That glory was just waiting within its veil, and all it wanted was a title to show itself, an object worthy of its visitation. And as soon as the congregation stand in the value of the priesthood, the glory finds this object. This is very expressive of the nearness to the camp in which it was all the while dwelling (Lev. 8, 9). Just so at the introduction of the ark into the temple afterwards (2 Chr. 5), and at the erection of the tabernacle before (Ex. 40). And on these occasions the glory appeared to cause triumph and gladness, for the scenes it visited were ready first. But this was not always so. A light surprised the persecutor as he journeyed to Damascus. It was above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. And well it might have been, for it was a beam from the glory and bore the Lord of the glory upon it (Isaiah 24: 23). But it did not come to gladden Saul all at once or merely to display itself. It had, I may say, weightier business on hand. It came to make this ruthless persecutor a citizen of its own native land. It begins, therefore, by laying him in ruins before it. It is the light of Gideon's pitcher confounding the host of Midian or the army of the uncircumcised. Saul falls to the earth. He takes the sentence of death into him. He learns that he had been madly kicking against the pricks, destroying himself by his enmity to Jesus, for that Jesus was the Lord of the glory. But He that wounds can heal, He that heals can make alive. "Rise and stand upon thy feet," says the Lord of glory to him, and he is quickly made His companion, servant, and, fellow-heir. It is sweetly characteristic of the present age that the hand of a fellow-disciple is used to strengthen Saul to bear the glory, or to accomplish his conversion. The seraphim alone do that for Isaiah (Isa. 6), the Spirit does it for Ezekiel (Ezek. 2), the hand of the Son of man does it for Daniel (Dan. 10); but a fellow-disciple is made to do it for Saul.

What a transaction was this! what a moment! Never, perhaps, had such points in the furthest distance met before. The persecutor of the flock and the Saviour of the flock, the Lord of the glory and the sinner whom the glory is consuming, are beside each other! The glory came, not to gladden, as it had the congregation of old, but to convict, and through conviction and revelation of itself and Jesus to turn a sinner from darkness to light, making him a meet partaker of the inheritance of its native land. Can we trust all this and rejoice in it? Is it pleasant to us to know that the glory is thus near us? Stephen found it so when the Lord of it pleased to raise the curtain (Acts 7). And when the voice of the archangel summons it. and the trump of God heralds it, it will be here again as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to bear us up to its own country (1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4).

Thus may we cherish the thought that the glory is near us. Our translation to its native land asks but for a moment, for the twinkling of an eye. The title is simple, the path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified."

Notes on Joshua

Notes on Joshua.

J. G. Bellett.

An outline study of the book of Joshua.

Contents.

Introduction

Joshua Set in Office — Joshua 1

The Passages of the Jordan — Joshua 2-4

Gilgal — Joshua 5

Jericho and Ai — Joshua 6-8

The Gibeonites — Joshua 9

The Conquest of the Land — Joshua 10- 12

The Division of the Land — Joshua 13-21

Caleb

The Two Tribes and a Half — Joshua 22

Joshua's Last Words — His Death and Burial — Joshua 23-24

Conclusion

"Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness . . which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus (Joshua) into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers." Acts 7. 44-45.

Introduction.

Coming events, that have importance in them, are said to cast their shadow beforehand; and the arrival of persons of dignity has couriers to announce it. I see this in Joshua.

Joshua was to have a great ministry committed to him. He was to lead Israel into the land of their inheritance. He was to witness, as I may express it, the day of glory among the people of God, as Moses had witnessed the day of grace. He was to be the redeemer of the inheritance, as Moses had been the redeemer of the heir. By him God would perfect what concerned Israel, as by Moses He had begun it. He was to lead Israel into Canaan, as Moses had led them out of Egypt. Beforehand, therefore, we see him constantly with Moses. He attends him; as I may say, the inheritance attends on the heir, or the close of a work on the beginning of it. And this constant abiding at the side of Moses, or waiting upon him, was a shadow cast beforehand, of the ministry he was to fulfil, as soon as his day came — for he was to finish, as we have said, what Moses had begun, for Israel; he was to put the inheritance and the heir together.

But further, it is not merely in this constant companionship with Moses, this abiding with him and waiting on him, that we see a foreshadowing of Joshua's future ministry, we see it also in those services which he rendered Israel, while Moses was yet with them. He fights with Amalek, just as Israel was reaching the Mount of God, and he brings out from Canaan a pledge of the fruit of that land which was their promised inheritance (Ex. 17; Num. 13 and 14). These are significant. They are samples, as I may say, of the ministry of him who by-and-by was to subdue the nations of Canaan and divide their land as an inheritance among the people of the Lord. And thus did this ministry cast its shadow beforehand. The Joshua of the wilderness may prepare us for the Joshua of the land. Peter, among the apostles, predestined to feed the sheep and the lambs of the flock of God, and Joshua, predestined soon to lead Israel, are both put through their exercises — and indeed that is good for us all, beloved.

And here let me observe that Aaron's connection with Moses was different from that of Joshua. It was co-ordinate, Joshua's was subordinate. I grant that Moses was rather principal: for the king in divine order is before the priest. Still, Aaron was independent in a great sense. He did not wait on Moses, as Joshua did. He was no reflection of Moses, no successor to him. Their offices and ministries did not admit of such things. But this only as I pass on. The time of the Book of Joshua was the time of Israel's first love in the land, as the short day of the Book of Leviticus had been their season of first love in the wilderness. In the wilderness the sin of the golden calf had been repented of, and in faith the golden sanctuary, as I may call it, had been raised up. And while that sanctuary was still open, Israel passed the time of the Book of Leviticus around it, and all is in happy, holy order, as between them and the Lord.

There is evil, it is true, as in the persons of Nadab and Abihu, and also in Shelomith's son; but with that, there is zeal in the camp to purify itself. And so now. while we are in the time of the Book of Joshua, Israel carry themselves in a very right spirit. There is evil again, I know, in the person of Achan; but there is zeal again in the people to purge themselves of it. And thus, the book presents Israel as in a season of first love. They serve the Lord all the days of Joshua.

We have a like season in the history of the Church. It is seen in Acts 2-5. Evil is again there. as in the persons of Ananias and Sapphira. But again, there is zeal to put it away; and the Church, for a moment, for a sunny, unclouded morning hour, like that of Leviticus in the wilderness, or like that of Joshua in the land, is in her first love.

Alas, we know that such seasons quickly pass. They are made to shine out for their appointed hour, like Adam's brief moment at the close of Gen. 2. They witness the hand of the Lord in its holy, beautiful workmanship, and thus they vindicate His grace and wisdom in the varied administration of His name among men — or, in the progress of the ages and dispensations. But man — whether Adam, Israel or the Church — put into stewardship, is quickly found to be faithless. God is justified; we are exposed. God is justified, whether He pipe to us, or mourn to us — but we are found to be an instrument out of tune. We have no answer to the touch of His finger, no dancing to His piping, no lamenting to His mourning, however skilled our heart and hand may he in works and inventions of our own.

Joshua set in Office.

Joshua 1.

Joshua's ordination, as we speak, had taken place in the time of Num. 27. In this chapter he receives his charge, or is set in his office, to do the work for which he had been already ordained.

David also had been ordained long before he was put into office. The oil of Samuel had been poured on his head even before his troubles under the hand of Saul had begun. And as we may consider it as belonging to this book, I would look back for a little to Joshua's ordination; for there was great moral beauty in Moses' conduct on that occasion, which it may profit the soul to consider.

To the deep grief of his heart, Moses was denied entrance into the land. He had forfeited that privilege; and a forfeited blessing is never restored. The forfeiture may make way for a better thing; but the forfeited thing itself is never restored.

Moses bows to the fixed purpose of the Lord, which denies him entrance on the land. He says no more about it; but concern for the flock of Israel which he had brought out of Egypt, and which he was now to leave in the wilderness, awakens in his heart very earnestly. He looks on them as with the eye of his divine Master in after days. Jesus saw Israel as sheep that had no shepherd, and He began to teach them, and to ordain others to go forth to the same service. Moses now sees Israel as sheep that were soon to have no shepherd, and he begins to plead for them. He asks the Lord to give them a shepherd. He turns from his own sorrow to the need of the people — and beautiful it always is, when we can think of the distresses of others in the day of our own calamity. The blessed Lord, illustrating all virtue as He did, having moral, as well as personal and official pre-eminence in all things, addressed the daughters of Jerusalem on His way to Calvary, and then His mother from the Cross. So Moses now, in his way and measure. And, let me observe, Moses was a humbled as well as a heartbroken man at that time. Canaan is denied him, and he sees the hand of another and of a younger entrusted with that service and that dignity which were taken from him. But with holy, Christ-like, largeness of heart, he forgets everything, except the need of the people.

This was beautiful — and the Lord answers it in great sweetness of grace. He at once tells Moses that He will give Israel a leader according to his desire; but more than that  - and blessed it is to read of such grace — the Lord tells him that he shall ordain this leader of Israel, give him his charge in the presence of the congregation, and put some of his spirit upon him.

How exquisite in the way of grace all this is! Moses' grief shall be relieved, and the desire of his heart for the flock he loved and was about to leave, shall be satisfied — and in the stead of being humbled, he shall be honoured. It shall he seen by all the people, the whole congregation of Israel, that he is the "better," and not the "less," blessing their future leader, and putting some, though not all, of his spirit, upon him!

This was indeed an occasion full of beauty; the considerateness of the grace in which the Lord dealt with His servant, and the unselfish love which filled the heart of that servant! Intercourses between the Lord and the saints are at times wonderful, in the tone of holy, gracious intimacy that marks them, and this is an instance.

Upon this ordination, Joshua is now set in office, or at his work. His commission is then read to him, with encouragements, exhortations and promises.

The land in its length and breadth, and boundaries, is also described to him, and the people that dwelt there, that Joshua might know what business was now put upon him, and how it had now fallen upon him to put the redeemed Israel of God into possession of the inheritance promised to them as the seed and children of their fathers.

Joshua begins at once to act under his orders, and prepares the people for the passage of the Jordan; and here the recollection revives before the mind, that little things in Scripture are at times very full of meaning. "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you," is an instance of what I mean.

Such words convey the impression which was then on the mind of the apostle respecting those two companions of his — and events which quickly followed, vindicated such impressions.

It is so here, at the close of our chapter. As to the tribes generally Joshua has but to say, "Prepare your victuals, for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you." They were unencumbered, in travelling order, and had but to know the hour of departure. Like Noah, they were ready for the voyage that was to land them in another world. All that had to be done was to get into the vessel. But the Reubenites and Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh were not so free, and Joshua feels towards them as towards a heavy piece of luggage in this hour of decamping. He has to challenge them; at least he felt that he had to remind them of their pledges to Moses, for they were not, in his sight, as if they had been altogether Israel themselves. In measure, he is to them what the angel who came to Sodom was to Lot. I do not say they were Lot, but they may, in some respects remind us of him. Like him, their history begins with their eyeing the well-watered plains that were good for cattle; and because they had cattle, they had taken up with the wilderness side of the Jordan.

This may read us a lesson. Moses, on leading out from Egypt, had said nothing of Gilead and Bashan. They were not parts of "the mountain of the inheritance," of which he and the congregation had sung in their song, nor were they in that "place," to which he had told the Midianite he and Israel were on their journey. But Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had cattle, and in the plains on the eastern side of the river, cattle might feed to advantage. They had no thought of revolting or giving up their interest in the God of Israel; but they had cattle, and Gilead and Bashan suited them.

How common a case! This is a large generation. We know ourselves too well to wonder at this.

If we read the history of that occasion, we shall find that Moses had been made uneasy by this movement on the part of the two tribes and a half, and he expresses his uneasiness (Num. 32.). He tells them that their conduct had reminded him of the spies who had gone out, years and years before. from Kadesh-barnea, and whose way had occasioned the forty years' pilgrimage in the wilderness. They explain themselves, and give pledges that they by no means purpose to separate themselves from the fellowship and interests of their brethren; and they do this with zeal and integrity, but Moses has his fears about them.

And now Joshua holds this same people in like fear and suspicion. He calls them to him, and addresses them with a special word of exhortation and warning, now that the time of action in the camp of God was beginning.

But this is all painful. It is bad when this uneasiness is produced, when the first instinctive thought of a saint walking in the power of the resurrection of Christ, is that of alarm at what he sees in a brother, in one who like Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, while holding to the hope of the people of God, is not in the suited place of that hope. The garment of "linen and woollen, to use a Levitical figure, is on such, and the eye, the priestly eye, which discloses things that differ, is pained.

Again I say, How common! But we know ourselves and our heartlessness too well to add, How wonderful!

Again. however, they answer Joshua with zeal and integrity, as they had answered Moses. "According as we hearkened to Moses." they say to him now, "So will we hearken unto thee: only the Lord thy God be with thee, as He was with Moses."

The Passages of the Jordan.

Joshua 2-4.

In these chapters we read of two passages of the river Jordan, one by the spies and another by the whole camp.

The first of these was made in weakness. It was therefore the test of faith.

Rahab receives the spies, though this was done in peril of her life, in spite of their weakness, as having a title paramount to the rights of every relationship in which she then stood.

These three are among the finest qualities of the faith of God's people. Surely they are the fruit of the workmanship of the Spirit in the saint, so that all the glory is God's, but they do shine brightly, and the more so when found together as here. They greatly ennoble the soul that is illustrating them, as Rahab the harlot of Jericho did.

She set the claim of these strangers, in weakness and danger as they were, above that of her king and country, for she recognised God in them. "He that receiveth you receiveth me." This was like Abigail, or Joel, or Jonathan, who, in their several days, made more of God's witnesses, than of husband, or guest, or parent. This was faith, and she accounts for her faith, just as faith must always account for itself. A report, tidings of what the Lord had done for Israel, was her warrant. Faith comes by hearing.

Grace then shows itself ready to answer faith, as surely it always does. It pledges security to all who will use its provisions, and it gains a sure token; only requiring that there he faithfulness to them in this the day of their weakness.

If we noticed the fine qualities of faith illustrated in the way of Rahab, surely all this in the spies tells us of the excellent ways of grace.

The cross has been left in this judged world as the sure token of salvation to all who will use it and take shelter under it ere the day of judgment come. Only we must be faithful to it, have no other confidence, but hold it fast, our only refuge and plea, to the very end.

The spies may have exceeded their commission. They had been sent by Joshua from the camp in the wilderness to spy the land, and not to shelter the people. Be it so. But grace is "a sea without a shore." It is "a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall." They who know it, need no ordination to publish it, and He whose it is has never told them that they are to wait for orders, ere they pledge it, and the fruit of it in life and justification to all they meet in the highway of this world, ruined and condemned as it is. And then, the sureness and decision with which the spies, though in their day of weakness, pledge and promise salvation to Rahab, is very blessed in its grace and meaning. It reminds me of that word of the Lord Jesus, "But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins." There is no future to settle the great question of our souls. It is to be done here, and at once ours is a present salvation, and so was Rahab's. "More happy, but not more secure" is the language of the believer touching himself and the glorified.

And what strength and weakness meet here! The men who were lying under stalks of flax to hide them from their pursuers, assure safety to all who will take it from them. The Son of Man, the despised One of Galilee, Jesus, the rejected, seals the forgiveness of a sinner. What gleams of Christ do we get through the chinks and openings of the Book of God from its very beginning!

The faith of this woman of Jericho, thus answered by the grace of the spies from the camp of God, is also quick to avail itself of the pledge of salvation. She hangs out the mystic line from her window as soon as the spies had departed; and this is another fine quality of faith. It runs to its refuge. It parleys not with probabilities nor does it suffer delays. It knows its safety in its refuge, but knows it nowhere else. David was afraid to stir from the threshing-floor where mercy had rejoiced over judgment, and where God had had respect to his offering. All this has character in it. And then by her faith, Rahab condemns the Canaanitish world — for all the inhabitants of that land had felt the report of what God had done by Israel, as well as herself; but she alone had acted upon it (see Joshua 2. 9 and Heb. 11. 7).

One cannot but be moved by the goodness of giving us such a narrative as this, at the opening of such a book as this. We are about to witness the doings of the God of judgment, but ere we enter upon that we are given this rich and precious sample of the ways of the God of grace. It is, as we speak, the eleventh hour — yea, and all but the last minute of that hour — but as its day is not quite spent, as its sun has not yet gone down, grace is itself still and will show itself unwearied in the greatness of its ways. Its earliest moment revives in all its strength and freshness, here at its last. The 12th of Exodus is read again in the 2nd of Joshua. The blood is sprinkled on the lintel again for the redemption of the sinner — the scarlet line preserves the household of faith in devoted Canaan as the sprinkled lintel had done in judged Egypt.

And the work of Grace is done with its own proper attributes, and in its own excellent style. All certainty marks its pledges which it gives, and they are rendered with a ready heart.

The moment also, yields an attraction to this work which no other could have done. It is, as we have said, all but the last moment of the eleventh hour of its day, and yet it serves and is active, displaying thus its divine unweariness.

Surely, we may well take up and enjoy this story of Rahab the harlot of Jericho; somewhat set forth, as the story of Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, a pattern of all long-suffering in the grace of the God of Salvation. And happy is it again, I may say, to get such a scene as this in such a book as this, that while the judgments we are now about to witness are His needful work, the grace which we here witness, is His own dear and welcome work.

"His wakened wrath but slowly moves,

His willing mercy flies apace."

The second of these passages of the Jordan is altogether of another character. It is made in strength and is full of glory. It is "the Ark of the God of all the earth," that is now crossing the river, at the head of the hosts of the Lord. The divine presence is making itself known in majesty. The Lord is about to prepare His throne for judgment and to take His Kingdom.

All is greatness. As soon as the feet of the priests who bear the Ark touch the brim of the water, it retires. "What aileth thee, O Jordan, that thou art driven back?" The presence of God was felt. In calm undistracted majesty, in the consciousness of nothing less than divine strength and title, this passage is now made. The hills had but yesterday been a hiding place for the spies, but now the water itself shall stand up as an heap in the service of the camp.

There is, accordingly, no appeal to faith now, as there had been before, no weakness, no seeking countenance and shelter, no apparent degradation, as of one hiding himself on the roof of a house under stalks of flax laid there by the hand of a woman. All is strength, rendering rewards to them who had been faithful; delivering those who had received the word of grace; and judging those who had feared, but who had not acted on their fears. It was the day of glory redeeming the pledges which grace had already left in a judged world. It was the day of power and of the Kingdom, erecting a memorial to itself in the Place of the inheritance, which had but lately been the place of the enemy.

These are the characteristics of the second passage of the Jordan recorded in these chapters. And when we look at the two passages, so different as they are, we cannot but catch the image of the two advents of the Lord into this judged world of ours; the first addressing itself in weakness, in faith, and pledging redemption, in faith — the second, in strength, asserting the rights of the God of all the earth in the judgment of a world that had filled up its measure; giving the promised deliverance to those who had received Him and trusted Him in His day of humiliation; and establishing the honour of His deeds as by a Pillar of twelve stones, the praise of all His saints, in the place of their inheritance.

How full, how clear, how simple! What a scripture do these three chapters furnish! Have we, like the harlot of Jericho, so accepted the grace of the first advent, that we are ever standing with a welcome for the glory of the second? Do we know that perfect love that is in Him now, so that we have boldness in the thought of the judgment yet to be executed?

But in closing my meditations on these chapters, I cannot refuse to add how much I admire the action of this book taking by way of introduction this deliverance of Rahab. It strikingly recalls to mind the redemption of the heir, now when we are about to enter on the great action of the redemption of the inheritance.

We have in this story of Rahab in Jericho, a vivid remembrance of Israel in Egypt; and again I say it is so beautiful that we should have this picture of the salvation of a sinner, just as we are about to enter on that scene which will so tell us of the kingdom or the glory! for, in principle, there is but a step — just as the two passages of the Jordan lay near each other. "Whom He justified, them He also glorified," As in the twinkling of an eye, the believing thief on the cross was the saint in paradise with Christ.

Gilgal

Joshua 5.

In the first moment since the days of the patriarchs, the elect of God, the children of Israel, now touch the land of promise. It was a long interval, more than two hundred years; and that interval had been occupied by them very much to their shame as well as their sorrow. A sunny hour had shone on their path in the time of Joseph; but since then, the brick kilns and taskmasters of Egypt, and then the forty years' pilgrimage in the wilderness, had told of their sorrows; and their idolatries in the land of their captivity, their unbelief when God rose up for their deliverance, and then their many provocations along the way by which they had now come to Canaan, told of their sins.

And before that course of sin and sorrow had begun, it was their iniquity that separated them from that land at the first, which now they had just regained. They had sinned against Joseph, and thence was their captivity.

In spite, however, of all this, here they now are again. Their feet do now tread the land of their father's sepulchres, the land of the promise and covenant of their God.

The nations of the land feel the power of the moment. It was like the cry which is still to be heard Behold the Bridegroom cometh." The Master of the house had now risen up. Israel had crossed the borders, and it was too late to cry, "Lord, Lord, open unto us." They felt the moment in spite of themselves, and their heart melted.

But the camp is made to feel another thing. The generation which had been born in the wilderness had not been circumcised, for they were in a strange condition.

But now they have, as it were, revived or reappeared in proper character, and circumcision becomes a needed thing. Canaan was theirs only as they were Jehovah's, and they must wear their token of being His. They are circumcised, and thus become a new people. All is left behind, "the reproach of Egypt" as is here said, "the shame of their youth" as Isaiah says (Isa. 54. 4). All is cancelled.* "This day," says the Lord to Joshua, when the circumcision of the people had taken place, "have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you." He was be. ginning anew with His people. This was circumcision, as it were, the second time, as though the Lord were now beginning with the nation, as He had in early Abraham days, by the first circumcision, begun with the family (Gen. 17). And a very fine expression of grace in its rich, abounding glory, this was. Israel may now keep the Passover as in the night of their redemption from Egypt, in Ex. 12. — for the Passover belongs to a circumcised people. For, whom God sanctifies, that is, separates to Himself as by election, He redeems, and would have His redeemed know and celebrate their redemption (Ex. 12. 45).

*Mark also under what new conditions the child of Moses had to be circumcised (Ex. 4).

And the inheritance then, in due order. follows the redemption, as the redemption follows the sanctification or separation. Accordingly, the land now yields them food, since they have now kept the Passover after their circumcision. As we read here, "they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the Passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn, the self-same day; and the manna ceased." And this savours of the inheritance. It was the land which yielded them their cakes and this parched corn. Wilderness-fare. which the manna was, was not needed in the land. It is truly, too precious ever to he forgotten; and therefore an omer of it shall be kept for a memorial in the very ark of God (Ex. 16. 33), but still, wilderness-fare is not needed in the land of the inheritance. As, in like spirit, Israel shall make booths in the feast of the tabernacles to remind them of wilderness-life; but booths were not needed in the midst of Israel's cities and towns and villages in the days of the kingdom. Remembrance of past sorrow does but enhance present joy. The basket of first-fruits recognises this. That basket was the witness of present fulness, but the confession which accompanied the presentation of it, recalled to mind the day when Israel was but a perishing stranger. So we in spirit now, as the second of Ephesians shows us. We remember that we were Gentiles, as without God and without hope, though now in the liberty of a people consciously brought nigh. And so in glory by-and-by, as now in spirit or by faith. For the harps of the harpers in heaven will he telling of the past condition of sin and ruin.

Here. I might say, the kingdom or the millennium shines out for a short, mystic moment. The Jordan has been passed, the wilderness being left, and the people of God sit down in a fruitful land of promise and of glory.

Jericho and Ai.

Joshua 6-8.

Having entered the land and assumed their circumcision, that order of sanctification which suited the inheritance, and the presence of the God of Israel, the subjugation of the land begins.

The Lord now puts Himself at the head of the army, that He may order the battles, as Israel's Captain, as through the wilderness in the cloudy pillar He had put Himself at the head of the camp, that He might order their journeys as Israel's Guide.

Here, however, I would look around me for a few minutes.

The Lord stood as a soldier under the walls of Jericho, and in the presence of Joshua. But Joshua did not discover Him. This was like Gideon afterwards in judges 6, and like Manoah in judges 13. Joshua had to enquire after Him as they had to do in their day. But it bed not been thus with Abraham in Gen. 18. He discovered the Lord at once, and bowed before Him, treating Him as the Lord. But Joshua has to challenge Him and to ask Him as One who did not know who He was, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?"

But this will never do. Christ cannot go on with those who have depreciating thoughts of Him. It was thus with Martha in John 11. She said, "Whatsoever Thou askest of God, God will give it thee." This would not do. And Jesus lets her know at once that it will not do. "Thy brother shall rise again," He says to her in reply. Not in answer to His asking of God should Lazarus rise, as Martha's words suggested, but on His own personal authority, as in the exercise of His own proper rights, He pledges this, that Lazarus her brother should rise again. And so, when in the darkness of her own thoughts she spoke again and said, "I know that he shall rise at the last day," the Lord, again resenting her, says "I am the resurrection and the life." He would have Martha's mind right towards His glory. And so here with Joshua. "Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" says Israel's leader. "Nay," says Christ, "but as Captain of the Lord's host am I now come." He resents Joshua's thought respecting Him, a thought which regarded Him as possibly on the side of Israel, but knew Him not as the head and in the front of Israel. He must have a right mind in Joshua as in Martha, touching His glory. Yea, in all of us, beloved. And surely we may each of us pray — "May we ever apprehend it without a cloud, and confess it without a falter."

And happy it is to see how quickly the mind of Joshua gains its right place. He worships the Stranger whom just before he had challenged. He is now the Captain of salvation in his eyes, and He is trusted as the One that would lead the sons of Israel to victory. We may need instruction in the various glories of the Son of God, and wait to have them unfolded to us, but every saint carries a mind prepared for them, and at once, or instinctively is quick to rejoice in them.

But this, as we pass on. The battle being now the Lord's, it mattered not what the weapons of war were. An ox-goad, a sling and a stone, lamps and pitchers, or jaw-bone of an ass would do. And so the shout of the soldiers and the blast of a trumpet of ram's horn shall now prove sufficient; the walls of Jericho fall, and that city, as the first-fruits of the land, is taken. Faith did it and not force (Heb. 11. 30) — faith which brings God in, and bringing God in, faith, if need be, cannot only pull down walls, but remove mountains. But the world must be judged. The kingdom must be cleared of all that offends and does iniquity, ere it can be taken and ruled by Christ. Jericho is devoted to the sword. It stood forth as the sample of that which was to be judged, and all that were in it, or that belonged to it, except the household of faith which was under the shelter of the scarlet line, were to be cut off. That household, but that alone, was redeemed in this day of judgment in Canaan, as the house of Israel themselves had been in an earlier day of judgment in Egypt (Ex. 12).

But further. All the gold and silver was to be the Lord's, the vessels of brass and iron. Does this surprise us.) One wedge of gold was enough to defile a whole tent, and bring the judgment of God in awful, mighty ruin upon it and all that were of it, while the Lord Himself could take and put into His treasury all the gold that might be found in the city. Again, I ask, does this surprise us? Well, God is God and not man. Christ can touch a leper; no Israelite, let him be who he may, priest or king, or even Nazarite could. The wrath of man shall praise God. God can use it, but we are not to exercise it. Even those who preach Him in contention and ill-will, Christ can use, but we are to cleanse ourselves when we take His Name upon us to publish it.

Jericho is now the representative of the world to the camp of Israel, of that thing which was to be judged; let every man of the camp keep himself apart from it, and all that belongs to it. And therefore, further, as we read here, the people are warned not to touch anything that was of that place, even, as I may say, though it was as "a thread or a shoe-latchet." It was to be as Sodom in the sight of Abraham. And further still, as marking it, like Sodom again, for perpetual burning, Joshua adjured the camp at that time, and said, "Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho." For that indeed would be a Nimrod-act, a defiance of the God of judgment, an Amelek-act. It would be acting again the part of the Cam of Gen. 4, returning to the earth which God had cursed, reviving what God had sentenced and doomed to destruction. The cursed thing, however, in defiance of all these solemn words, is taken. It was, of a truth, a presumptuous sin. No sacrifice could stand in atonement for it. "There is a sin unto death; I do not say that you shall pray for it." A wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment are coveted and taken, and hid in the midst of Israel; and Israel, the camp, becomes, in the sight of God, for a time, a Jericho. The curse which had of late rested on that city of the uncircumcised, now rests on the camp of the people of God. The leprosy of Naaman is put upon Gehazi — and by righteous reason of all this, Israel is defeated in their second battle at Ai.*

*What a character of ripened iniquity Jericho had reached by having the ware of Babylon in her. Surely she was ready for the judgment.

And here, let me say, this has been done under every trial of man — the cursed thing has been again and again and ever taken. God's creature, His responsible creature, has linked himself with pollution, that is, with the very thing he ought to have judged. Such an one was Adam in Gen. 3 — such is Israel now. and such again in Judges 1 — such was Solomon in Judah, and such Jeroboam in Israel — and such is the Church or Christendom as in 2 Tim. 2.

This occasion tells us of this. Joshua ought to have known the secret of Israel's defeat. He ought to have known the mischief to be lurking within, and that Israel was not straightened in God but in themselves. "For this cause," as an apostle speaks, for the cause of something within-doors, "many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." And also from Joshua 6. 18 he ought to have known where the occasion of this disaster was to be found. But he seems to charge and challenge the Lord, and, like David in the day of his bad temper because of the breach upon Uzziah, Joshua has to learn that the fault was all his own. Instead therefore, of the victories of Israel, the purification of Israel must take place. Instead of going on from strength to strength, first works are to be done again. If we do not judge ourselves, the Lord will, that we may not be condemned with the world. The camp of Israel shall not be as a Canaanitish nation, though for a moment it may be as Jericho. The sin and judgment of Miriam had once delayed the progress of Israel through the wilderness, the sin and judgment of Achan must now delay the progress of Israel through the land. But it is only delay. Discipline does not revoke grace; it only maintains holiness. The valley of Achor is a door of hope (Hosea 2. 15).*

*So now, judgment upon Israel, all through this present parenthetic age, has again delayed or interrupted the orderly history of the earth and of Israel. But the age of judgment will end and Israel be Israel again.

And happy to know, a restored soul is always a blest soul. So is it here. The camp go a second time against Ai, and Ai is taken, not indeed with the ease and honour by which Jericho had been reduced; but still it is taken, as in the experience of our own souls, for though pardoned and restored, and put on the way even to richer, higher blessings, still the soul finds some new elements in its history. It has exercises to go through which might have been spared it had it walked more evenly. But in the end, most surely, Israel is blest. Ai falls and its cattle and spoil are the property of the people, as the gold and the silver, the brass and the iron of Jericho had already been the property of the Lord.

The altar is then erected. God is at once owned, as He had been by Noah, when he stepped out from the ark upon the new world — and as Abram had owned Him, when he reached the place which the God of glory had told him of — as Israel had owned Him as soon as they had got beyond Egypt and the Red Sea — and as Solomon owned Him when he took the kingdom. Whatever the mercy, the pillar and the altar are to follow — the mercy is to be the occasion of testimony and of praise.

At the end of these chapters the covenant which put Israel under law is inscribed on its proper pillar, and read in the audience of the people; for the law was the condition on which the inheritance which had now been entered was to be secured and enjoyed, as we may see. by-and-by, in Joshua 23.

And in glancing back at these chapters for another moment, let me say, if the Lord judge this in the world, He will surely not pass it by in His saints. If the cursed thing of Jericho be found in Israel, the hand of God shall rest on Israel as on Jericho. A difference there is, while the controversy of holiness is alike judged in both, for in the saint, sin is judged as by discipline for purifying; in the world it is judged for destruction. And all this is exhibited here. Jericho is destroyed, the camp is purified. Jericho is no more, the camp is on its way to fresh conquests. In the case of the saint, the valley of Achor is always a door of hope. Tribulation works hope through patience and experience. The Lord does not leave His people in that valley. We are judged of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.

But here, I would suggest a truth which I hold to be morally of great importance, and which we ought always to have in remembrance when following the course of Joshua's victories, viz., that those victories were the judgment of God upon a people who had been borne with for centuries, and who had now, ere the sword of Joshua was unsheathed, filled up the measure of their sins (see Gen. 15). The iniquity of the Amorite was full, and judgment was executed. The sword of Joshua was one of judgment, rather than of victory. He is to appear before us as a judge, not as a conqueror; and it relieves the heart. when surveying the slaughters of this solemn history, to have this in remembrance, that the wars of this Leader of Israel are never to be regarded as the mere invasions of a weaker country, by the unprincipled and unbridled strength of a superior army. Joshua was God's minister, and "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man."

The Gibeonites.

Joshua 9.

In this book of Joshua, fruitful in various moral illustrations, we are now introduced to the Gibeonites, and through them to a very serious and important lesson.

It was faith which led Rahab of Jericho into alliance with Israel, as we saw in our meditation on Joshua 2, and as we learn both from James and the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. For she accepted the people of God in their day of weakness, while they were yet in the wilderness — like Ruth afterwards who would fain go with Naomi still in exile and poverty, or like Abigail who owned David in the day when he needed a loaf of bread.

This is faith. This is accepting the Son of Man under the sign of the prophet Jonah. But this is not the way of the Gibeonites. During the interval from Rahab to them, Israel crossed the Jordan. In words of Scripture, "the Master of the house had risen up and had shut to the door." judgment had begun to take its course. It was too late for faith to exercise itself.* Israel was no longer distant, but arrived; no longer unseen, but in the midst. Their day of strength had come. It was, therefore, fear for themselves, and not faith, which moved the Gibeonites to seek a league with Israel. It was like the cry, Lord, Lord, open unto us" — and we are told that such is a vain cry.

*What is said of the Gibeonites in Joshua 11. 19, 20, may lead to a qualified acceptance of this interpretation. Contrast with that of Rahab. It does not represent faith, as hers does. Fear because of the presence of a strong, victorious one, was their spring of action.

The Gibeonites had heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai; that is, they heard of judgment in the land, after Israel had crossed the Jordan, or as we said, when the Master of the house had risen up. Rahab had heard what the Lord had done at the Red Sea and in the wilderness (see Joshua 2. 10; Joshua 9. 3). But this makes a great difference. It is easy to be gracious when pangs come upon us: but such graciousness is not of faith, but of fear. It is natural, nay, necessary. The Gibeonites pretend that they were moved by the same report as that which had moved Rahab (vv. 9, 10), but this was false, as verse 3 has already shown us. They were like the multitude who followed the Lord, not because they saw the miracles, but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled. They sought Joshua for what they could secure, or get, or make, by him; they sought him for themselves, for the deliverance which they now found they needed, since judgment had overtaken them.

This was the moral standing of the Gibeonites. It was not in them, faith acknowledging the God of Israel. Joshua should have been alive to all this, but he slept, and tares are now sown in the field. The princes make a league with these men of Gibeon, and the uncircumcised get a place in the midst of Israel. Israel may now do the best they can, under the conditions and results of their own carelessness, but the tares cannot now be rooted up, and there, in the fields of Israel they are, destined by-and-by to give trouble enough to those who let them in (see 2 Sam. 21).

Surely we read in all this a serious lesson. We learn the difference between faith which forms such present alliance with Christ, as He will own in the future day of His glory — and fear which seeks Him after the day of judgment has set in. It is in this age of His weakness that faith owns Him, and then the hour of judgment, and the eternity of glory in their different ways, are both ours.

We learn also, the danger as well as the evil, of being careless in the service of the house of God. "While men slept, the enemy sowed tares." Our carelessness works mischief, the bitter fruits of which may be gathered after many years.

The Conquest of the Land.

Joshua 10-12.

The land, as we have seen, has now been entered in the name of the God of all the earth. Rahab, who had faith, has been delivered. The camp has been purified from the curse which made it for a moment a Jericho or a Babylon. Jericho and Ai have fallen. The Gibeonites have got entrance or a settlement, like tares among the wheat, in judgment upon the men that slept, and now, the sword of the Lord and of Joshua is about to complete the conquest of the land.

It is a day of judgment. The vengeance of righteousness is to be executed on the Amorites, who had now filled up the measure of their sins. The long suffering of God had now no longer to wait (Gen. 15. 16).

It is a day of judgment on these nations, as the day of Noah had been on the world before the flood, or the day of Lot on the cities of the plain, or the day of Moses on the land of Egypt. Joshua's sword, as we have already said, is to be interpreted as that of a judge, rather than that of a conqueror. The giving of their inheritance to the children of Abraham may appear to be the principal cause of this great action, but it is really grounded on the fact that the iniquity of the Amorites was now full. The sword of conquest for Israel is the sword of judgment on the Canaanites — and the people of the Lord had to wait on the ripening of the nation's sin and the judgment of the Lord, ere they could attain their inheritance (see Gen. 15. 16).

This is exactly what is known at this very moment. The Millennial kingdom, which is the inheritance of Christ and the Saints, will not be reached till the world has filled up its measure and the sword of judgment has visited it. That which judges the world, clears the way for the kingdom and the inheritance, as once the sword of Joshua did. Listen to the different voices in the early verses of Rev. 14.

But further. This being so, the sword of Joshua being really the sword of the Lord, the victories of the great Captain of Israel, being really the judgment of God, we see the Lord God Himself directly interfering. Hail-stones are cast down from heaven in the battle of Gibeon, and the sun and moon are stayed in their course till Joshua has avenged the Lord upon His enemies and has won the victory for His people. It had been thus in the day of other and earlier judgments, for "vengeance belongeth unto God." God is the Judge; as was signalised at the very beginning. For it was the Lord Himself who took in hand the punishment of Cain (Gen. 4. 15). It was the Lord Himself who let out the waters of Noah. It was the Lord Himself who rained fire and brimstone on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was the Lord Himself who sent plague upon plague on the land of Egypt, and at last looked through the pillar of the cloud, and overwhelmed the hosts of Egypt in the Red Sea.

And so, if we read the Apocalypse which writes for our learning the judgment of the world just before the glory or the kingdom comes, we shall find that it will he the Lord Himself who will open the seals, and let out the visitations of wrath; and at the last, as the Rider on the white horse, overthrow all the confederate, apostate strength of the world. That Rider, coming forth from heaven in judgment upon the Beast and his army is like the Lord looking through the cloud on the host of Egypt.

Very strikingly indeed, does Joshua appear to have caught the character of the moment. The hailstones, I grant, may have told him that the Lord in heaven was making the battle his own. But the history of other days of judgment, such as those I have referred to, as of Cain, Noah, Lot and Moses, was abundant to let him further know that He was the executor of judgment Himself, and Joshua would, therefore, now put the weapons of warfare and the instruments of vengeance into His hands. He beautifully caught, again, I say, the character of the moment. He reminds us of the John of the gospels. John represents that spiritual taste and sympathy which made quick, and all but instinctive, discoveries of his Lord. And Joshua now utters his celebrated oracle, as in the hearing, and for the observance of the great ordinances in the heavens, without any reserve or check in his spirit, as with all freedom and authority. "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon." He knew that judgment was God's work, and he would put it into His hands. He knew that God fought for Israel, and he would put the battle upon Him. This tone of decision, because of distinctness in the light and knowledge of the mind of Christ, is something very fine. The spies, in the second chapter, were not reserved or doubtful in pledging safety to Rahab. They did not first re-cross the Jordan to get Joshua's warrant. They knew their title to pledge salvation to her, sinner though she was, and Canaanite though she was. They had the spirit of faith, and were vessels of the light of God. They "judged in themselves." They knew what was the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, at such a moment; and so here, in the tenth chapter, Joshua does not tarry or hesitate, but acts promptly and with decision, and that, too, somewhat beyond what might be deemed the highest prerogatives of a creature, even in grace. He spoke to the heavens, commanding the sun and the moon. Wonderful! The Spirit, recording such a moment, pauses to admire it. "And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man."

A great occasion indeed; but there are kindred days afterwards, and yet no wonder is made of them. Jesus commands the winds and the waves. He stays the forces of nature. whether they belong to the heavens or to the earth, but the Spirit, who records those deeds also, makes no wonder of them, for indeed it was no wonder. Joshua's was but "the voice of a man, as we read, Christ was "God over all, blessed for ever." But this moment may be full of admiration for us. Joshua knew the battle was the Lord's in behalf of His people, and that judgment or vengeance also belonged to Him, and he would have the sun and the moon to wait and give space to the Lord till He should finish His works, His mighty and His strange works, His works of mercy and of judgment.

And as we further read in these chapters, the Lord hardens the hearts of the Canaanites now in this their day of judgment, as He had before hardened Pharaoh's heart in his day of judgment, and as He will, by-and-by, dement the world ere He judge it, sending out strong delusions. The heart of these nations of the Amorites was now hardened to come against Israel to battle, and rush upon the thick bosses of the Almighty's shield, as we read; or as we read again, to kick against the pricks in the infatuated spirit of self-destruction.

And we likewise learn from these chapters that the conquering army of Israel returned to Gilgal, where the camp lay. Gilgal had been the place of their circumcision, and circumcision was the sign of their new condition. *It had rolled away the reproach of Egypt. All that is past, is past to a circumcised or baptized people. Such have renounced themselves. Circumcision bespoke Israel's laying down of all that was their own, and their taking up of the Lord as their spring of confidence and strength, and the secret of all virtues in them. "We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." It gainsays and discloses flesh, and glories in the Lord. And when can such a thing be more fittingly called to mind, when can Gilgal be more seasonably revisited, than after the victory? Victory may puff up. It is hard to use a flattering day with modesty. Harder to use a victory than to gain it, as it has been said. Abraham used it well. In spirit he returned to Gilgal after it, And so the host of Israel here. "When ye have done all, say that ye are unprofitable servants." The honours they had won were laid on the altar of God, or at the feet of the Lord. Their circumcision was remembered, themselves were renounced, they were now a host of circumcised conquerors. Their victory was His. "And Joshua returned and all Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal (see Joshua 5. 9; Joshua 9. 6; Joshua 10. 6, 43). Shiloh will be the place of the tabernacle presently (Joshua 18); Gilgal is now the place of the camp, and also of the army after their victories.

The catalogue of the kings and their countries now reduced, closes this section of our book — "And," as we read, "the land rested from war."

The Division of the Land.

Joshua 13-21.

The division of the land follows the conquest of it. It becomes the inheritance of Israel, as soon as it is taken out of the hand of the Amorites. The time of the judgment of the people of the land had come, and together with that, the time for the putting of the children of Abraham into possession of it. If the Amorites had now filled up the measure of their sins, Israel had now filled up the measure of their bondage and their pilgrimage.

The vessel is cleansed, and then the treasure is put into it. This is ever so. It must be so. These are the demands of holiness and of grace, and such demands must surely be answered. This is the image of God's way, necessarily so, from first to last. Why, the work of the Creator at the very beginning, if the rest of the Creator were not to follow? And why, the judgments which at the very last are to clear the earth of its oppressions and corruptions, if the kingdom and glory be not to follow? A millennial day is to come after the judgments, as the rest of the Creator succeeded His work, or, as the new world came forth from under the judgment of the old by the flood; or as the lot in the day of Joshua succeeded the sword, the division of the land, the conquest of the land; or as the victories of David made way for the sceptre, the peaceful sceptre of Solomon (see Num. 33. 50-56). This is all sure and simple — holiness and grace, as we said, make these demands, and such demands must be answered in God's most perfect ways.

But there is more. The land, now taken out of the hand of the wicked, and made the portion of the elect of God, must have certain new and suited characters engraved upon it. This must be so likewise. If the Lord work. it is to conduct Him to rest; if He judge and clear away iniquity, it is to lead to the kingdom; and then, as soon as He has entered His rest, or taken His kingdom, His rest and His kingdom will have characters stamped upon them, such as are worthy of His hand and presence. The new world after the flood witnessed His worship, and His government, Noah's altar and sword telling us this. They gave character to that new world. The days of Solomon bore their suited marks in like manner. Under their vines and fig-trees, Israel were eating and drinking and making merry then, as many as the sands on the sea-shore; the temple was built; peace flowed as a river; and the distant kings of the earth waited on the King in Jerusalem; and so, as we know, the millennial world will have the traces of the presence of the glories of Christ everywhere. It will bear its own characters deeply and brightly upon it. It will be a world redeemed from man and Satan and made the Lord's; and as the Lord's, it will have its own new fruits and features, thick and full and blushing and blooming upon it, that shall tell whose it is and what it is.

And thus is it seen In the progress of these chapters. The land of Canaan being now in the possession of the people of God, wears many and many a badge to bespeak its new conditions, such as the Amorites never did and never could have put upon it. Thus it becomes a sanctuary, the scene and witness of the worship of God. The tabernacle is set up at Shiloh. Through the length and breadth of it, it is made, as we speak, a religious world, the seat of a religious establishment, the ministers of God being endowed and settled in all parts of the country, waiting continually on the service of God. Through the length and breadth of it also, provision is made for the maintaining of righteousness between man and man. The institution of the cities of refuge tells of this, for there the innocent was to find shelter till a doubtful question between him and his neighbour might be settled, according to truth and righteousness.

Such were among the great and suited characters engraved on the land now rescued from the uncircumcised and made the portion of the people of God. They constitute the full expression of a religious world, of the earth brought back to God. Canaan was now purified by judgments, given among the tribes of the Lord, made the scene of divine worship, the church and state united, and the ends of the holiness of God, and the ends likewise of justice as between man and man are secured. It was a little world, made God's — a sample of the earth restored, or brought back to Him — a shadow of good days to come, when the whole world, the earth in its length and breadth, taken up by the Lord, shall have the tokens of its sanctification, the knowledge of His glory covering it as the waters do the sea, the name of Jesus rising with every morning and evening sacrifice, and the sceptre of righteousness keeping all in holy order throughout all conditions and relationships of men.

We get, however, something of another kind in the actual condition of things. The land was not yet fully conquered, though it was fully divided; and this was so, because Israel was to be tested. They were put into possession of the land by the grace of the God of their fathers, but they were to keep it as a people bound to obedience, under the law which they themselves had challenged, or at least undertaken, at Mount Sinai. In one sense accordingly they were now in possession of their inheritance, in another they were not. And, therefore, In the progress of these chapters, we read such different language as the following. It may sound discordant and convey the sense of inconsistencies, but all is morally and beautifully correct, when we, in due way, acquaint ourselves with the conditions of the people now in the land.

The language I refer to is in these two passages. "And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which He sware to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it, and dwelt therein, and the Lord gave them rest round about according to all that He sware to their fathers — and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand." And again — "Now Joshua was old and stricken in years, and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old, and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."

Now these passages, and others which might be cited, sound as discordant, and would seem to be historically inconsistent; but morally. or according to the conditions under which Israel were now in their inheritance, all is right and intelligible. They were not straightened in God, who was now ready to establish them fully, but they might he straightened in themselves and lose the land. Some of the land was left unconquered, but all was divided, in order that Israel might be tested. So that the whole state of things is simple and easy to be understood. God was faithful, and would manifest the fulfilment of all His gracious undertakings. Israel had still to prove their faithfulness.*

*We learn how they failed at once. The Bochim of Judges 2 tells us that.

The land wholly divided may tell us how the Lord was true and gave them all that was promised, as we read here — the inhabitants only partially subdued, may tell us how Israel had still to be proved, and that they were not yet in full possession, as we also read here.

Caleb.

Have we paid as much respect to Caleb, or attention to his history, as we ought to have done? We lose sight of him in the broader lines and brighter light of Joshua. But this is not as it should be, for he shines in his own sphere in the heaven of Scripture, and leaves traces of himself behind him, which we may well desire to have reproduced or retraced in ourselves.

We see him in Num. 13. 14, and find him there, rather the more earnest of the two. At any rate, he there earns as good a degree as Joshua.

Surely grace will be sovereign; and a very blessed thing it is, when we can bow to its sovereignty, though in its high-prerogative arrangements it may treat us in ways which nature would resent, and give us only a Manasseh or left-hand blessing. Therefore, Caleb dare not complain for a moment that Joshua is put nearer to Moses than he; but for the relief of his heart (if it suffered under such a trial as this) he might have remembered that before the day of Num. 13. 14, even in the time of (Ex. 17, Joshua had stood by Moses, and that on that occasion he himself had not been with him.

Still we can understand full well that nature might have felt a sting, when, after Moses, Joshua becomes principal in the camp, and he becomes subordinate, as we see in our fourteenth chapter. But he bears it beautifully, and I ask myself is it not as beautiful to rejoice in the fruitfulness of another, as to be fruitful ourselves?

Without envy or grudging soiling his spirit, Caleb seeks the patronage of the man of whom. in early life, he had been the associate and fellow-workman. He uses him instead of envying him. He cares not to have this word addressed to him, "Give this man place." The song. "Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands," found him prepared. It did not move him.

Such a thing has great moral beauty in it. We have another sample of it in Peter, in John 13. Peter sees John lying on the bosom of the Lord; but instead of grudging him that ,nearer place, he uses him in it, asking him to get the secret of that bosom, where he, though the elder of the two, was not lying. And so Caleb here in Joshua 14. He uses Joshua instead of envying him.

Indeed I might have noticed the like grace in Moses, when Moses heard that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp, he at once goes to the camp that he might hear them himself. He rebuked the resentment that would have envied them for his sake.

Strange, I grant, that we should have to stop and admire such things, but we know we may do so. Corruptions are of a deep and hateful character in the soul, as we all right well know, and these samples of extrication or of victory cannot but he our admiration.

But again, Caleb was great in another characteristic. He was faithful among the faithless. He had been so in the wilderness, and he is so now in the land. He seems to have been the only one of all the tribes of Israel who refused to form alliance with the native Canaanites. Just as he had stood with Joshua faithful among the spies in the wilderness, so is he still faithful among the tribes in the land. He goes on, sword in hand, till he had expelled all whom he found there, from his possessions in Hebron (Joshua 15.).

And still further, he valued his inheritance. His heart was set on what God had promised him. He was strong and courageous to take it, and then he was earnest and happy in enjoying it.

These are fine qualities of "an Israelite indeed." Caleb humbles himself to God's way and appointments to get title to his portion; he sets his heart upon that portion; he is earnest and valiant to hold it in the face of all that withstood him. Fine tokens indeed of a saint of God! And surely, I may say again, good and profitable, and withal pleasant it is, to pay a little more attention to this distinguished Israelite, than has been commonly done among us. He is the very contradiction of his faithless brethren. Instead of forming alliance with the Canaanites, giving sons or daughters in marriage, he publishes this noble proclamation — "He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife." He kept "the way of the Lord" as purely as ever Abraham had. No husband for his daughter save one of the Lord's appointments. He would not build up his house as with wood and stubble.

The Two Tribes and a Half.

Joshua 22.

The army may now be disbanded. It had been enlisted in chapter 1. It had served faithfully in the wars of Canaan, but the country being now conquered, and the land divided, there is no further occasion for the army which had been hired for this service. The Reubenites, Gadites and men of Manasseh, may now re-cross the Jordan and feed their flocks in peace in the mountains of Gilead and Bashan. They may turn their sword into a shepherd's crook.

This is as though the sword of an earlier David had sheathed itself in the presence of the peaceful throne of Solomon, or as though David's armour had been hung up in the temple of God (see 2 Chr. 23. 9).

It savours, too, of that still future day when the host that is to accompany the Rider on the white horse in the day of the judgment of the Beast and his confederates, having done their service as the armies of heaven, were laying aside their weapons of war to take their place of peaceful, glorious sovereignty in the world to come (Rev. 19 and 20).

The army of the two tribes and a half now became the cultivators of their fields and their flocks on the eastern side of the Jordan, but there, in their own portion, they continue one with their brethren in the land of Canaan, the witnesses and the worshippers of the God of Israel.

And in meditating on the scene connected with this, I would linger a little; for if I mistake it not, it has a word for our souls. The ark had gone over, conducting and sheltering the Israel of God, and Israel and the ark had remained there, but the men of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh had re-crossed the Jordan, returning to settle where their brethren had but wandered. Ere they had set out, Joshua had again, as we saw in Joshua 1, been uneasy about them, and as soon as they make the passage, and touch the place which they had chosen, they begin, evidently, to be uneasy also; and under pressure of this uneasiness they raise an altar.

This is full of language in our ears. An Israelite in the land of Gilead at this living day of ours understands it. Jehoshaphat understood it when he saw himself on the throne with Ahab; he was, after this manner, disquieted, and under pressure of his soul, he asks for a prophet of the Lord. And all this was the language of the renewed mind in a foreign land, or in the place of the uncircumcised. So the two tribes and a half now raise an altar, and call it "Ed." It was a witness as they purposed of this, that Israel's God was their God.

But why all this? Had they taken up their portion In Canaan they would not have needed this. They would have had the original and not a mere copy; but they were in Gilead and not in Canaan; Shiloh was not in view, and they had, therefore, to give themselves some artificial, some secondary help to sustain their confidence, that they and the Israel of God were really one.

All this is full of meaning, and is much experienced to this day. Some witness of what we are and who we are is craved by the soul and called for by others, when we get into a position in the world with which the call of God does not combine. Some extraordinary testimony is felt to be desirable — the countenance or acceptance of others, the examination of our own personal condition, reasonings with ourselves or restless action in the soul, remembrances of better days; something of all this has to be invoked or gone through, where there is not consistent singleness and fidelity; and this is the altar called "Ed"; this is the writing on that pillar in the land of Gilead. Lot's wife, the pillar in the plains of Sodom. has a writing upon it, and the divine Master has deciphered it for us; and I doubt not, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, would have us under His anointing, read the writing on this pillar in the land of Gilead. It may warn us if we love quietness and assurance of heart, not to return and find a settlement where the Church of God only finds a pilgrim age.

An Israelite in Gilead does not make his calling and election sure.

Does my soul read this lesson? Every heart knows its own humiliation. These disturbances of spirit, this demand of Jehoshaphat for a prophet, this altar of Ed raised by the Reubenities and their companions, bespeak such exercises as a more single-eyed attachment to Christ would surely spare us.

But grace aboundeth as ever; so here, for in spite of all this I feel that I can say that I know not that the people of Israel ever present themselves in more moral beauty and healthfulness than just at this time. It was happy to hear their song on the banks of the Red Sea, and happy to observe their good order while crossing the Jordan, and well, as I have already noticed, to see them and their ways reflected in the Book of Leviticus; and generally all through this book of Joshua. But of the times of Israel under Joshua, this was still the brightest, palmiest hour. The heart, perhaps, takes more delight in surveying them in the twenty-second chapter of Joshua, than at any moment whatever.

The jealousy and fear of the tribes on the western side of the river, as soon as they heard of the altar set up by their brethren in the east, has every expression about it that can satisfy us; and the answer which the Reubenites and their companions give to this jealousy is equally perfect in its way. Jordan. which threatened to he a partition-wall, becomes, rather, by such exercises as these, a link between them. If it be a veil, it is a rent veil. In heart, and in the sympathies of their common faith, all must have been more firmly and happily bound together than if nothing had happened. Each must have valued the other the more, because of the witness they had liberally borne to their common Lord. The fears and jealousy of the one must have been welcome to the other, though they themselves had awakened them — the earnestness and simplicity of the eastern tribes must have been most refreshing to their brethren in the west, though it rebuked the groundlessness and unworthiness of their fears. "To the Lord," they, each of them, did what they did — and that is the strength, as well as the title, of fellowship.

It reminds me of Rom. 14. New Testament brethren are there as on either side of certain partition walls. The eating and the not eating of meats, the observing and the not observing of days, is like a Jordan rolling between them. But when they make enquiry under the light and conduct of the Holy Ghost, they discover that these partitions are really links, that the veil. is a rent one, and that as the one observes the day to the Lord, and as the other observes not the day to the Lord, as the one eats to the Lord, and the other eats not to the Lord; since the Lord, His name, His glory, and His Pleasure is everything to each of them, they are only the more closely knit together. The longer the cord that binds them, by its very length proves its strength.

Happy thus to speak, whether of Old Testament or New Testament brethren; and I have not the slightest misgiving but that we may speak thus.

There is, however, I grant, another light in which to read the conduct and the character of the two tribes and a half; and it is a warning, as this view of them is a consolation. I have referred to this already; and here I would add that nothing is more common than this, that many and many a saint of God looked at personally in his own spirit and behaviour, may well be the joy of one's heart; looked at in his position, may as easily grieve and surprise us.

In our own day, this is proved abundantly. It is illustrated here in the story of the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh; and precious indeed are these divine unities, which are traced everywhere throughout the Book of God, and which may be traced between His words in the Book and His work in the saints. I am in Rom. 14, when reading Joshua 22, and I am in the midst of brethren in the Lord Jesus all around me at this living moment, when reading either the one or the other of these chapters.

Joshua's Last Words.

Joshua 23, 24.

Things under the hand of Joshua are now closing. The land has been partly conquered and wholly divided. A strange condition, as I have already noticed. But so it is. The unconquered parts are left that Israel might be tested, whether indeed they would be obedient or not; the Lord being pledged by His servant to prove Himself able and ready to conquer what remained still in possession of the Canaanites, and make it actually His people's, if they did but stand in their allegiance to Him. But Joshua warned them that if they went back from following the Lord, then the unconquered people should be plagues to them, scourges in their sides and thorns in their eyes, until they themselves were destroyed from off that land which had now been given them.

This is now recognised by Joshua as being the condition and standing of Israel in the land of Canaan. It is like Adam's condition in the land of Eden. Adam was there, surrounded by the witnesses of God's goodness to him, and by the perfection of his own estate; but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was in the midst of the garden, was there, to be the occasion of testing his obedience — and a warning and a threat were pronounced, and the penalty of death, if the injunction not to eat of that tree, were despised.

The resemblance, the moral resemblance. between these two conditions. Adam in Eden and Israel in Canaan, is perfect; and we might have expected that it would be so, because we know from the teaching of Rom 5. that Adam was put under law in the Garden of Eden, and that Israel were put under law in the land of Canaan.

Grace had conducted them hitherto. It was the God of their fathers. the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob Who had brought them out of Egypt, and had carried them through one wilderness after another. till, having crossed the Jordan, they are now planted in the Canaan promised to the fathers; but grace having thus set them in the land, as God of old in goodness had set Adam in the Garden, they must now hold it upon terms of their own covenant, or on condition of obedience. It is thus, I may add, with the throne of David afterwards. In grace God chose and exalted David. He sustained him and gave him victory upon victory, till there was no evil or enemy occurrent. He set his throne in peaceful glory, in the person of his son Solomon, but then the family of David had to keep the throne of David on terms of obedience; and we know they lost the throne, as the tribes of Israel lost the land, and Adam the Garden.

Being set upon these terms, Joshua exhorts them. He would fain have them faithful, and obedient, and happy. He repeats his exhortation. He is concerned for them. He was not merely officially over them, but personally of them and with them. He was not an hireling, whose own the sheep were not — he felt his own deep interest in them. He exhorts them, first, in an assembly of the people, with their elders and rulers and judges, after the Lord had given them rest, and when he him. self was now well-stricken in years, and about to go, the way of all the earth, and again, in a still fuller assembly, the people all solemnly presenting themselves before God. And here he rehearses too, in the name of the Lord, all the Lord's doings for them, from the day of the call of Abraham down to that hour.

It is blessed to mark all this — the fervency of spirit, with which this aged servant of God and this full-hearted friend of Israel, thus closes his ministry. It may remind us of Moses speaking to Israel on the edge of the wilderness, in the words of the book of Deuteronomy — or of David counselling his son, his nobles, and his people, as he was about to leave them, in 1 Chronicles — or of Paul exhorting and warning the elders of Ephesus, when seeing them, and as it were, his ministry, for the last time in Acts 20.

True affection, the love that makes the interest of others our own, dictated all these occasions, the Spirit of God using them, whether in Moses, in Joshua, in David, or in Paul. In distant, separated parts of the word, are these occasions found, but how does one Spirit fill His vessels with like treasure, and quicken them, and the same gracious, serving affections!

The people accept the exhortation and pledge obedience. Joshua warns them not to be confident. They persist in giving their pledges, and that too, again and again. For they are the same self-trusting, and boastful generation, which they had been in the day of Exodus 14; the same when now they had ended their journey and experienced what they were by the failures of 40 years, as they had been on their starting. They are still confident in their own sufficiency, and desirous still to stand upon a title made out by themselves. They had said, under Mount Sinai, "all that the Lord hath spoken, we will do," and now it is, "the Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey." Literally one generation had passed and another had come, but morally they are the same generation. And the same generation has not passed away even to this day (Matt. 24. 34).

After all this, the Covenant is settled between the Lord and the people in this conditional character; their confidence in themselves in their early day under Mount Sinai having led to this, and their renewed pledges here at Shechem binding them afresh, and reminding them of their responsibilities.

Now, after all this, I ask, can they wonder at the judgment which has now overtaken them. or complain of the desolations and captivities which they are enduring? They must be speechless, like the man in the parable of the marriage of the King's son; or like the Jews after listening to that of the wicked husbandmen — they must pronounce sentence upon themselves. They are without excuse. They undertook to answer for themselves and they have ruined themselves. They left God's hand and got into their own, and their own hand has betrayed them — and as always, so in the judgment of Israel, we may say with David and with Paul, to God, "that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest" (Ps. 51. 4; Rom. 3. 4).

A stone is then raised, not as on the banks of Jordan, in the beginning of the book, in witness that the God of salvation had brought His people through all that intervened and hindered, to the land of promise, but as a witness that the people had now taken these covenants and obligations upon them — "O foolish people and unwise!"

Joshua then dies, and is buried in his own portion in Mount Ephraim. Moses had died in the wilderness, and the Lord had buried him, Joshua dies in the land, and his brethren bury him. But Moses passed from his grave in the wilderness to Heaven, Joshua rests in the land in the hope of a resurrection-inheritance of it. I speak of mysteries, of Moses as signifying the heavenly destiny of the church. of Joshua as pledging the earthly promises of God to Israel; and together giving samples of that dispensation, when, in the fulness of times, all things both in Heaven and on earth shall he gathered together in Christ (Eph. 1. 10); and this is the same as was exhibited long before these times in Enoch and in Noah. and long after these times in Elijah and Elisha, so that all times, the times of the patriarchs, of Moses, and of the prophets, might in their several ways, rehearse beforehand the glories of the world to come. According to all this, it is Moses and Elijah that reappear there in the heavens. They are seen in glory with Christ on the holy mount, while Peter, James and John, occupying mystically the place of Noah, Joshua and Elisha, are still as citizens of the earth in their own persons or in their unglorified bodies, gazing on the heavens that are shining in their excellency before them and above them.

Conclusion.

In taking leave of this Book of Joshua, I would say that I read it as occupying morally very much the same place in the Old Testament which the Apocalypse occupies in the New. This may sound harsh and strange, but it is not so. Joshua is the book that reads to us the judgments of the Lord upon the land of the Amorites. The Apocalypse reads to us the judgments of the Lord upon the apostate nations of the last days. Joshua, likewise, is the book of the inheritance, telling us of the division of the promised land among the children of Abraham and the setting of God's name and worship there, as a land brought back to God out of ruin and pollution. The Apocalypse in a New Testament or heavenly character is the same. The seven-sealed book is there opened and the judgments which follow, clear the scene for the glorified Bride of the Lamb to descend and take her connection with the earth beneath.

As Joshua brought in the tabernacle of God into the possession of the Gentiles, so the city of glory, the holy Jerusalem, is seen, in Rev. 21. 10, to descend, having "the glory of God" in the midst of her, that the lordship of the world to come may he taken, and the throne of God and the Lamb set up over the redeemed creation.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

A solemn thought it is, that in the history of this world, God is displaying righteousness, as well as manifesting and dispensing grace. In the Scriptures we have samples of this, as in His dealings with the world before the flood, with the cities of the plains, with Egypt, with the Amorites, with Israel and with Christendom.

God makes His power known and shows His wrath on the vessels which have fitted themselves for destruction, as He displays the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has Himself prepared for glory.

But it is solemn, though needed. When His judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness, learn that there is righteousness with Him (Ex. 7. 1-5; Isa. 26. 9; Rev. 15. 4). Grace has been already proposed, the purposes and provisions of it are brought forth and revealed; but grace being despised, judgment enters, and righteousness is taught by judgment. Then grace having gathered its own, and judgment having cleared the scene, glory will be revealed and set up, and the kingdom will be the place of living, practical righteousness. The sceptre of it will maintain righteousness — and beautiful, let me say, will this be. Grace will be celebrated in a scene of righteousness; redemption will he had in everlasting remembrance in the place where all will be truth and holiness. The grace of redemption will have been introduced to a region of cloudless, unspotted purity.

What a bright and perfect combination! Grace is known; entire debtors are we to it for what we are and where we are; but it is not taken advantage of, as we speak. It will not be wronged. It shall be known and gloried in when all around is righteous and pure, and where nothing will enter that can defile.

Such will he the coming kingdom in the moral realities of it, and such in spirit is now our place in the Gospel. The grace of God has brought salvation, but it has also taught us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously and godly.

It is a simple further reflection upon this book that now the covenant was made good which gave the land wherein the fathers had been strangers. the land of their pilgrimage, as an inheritance to their children (Ex. 6. 5). We are not to forget this. The place that once witnessed pilgrimage and strangership is now the scene of citizenship and inheritance. Significant indeed this is — a child may read the story, and as he reads the story, interpret the parable or draw the moral.