Table of Contents

20 Gospel Tracts

Various - The Gospel!

Various

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STEM Publishing : Various :

The Cross

Matthew 27: 33-36; John 19: 25-30, 38-42.

A. Dockerty.

An Unedited Gospel Address.

I want to read tonight, first of all, in the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, verse thirty-three. "And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched Him there."

Nineteenth chapter of John's Gospel, verse twenty-five. "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost."

Verse thirty-eight: "And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave Him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand."

I want to take you with me tonight, and we want to stand by the Cross of Jesus — the familiar story, perhaps, to everyone of us here tonight; but I am assured, not a familiar story to everyone in this country, as it is not in the country from which I come — England itself. There was a brother told us of an incident that happened at one of the high schools in the south of England. There was a new teacher arrived at this school and she was set over a class of girls fifteen to seventeen. She was a Christian woman; and when it came to the Scripture lesson, she began to tell them the story of the Cross. She arrived at the place where He was taken into Pilate's hall, and before she could get much further in her address to the girls in that high school, the bell rang. School was to be dismissed. There were four girls in that class that crowded around the teacher, and this was the question that they asked, "Did He get off?" Could you credit that? Did He get off? My friend, I'm going to assume here tonight that you know very little about the Cross, and I'm going to speak to you about it. I want your heart to be affected by the story of the Cross; and if you stand by it with me tonight, I trust that that stony heart of yours is going to be broken.

I realize here tonight, dear friends, that there's no appealing on my part that's going to affect anything. It's such a story as we have here tonight, the story of the Cross. If it doesn't affect your heart, if it doesn't break you down in true repentance to see that this Blessed One whose love has been so great toward you, if you don't see that that love demands your love and your obedience, there's no appealing on my part that will be any way successful.

They led Him out to this place of a skull, Golgotha, to crucify Him. There are two sides to this question, dear friend: He was delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, but men with wicked hands took and crucified the Lord of Glory. And here in the twenty-seventh chapter of Matthew we have what they did to Him in great detail. We learn, perhaps, a different story, or a different aspect of the story when we come to John's Gospel.

The first thing that they want to do, as no doubt they did to other criminals who were to be put to death, they gave them this stupefying drink that would make them insensible to all that was going on. But my friend, Jesus refused that. Peter tells us that "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." A wonderful verse, that. Three wonderful things in that verse, you know. When men want to write to impress you and me, they write volume upon volume. But listen to what God puts into the space of this short verse: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins" — propitiation; "the Just for the unjust" — substitution; "that He might bring us to God" — reconciliation. And think of it, dear friend, the Word of God — it has a majesty, it has a dignity of its own that men needn't elaborate on it whatsoever. It's a word that comes from God Himself. And it's dynamited with mighty power to grip the heart and consciences. You know, that's the confidence of the preacher as he seeks to make known the story of the Cross to men and women. He's not depending upon his ability. What a poor thing it would be. But He's depending upon the mighty power of God, and the use of that precious Word, simple as though it may be spoken, to reach hearts and consciences. I trust it's going to reach yours tonight, dear friend.

He refused the stupefying drink. He was quite sensible to all that was going on, and they took Him there and they nailed Him to that accursed Tree. You know what the Word of God says? "Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree." I want to say, dear friend, because of your sins, you're in a cursed position; but there's One who has borne the curse by hanging upon Calvary's Tree,

They heaped upon Him every indignity He was stripped of everything, even of His clothes. One thing they couldn't take from Him, that was His body. And listen, friend, the Bible tells us He gave His body. And listen, friend, the Bible tells us He gave that, He gave it. He gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, in due season. And the reason of the testimony going forth, of Him giving Himself a ransom for all, it is dear friend, that you might receive it. The testimony comes to you for your obedience. It's looking for an answer in the hearts of men and women here this evening. That's what God is looking for.

But they heaped upon Him every indignity: mocked Him and scourged Him, spit in His blessed face. My friend, I say to you here tonight, Does this not touch your heart — to think of the Lord of Glory suffering such indignity, such hatred and enmity from the heart of man in all wickedness that was expressed there at the Cross of Calvary? Does it not touch your heart tonight? Oh, I want you with me to come near to the Cross tonight, to see it as you have never seen it before.

You know, there was a young fellow got converted in Northumberland. He wasn't very long in seeing his place, and he asked the saints, "What about me taking my place to remember the Lord?" Oh, they could see he was in dead earnest. They gave his name out that very Lord's Day, and the next Lord's Day he broke bread. He remembered the Lord, the One who died for Him upon the Cross of Calvary. He'd only been converted about three months. After the Breaking of Bread the others got up and they began to discuss how much they had sold their cows for at one of the farm sales. They were discussing anything and everything, but the Lord Himself. He was still sitting in his seat, with tears — tears rolling down his cheeks. You know what he said to them? He said, "Have you got used to this?" Have you got used to this? I make no further comment to that. It speaks for itself.

I say to you tonight, young friend, how many Gospel Meetings have you attended? How many times have you heard this story of the Cross of Jesus in His wonderful love, going there and dying for you and suffering all these indignities at the hands of men, as well as the judgment of a righteous and holy God, because of your sins? How many times have you heard it? Let me ask you, Have you got used to it? Have you got so used to listening to this story that it means nothing to you? Jeremiah the prophet, in his Lamentations says, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger."

Oh, friend, to rightly value the Cross of Jesus and His sacrifice in laying down that sinless, spotless, holy life, as a sacrifice for your sins. I say to you, is your heart not affected by it?

We read of these people, "And sitting down they watched him there." It seems as though they had come to the end of their tether. There wasn't another thing that they could think about that they could do; and in cold blood they sat down, and they watched Him there in His agony.

I just want to emphasise these two words: Him there. Why was He there? Pilate's wife wanted to give her husband a bit of good advice, as she thought. "Have thou nothing to do with this just person, for I have suffered many things in a dream because of Him." Advice that Pilate couldn't take, and advice that you can't take either, friend. You've got to do with Jesus just as much as Pilate had.

Pilate says, "I find no fault in Him." His wife said He was just a person. Those weren't the only witnesses, you know — witnesses that you and I would have never thought of bringing forward. Judas says, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." Pilate here says, "I find no fault in Him."

Him there? Why was he there, friend? He was there because you and I should have been there. He was there answering to the holy God in your place and in my place. He became, as the Proverb said, "He became surety for a stranger and He was made to smart." Listen, friend, this is no cheap salvation that we are preaching to you tonight. It's a salvation that cost God Himself, the very best, the very choicest of heaven's store for you, the rebel sinner.

Visiting one of the villages in the lake district over in England, and after having a Gospel Meeting in the open air, we went around the doors, giving out little gospel booklets; and I knocked at a door, and the lady's voice inside shouted, "Come in," and in I went. She said, "What is it?" "Oh," I said, "I've brought you a little gospel booklet to tell you the way to heaven." "Oh," she said, "you know, I've had a good bringing up." And she began to tell me of the good bringing up that she had. She said that from a girl, as far back as she could remember, she was taken to church three times each Sunday. She said that she had real good parents, they themselves were church members, and she had been brought up to attend church regularly

You know, dear friend, it's not a good bringing up that many people want, it's a good bringing down. I said to her, "Oh," I said, "yes, I've had a good bringing up too." And I quoted her from Psalms forty: "He brought me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." I said, "That's the good bringing up that I've had." I had no good bringing up, friend. I was dragged up. Not speaking in any way disrespectfully of my parents. Brought up in a Christian home? Never cease to thank God for it. You know what I was used to? — a drunken fight, that started from Saturday night and went right over until about the Tuesday until everything was spent up, and our clothes were put into the pawn, and that money was spent as well. That's the bringing up I had. Thank God for the other bringing up. "He brought me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings And He hath put a new song in my mouth."

I tell you here tonight, dear friend, I appreciate the grace of God that picked me up, saved my precious soul, and gives me to stand before you here tonight. Have you been affected by the Cross of Calvary, by Jesus dying for you?

In the nineteenth chapter of John we have a company of them standing by the Cross. But before we go there, again let us remind ourselves of these two words — I didn't want to pass over them so easily — Him there. Listen, friend those are two words that you'll never forget if you go to hell for all eternity. Him there! Christ, hanging upon the Cross of Calvary for you a sinner, and you refused Him as your Saviour. Don't come away with any idea that God is a sort of a kind, old grandfather, that's going to say to you, you know, that after having set to one side the gospel message, and neglected this salvation, don't think that as an old, kind grandfather he is going to pat you on the back and say, "Well, of course, you weren't a good lad; you could have been better, but come on in," and He's going to take you to heaven.

My friend, there's no such representation of God in the Scripture of Truth. God is a righteous God, and if you want to know how that God is going to deal with you about your sins, God has demonstrated that at the Cross of Calvary. He didn't spare our first parents in the Garden of Eden for one sin; he turned them out. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. He cast down the angels that sinned, and they're reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the day of judgment. Listen, friend, He didn't spare His own Son when He took your place and mine. The very heavens above Him were as brass, and in anguish He sobbed out those words, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" He was forsaken, friend, that you might be accepted. The judgment was poured upon His blessed head that you might go free. Do you appreciate that? He's looking into your heart tonight. He's searching places that I cannot see. He's looking into your heart tonight, and He knows just exactly what your attitude is. Friend, I trust that it's affected, that it's melted with the story of the Cross of Jesus dying.

In the nineteenth chapter of John we have this little company at the Cross, and we have Jesus speaking down from the Cross to that company. You know, there's a verse in the epistle to the Hebrews that says this, "He endured the Cross, despising the shame," and it says it was for the joy that was set before Him. This was His concern for His loved ones, even there upon the Cross. I'm going to say to you here tonight, referring back again to Matthew twenty-seven, those very persons that were sitting down in cold blood, having done all that they could; — He was dying to save them, but He died to save you, dear friend, even in spite of your attitude here toward Him tonight.

He spoke to His mother, "Woman, behold thy son!" Oh there's a touch here of the love that pervades the Christian company. He said to John, "Son, behold thy mother!" John understood it. From that moment he took Mary into his own house. Christian love? I tell you, dear friend, there's nothing like it in the world. I've got some friends that I'm hoping to see, blood relation — very shortly after this conference, if the Lord wills. There are men and women in this audience tonight who are far more dear to me than even those blood relations. This is the Christian circle of love and fellowship that's being bound up in that one bundle of Life.

But listen, dear friend, in John's Gospel, I dare say you have noticed it as well as I have, the Lord, the Lord is not forsaken in John's Gospel. It's just like what we have in connection with Abraham and Isaac. The father and the son, they go together. And the moment has been reached dear friend, when this work — that was going to be so glorifying to God — it was nearing its completion. What a moment for this world, the nearing of the completion of the work that was not only going to save sinners like you and me, but the work that was going to clear sins out of the whole universe of God. And that's the work that I'm resting upon tonight for the forgiveness of my sins: that work which is going to clear the whole universe of sin. Jesus said, after having received the vinegar, "It is finished." Three words in the English language, but they tell me that in the Greek language it's just one word. And you know, it wasn't the cry of a man, whose life was ebbing out. Jesus didn't die like the two thieves, you know; Jesus dismissed His Spirit. We sometimes sing, "The storm that bowed Thy blessed head." The storm didn't bow His blessed head; He bowed His head in the storm. He was superior to it all. He was able to accomplish the work that He came to do. "Once in the end of the age hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." And there upon the Cross of Calvary, dear friend, He was able to say "it is finished" and completed. And in the seventeenth chapter of this very Gospel, speaking to the Father — you and I are privileged to hear — it's a privilege to hear each other praying, but what a privilege to listen to the Lord praying! He said, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do."

Friend, we present to you tonight, the Saviour who has completed the work that was necessary for your soul's salvation. You're not asked to add anything to what He has done; He's completed it to God's glory. Don't tell me, don't tell me that you expect something more than God expects! A little hymn says, "GOD is satisfied with Jesus, I am satisfied as well." Will it satisfy your heart tonight, dear friend? You know, I read those verses from the end of chapter nineteen to show you the reaction that it had upon two men, and I trust that it's going to have this effect in your heart tonight. Did you know that in that verse where we read at the end of the chapter it says, "And after these things" — after what things? — after what things? — After Jesus had been crucified; after they had witnessed all that had been done to Him; after they had listened to the seven cries that came from His blessed lips upon the Cross, beginning with "Father" and ending with "Father"; "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." And the last one, "Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." After these things, something takes place.

Here are two men, to me who were secret disciples — men who were not bold enough to come out and to confess the Saviour. After these things they come out, true witnesses of the Saviour. Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich man, a counsellor. Who are you friend? You've perhaps gone to a high school; you perhaps might have a good education. Here is a man who was in a high position — Joseph of Arimathaea a rich man, a counsellor. He couldn't vote openly when the whole world was against the Saviour, and he associated himself with the Christ of God who had died and he begs His body.

Oh, I trust, dear young friend, that after these things you've been hearing tonight, that perhaps your parents are not quite sure whether you're a Christian or not. You're going to make it known tonight, aren't you? You say, "What shall I say? What shall I do?" Listen, you perhaps know the verse, "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." "The Word is nigh thee." You needn't move from the seat where you are. "Even in thy mouth and in thy heart." That's not very far away is it? Right where you're sitting now you can confess with your mouth. It's a good thing to confess Jesus. You know what He says? "He that shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before the holy angels." Would you like to be talked about in heaven, friend? If I thought they were talking about me in Buckingham Palace, where the Queen of our country lives, me chest measurement would be expanded — to think that they would be speaking about me in Buckingham Palace.

Listen, you've got the privilege here tonight of being spoken about in heaven — Christ confessing you after your having confessed Him here as your Lord and Saviour. What a privilege! But mark what He says — the confessing with your mouth and the believing with your heart. God says, "Thou shalt be saved." We can depend upon that, friend. You can depend upon God's Word, whatever He says to you. You can set your feeling to it, whatever God says, it is true.

We're coming to the end. I want to tell you a true incident: Way down in the centre of England there's a place called Worksop  -  it's in Nottinghamshire. Just outside Worksop, there's a little village called Whitwell. There was a young woman there — eighteen years old, brought up in a Christian home, and she knew the way of salvation, perhaps just as well as the preacher could tell it. She had gone away with some friends, like the prodigal did, you know, and not only the prodigal but his brother too. You remember his brother said to his father, "Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." He seemed to have friends that his father didn't know anything about. I wonder if you've got some friends that your father and mother don't know anything about? They are not going to do you much good. This young woman, she had some friends too, that her parents knew nothing at all about; but what they did know — they knew that the friends she had were keeping her away from the meeting. And she was invited over and over again to come to the Gospel Meeting, and they did get her along this Sunday evening. And the gospel preacher, he certainly reached her conscience and she was troubled about her sins.

Listen, friend, it's amazing how far some people can get. But listen, the Lord had to say with regard to one young man — do you remember him? — "Thou art not far from the kingdom," he was on the very threshold. Listen, friend, you're on the very threshold here tonight. And this young woman, she sat in that meeting, spellbound as she heard the story of the Cross and of the love of Jesus and she was really affected and the preacher saw it. He spoke to her after the meeting. He said, "Now, what about it? Are you going to decide for Christ tonight?" You know what she said? She said, "No, not tonight." She had made arrangements to go to a dance with this friend that she had taken up with. She went to bed on Sunday night: she couldn't sleep. She was troubled, mightily troubled about this preaching which she had been listening to earlier in the evening. She lay, tossing in her bed. Eventually she got up. There was a voice speaking in her ear, and speaking so loudly that tears were rolling down her face; she was in such distress, that she was roaming up and down her bedroom, not knowing what to do. She had a Bible in her hand, because what the voice was saying to her was this: "Ezekiel seven and eight! Ezekiel seven and eight! Ezekiel seven and eight!" And I'll read it to you. Before I read it, let me tell you what happened. Her mother, who was sleeping in the adjoining room, heard the commotion that was going on, and she came in. Seeing her daughter in such distress, she was very anxious about it, and seeing the Bible in her hand and hearing her exclaiming, "Ezekiel seven and eight, Ezekiel seven and eight." She couldn't find it for the blinding tears. Her mother took the Bible from her. She sat her daughter down in the chair and this is what she read: "Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations." And her mother turned to the chair where that young woman was sitting, and she was dead.

That's not something I've read in a book, friend. That's an incident that I heard of definitely at Whitwell in Nottinghamshire, just outside of Worksop. Friend, I say to you tonight, how long, how long is God going to suffer you? The number of times that He has spoken to you! Is this going to be the last voice that He's going to give you in this meeting tonight? Oh, I say to you — be wise, be wise, friend. I'm coming to a close with this meeting. I'm going to take it no further. I say to you right now, friend: Don't wait until we've sung the closing hymn. Bow your head, bow your heart before the blessed God and tell Him how thankful you are tonight for sending Jesus to die for you; and take your place along side the Cross and be able to say like the great apostle Paul, "Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Oh, may you, may you come to Him tonight.

Friend, you're being prayed for. These meetings have been held up to the Throne of God on your behalf. There's prayer ascending even at this very moment as we come to the close of our meeting. And I want to say to every Christian friend here tonight — don't let the devil in at the end of the Gospel Meeting. It's just then that He takes advantage, at the end of the meeting, to get us all conversing together and the whole thing confusing to anyone under deep exercise before God. Oh, let us not be ignorant of his devices, but let us prayerfully and quietly leave this auditorium, and leave it with the solemn thought that there might be someone like that young girl, that we just mentioned, here tonight, that may be saying NO to the Saviour; and going to her bed, and perhaps being found dead in the morning. I know, I know what people say — it could happen to anybody but you, eh? My friend, don't be just so sure. Make sure of this, make sure of this: that you get right with God before it's too late. Trust the Saviour and trust Him NOW, and make it known. Openly confess Him. Make it known to every one in the auditorium.

Friend, Christ was out in the open for you. He was crucified there in the midst of a mocking crowd. Are you afraid, are you afraid to confess Him as your Saviour in the company of Christians? My word, how easy He's made it for you! — hard for Him, easy for you. Don't miss the opportunity. Trust Him, trust Him NOW, and go on your way rejoicing — for His Name's sake.

Now we're going to sing together hymn number thirty-five — hymn number thirty-five. We're not going to sing all the hymn. We're going to sing two verses of it; and I want to, I want to give you the opportunity afterwards, dear friend, of making known to us that you're going to trust the Saviour tonight. Don't put it off, friend. Don't be out of this blessing. God wants you to have it, and it's here for you tonight. "Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me, see on the portals He's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me." We're going to sing the first and the third verses. "Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing." The first and the third verses of hymn number thirty-five.

Listen, before we close in prayer: you know, I want to give you every opportunity that we can. If there's anybody here tonight that would like to openly confess Christ as their Saviour tonight for the first time, you do so! Is there one who would openly like to confess Christ as their Saviour for the first time tonight and own Him as their Lord and Saviour? Is there one? An opportunity that we thought we'd give you, friend. We want to do everything in our power to put you into the way of salvation. I commend you to God in prayer.

STEM Publishing : C Stanley : Railway Tracts

The Railway Tracts

1 The Son of God

2 The Handcuffs

3 “Smashed to Pieces”

4 The Lost Ticket

5 “Just in Time”

6 “Conversation”

7 “What a Contrast”

8 “Progress”

9 “An Interesting Question”

10 “The Explosion”

11 “I have my Ticket”

12 “Over Luggage”

13 How does a man become a Soldier?

14 The Sad, Sad Face!

15 “Must I not strive?”

16 The Lunatic and his keeper

STEM Publishing : J T Mawson : God and the World

God and the World

J. T. Mawson.

Contents

Chapter 1 The Text and How Received

"I don't want it." — On Board the Mauretania. — "It's the Best Text in the Bible." — Eternal Life.

Chapter 2 "Behold the light"

The Prince and the Untouchables. — The Old Story. — The Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ. — Old Mr. Honest.

Chapter 3 The source of the blessing

Above the Clouds. — Track it from its Source. — From the Glory to the Cross.

Chapter 4 The Gospel begins with God

Sir James Jeans and the Stars. — God is Great and I am small, can He Think of Me? — How we may Know that He Cares. — The Souls of Men are of More Value than the Stars.

Chapter 5 The Gospel and the Law

The Gospel begins with God, the Law begins with you. — The One who spoke at Sinai came into the World to tell us of God's Love. — The Lawful use of the Law. — How Aidan won the Northumbrians.

Chapter 6 What sort of love is God 's love?

Is it a pallid, palliating, polite sort of thing? — A Great Sacrifice was called for. — David's Lament for Absalom.

Chapter 7 God's Love our only hope

Salvation has come from Heaven. — "His Unspeakable Gift." — What it cost. — The Effect of it.

Chapter 8 What the giving of the Son meant

Nicholas I and the Rebellion. — "They will reverence My Son." — If the death of Christ was Predetermined, why should Men be Charged with the Guilt of it? — The Death of Christ was an Atoning Death.

Chapter 9 God's kiss of love

The Death of Princess Alice. — What held the Saviour to the Cross. — The Kiss of Forgiveness. — The Devil's lie Exposed.

Chapter 10 It is the world that God loves

The World and not a part of it. — The Lady who Thought she had Sinned Away her Day of Grace. — What sort of a World is it?

Chapter 11 How the Love of God changes men

The Man who ran away. — The Text on the Wall. — Could a man who killed another be Saved? — How God's Love Changed J —

Chapter 12 "His only begotten Son"

The Only Begotten Son. — Buddha and Christ. — The Unique Glory of the Saviour.

Chapter 13 "That whosoever believeth in him"

What "whosoever" means. — Duncan Mathieson's Story. — The Mistakes that People make. — The self-righteous old Yorkshire Man.

Chapter 14 What is it to believe?

Believing a Historical Fact. — The Plague in the City and your Need. — A Northumbrian Farmer and How he Believed.

Chapter 15 What does it mean to perish?

"I'll never believe in Hell." — The Words of the Son of God. — The "Whosoever" of Revelation 20.

Chapter 16 Everlasting Life

What is everlasting Life? — "Sanctifying Doubts." — "He said it." — A Saved Jewess. — A place in God's Family. — Glory.

Chapter 17 An Appeal

A Personal Matter. — "I never knew before that God Loved me." — The Devil's Lure. — Too Late. — The Last Judgment. — Longsuffering Love.

Chapter 1

The Text and How Received

"I don't want it." — On Board the Mauretania. — "It's the Best Text in the Bible." — Eternal Life.

I do not know what it was that made the old Yorkshire woman say, "There's naught so queer as folk," but I have often said the same thing myself, when I have seen the way in which people have treated the story of God's great Love. Quite recently I was giving away Gospel booklets in a South London suburb, and I handed one to the proprietor of a prosperous-looking tobacco and sweets store. He greeted me with a smile, but when he read "God so loved the world" on the cover of the tract, he pushed it back into my hand and shouted, "I don't want it." "But," I said, "it's a message of love and friendliness." "I don't want it, take it out," he raged, and he literally danced as though I had dropped a seven-pound weight on his toes. I was sorry I had annoyed him, but very sad that he felt like that at the sight of my text, and I had to say to myself, "Some folk are queer."

I had another experience. It was on board the fine old Mauretania in mid-Atlantic. The western sky was ablaze with the glory of the setting sun, and shafts of crimson beauty were shot from the horizon across the waves. By my side stood a gentleman, delighted as I was with the splendid picture, and he talked of it as only an artist and an admirer of great sights could talk. I said to him, "Do you know, sir, that the God whose hand painted that glowing sky, loves you and me?" He drew back and looked at me for a moment with a look of anything but pleasure in his eyes, and then without a word, turned on his heel, and went to the other side of the ship, and for the rest of the week he avoided me as though I had the plague. It is a marvellous thing — it is queer, yes, queer is the word for it — that the mention of God's love should affect a man in that way, and yet we need not be surprised, for it is explained in one sentence in the Bible, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Yet John 3: 16 remains upon the page of His Word, and is as true to-day as ever, and what a wonderful declaration of His feelings towards men it is. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." And there is no person, man or woman, rich or poor that may not find room in that "whosoever."

But the great text is not always rejected, to thousands it has been a savour of life unto life. "It's the best text in the Bible," a happy old man said once to me, and I was not surprised that that was what he thought about it, when he went on to tell me that fifty years before it had changed everything for him. It had been used by God's Holy Spirit to turn him from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, and had made his life worth living when it had promised to be a big failure. He had not heard any words in his long life in which there was so much blessing and sweetness, and it was with reverence and affection that he went over them. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." But, good as it was to hear him repeat these words, and to feel the hearty grip of his hand, which showed that, while he was old in years, he was still young in spirit, they did not affect me so much as when I heard them in very different circumstances.

I had spent the afternoon in the large ward of an Infirmary in a northern city. Every bed in that ward was occupied by a suffering man. I had sat and talked for a few minutes with each of these, and had left them all some books to read, when I came to the last bed in the ward. On it was lying a young fellow, not yet twenty. He looked very wan and ill, and as his eyes were closed, I thought he was sleeping. So I sat down by his side, hoping he might awake before I had to go. Soon he opened his eyes, and looked at me with an inquiring look as much as to say, "Who are you?" I said, "I have been giving the men some Gospel books, but I'm afraid you are too ill to read." "Yes," he said, "I am, and the doctor says there is no hope for me, but I am in the Lord's hands." Those last words came out so unexpectedly, and with so much feeling that the lump came into my throat, and I could not immediately command my voice. When I managed this, I said, "And in the very best hands you are, my dear, for He has said of all who trust in Him, 'I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand.'" "Yes," he answered, "He did say that, and He also said, 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.'" And then, exhausted by the effort, he closed his eyes and lay still, and I sat silent and thrilled. Then he began to speak again, as though oblivious of my presence; slowly but with an indescribable sweetness he repeated "Everlasting life, everlasting life." I listened for a while to that sacred communion between his ransomed soul and his God; then, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, I withdrew from his side, and the last sound from his lips that I heard was "Everlasting life." That happened on Friday afternoon, and on the following Tuesday he entered the Glory.

That dying lad had found in John 3: 16 what all the gold in the bank of England could not have gained him. Could I have carried to him the highest honours that the King could bestow, or poured out at his side the choicest treasures of the world, and this earthly life, they would have been worse than useless in the Infirmary ward; but John 3: 16 had enriched him, and God's love had put a peace into his heart that the approach of death could not disturb. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift," and "Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," and thanks be unto God for everlasting life.

Chapter 2

"Behold the Light"

The Prince and the Untouchables. — The Old Story. — The Glory in the Face of Jesus Christ. — Old Mr. Honest.

An incident during the Prince of Wales' visit to India, which was a great event in the history of the pitiful "untouchables" in that land, has been well told by Katherine Mayo in her famous book "Mother India." The fact of the Prince's kindness of heart had reached the ears of these poor outcasts and says the author of that remarkable book:

"When he turned back from his transit of the Great North Gate — the Khyber Pass itself — a strange thing awaited him. A swarm of Untouchables, emboldened by news that had reached them, clustered at the roadside to do him reverence.

"'Government ki jai!"Hail to the Government!' they shouted with cheers that echoed from the barren hills. And when the Prince slowed down his car to return their greetings, they leaped and danced in their excitement.

"For nowhere in all their store of memory or of legend had they any history of any Indian Magnate who had noticed an Untouchable, except to scorn him. And here was a greater than all India contained — the son of the Supreme Power — to them almost divine, who deigned not only to receive, but even to thank them for their homage. Small wonder that their spirits soared, that their eyes saw visions, that their tongues laid hold on mystic words.

"'Look, look!' they cried to one another; 'behold, the Light! the Light!'

"And such was their exaltation, that many of them somehow worked through to Delhi, to add themselves to the 25,000 of their kind, who there awaited the Prince's coming. The village people from round about flocked in to join them — the simple people of the soil, who know nothing of politics, but much of friendship as shown in works. And all together haunted the roadside, waiting, and hoping, for a glimpse of his face.

"At last he came, down the Grand Trunk Road, toward the Delhi Gate; and in the centre of the hosts of Untouchables, one, standing higher than the rest, unfurled a flag.

"'Yuvaraj Maharaj ki jai! Raja ke Bete ki jai!' 'Hail to the Prince! Hail to the King's son!' they all shouted together, as if to burst their throats. And the Prince, while the high-caste Indian spectators wondered, and revolted within themselves, at his lack of princely pride, ordered his car to be stopped.

"Then a spokesman ventured forward to offer, in a humble little speech, the love and fealty of the 60,000,000 of the Unclean, and to beg the heir to the throne to intercede for them with his father, the King Emperor, never to abandon them into the hands of those who despised them and would keep them slaves.

"The Prince heard him through. Then, whether he realised the magnitude of what he did, or whether he acted merely in the impulse of his natural friendly courtesy toward all the world, he did an unheard-of thing. He stood up — stood up for them, the 'worse than dogs'! — spoke a few words of kindness, looked them all over, slowly, and so with a radiant smile, gave them his salute.

"No sun that had risen on India had witnessed such a sight. As the car started on, moving slowly, not to crush them, they went almost mad. And again their Eastern tongues clothed their thought. 'Brother — that word was truth that our brothers brought us — behold, the light is there indeed! The light, the glory, on his face!'"

It was not much that the Prince could do for those almost hopeless people; he did what he could, and won their hearts by what he did. But I would seize upon the incident to illustrate what I want to tell in this book. God-so-loved-the-world. It is an old story that I am telling, and these are familiar words that I am repeating, but I ask you to consider them afresh; you know them well, but look at them again. The heart of God is behind what He has done, and it is more than sinful to ignore that fact. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." He sent Him into the world, not to condemn it, but with the light of His love shining in His face.

To the angels in heaven, this world must have seemed an unlikely place for their Creator and Lord to visit; and they must have marvelled as they saw His sacred, sinless feet treading the filthy streets of those Eastern cities; and when He touched the lepers, and looked kindly upon the outcasts, and spoke in tones of mercy even to the vilest, they must have wondered as to what the end would be. It is recorded that "He was seen of angels." But most men were unmoved by His presence among them. Proud Jerusalem asked scornfully, "Who is this?" But some beheld the glory in His face, and they bore witness and said, "He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." God's love smiled upon sinners through the eyes of Jesus. In Him was the light. He is the Light, and those that follow Him "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

His progress in this world was not through admiring multitudes to a glorious throne, it ought to have been, but it wasn't. Instead, He was despised and rejected of men, and God knew that He would be when He sent Him, and every step that He trod, took Him nearer to the Cross.

"That path uncheered by earthly smiles

Led only to the Cross."

And the wonder of all ages is that that Cross is the supreme witness of God's love to men. I must repeat that it is an old story that I am telling, but to those who have believed it, its charm endures, and it will live to be rehearsed when the exploits of the greatest and kindliest of men are forgotten. It is the story of a love that is eternal and unmeasurable.

"You might count all the days of the ages,

All the snowflakes come down from above,

All the flowers of summers departed —

But you cannot measure this love."

And it shines still in the face of Jesus, for, though He died, He lives again — risen from the dead, and exalted to the throne in Heaven there still shines from His face the glory of the love and grace of God to men; and I take up the words that those astonished and enraptured Untouchables spoke of the kindly Prince. I say to you, "Brother — that word was truth that our brothers brought us — behold the light is there indeed! The light, the glory, on His face!" And I can give you more reliable authority than that of any man, or of any brother of ours who has spoken to us, though tens of thousands would willingly bear their witness to you, and their witness would be true; but I turn to the Bible, the infallible Word of God, and tell you that it tells us that, "The light of the knowledge of God is in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4: 6).

And if that light shines into a heart, what is the result? Have you read the story of old Mr. Honest in John Bunyan's wonderful book? He wanted to join the Pilgrim band that was travelling to the Celestial City, and Greatheart, the leader of the band, asked him to give an account of himself. "I come," said he, "from the town of Stupidity, it lieth about four degrees beyond the City of Destruction."

"I have often wondered," said Greatheart, "that any should come from your place; for your town is worse than the City of Destruction."

"Yes," said old Honest, "we lie more off the sun, and seem more cold and senseless. But were a man in a mountain of ice, yet if the Sun of Righteousness will rise upon him, his frozen heart shall feel a thaw. THUS IT HATH BEEN WITH ME."

"I believe it, Father Honest, I believe it," cried Greatheart, "for I know the thing is true."

Yes, it is true, if but one ray of light shines from the face of Jesus into a man's heart, it melts and warms and changes it, and he becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, a lover of God and a possessor of eternal life.

Chapter 3

The Source of the Blessing

Above the Clouds. — Track it from its Source. — From the Glory to the Cross.

I had to cross a high mountain range in a distant land. It was early morning, and the rising sun had not yet dispersed the snow-white clouds that rolled beneath me, and which were pierced here and there by giant peaks that reared upward to the tropical sky. It was a most wonderful prospect, and a new and thrilling experience for me, but what moved me most, and left the deepest impression on my mind was a fountain of water, cool as the night and clear as crystal, that sprang up from the rock, thousands of feet above the sea, and went flowing down to the sun-parched plains beneath. As I stood in those glorious surroundings, the music of that fountain got into my soul, and I felt that I must sing, and so, raising my voice, I sang to the accompanying of the flowing waters, part of William Cowper's hymn of praise to our great Saviour:

"E'er God had built the mountains

Or raised the fruitful hills,

Before He filled the fountains

That feed the running rills,

In Thee, from everlasting,

The wonderful I AM

Found pleasures never wasting,

And WISDOM is Thy Name.

"And could'st Thou be delighted

With creatures such as we?

Who, when we saw Thee, slighted

And nailed Thee to a tree!

Unfathomable wonder!

And mystery divine!

The voice that speaks in thunder

Says, 'Sinner, I am thine!'"

As I finished my song by that fountain above the clouds, I was moved to deeper praise for I thought of that greater fountain of blessing and life that is springing up and flowing forth to unhappy, sinful, thirsty, dying men. Where will you find it? If you would discover it, you must arise and travel in your search by Calvary and Bethlehem, you must pass upward above the clouds, you must go from earth to heaven and away into the heights of eternal glory to the heart of the blessed God. Then, and not till then, will you reach the fountain, the source of blessing. It springs up in the very heart of God, for God is love. In those three words we are told what God is in the absolute perfection of His eternal Being. But what is that to us, unless His love can reach us in blessing? And how can it do that? We are sinners, which is only another name for rebels; we were guilty and dead towards God; no pulse of love stirred in our souls towards Him; we had turned every one to his own way, and gone so far from Him that we needed only to take one more step and our souls had been plunged into hopeless and everlasting perdition. What could God's love do for us, and how could He show it to us? The answer comes as clear as human words, divinely chosen, can state it. "In this is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." But can God love sinful men, who never loved Him, and yet maintain His holiness?

And if He does love them and shows it, what of His eternal justice, upon which the pillars of His moral universe are founded? Again there comes the answer, sure and sufficient, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 8, 9, 10).

Burdened and weary sinner, unsatisfied and thirsting, be glad and rejoice, that, though you have not loved God, He has loved you; and though you have not sought Him, He has sought you. He has anticipated your deep need, and has taken the only way by which you could be saved, to save you. Ponder my text again. For, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Begin at the source of it, and track the way that the love of God has taken to reach you; see Him who was in the form of God descending from His high glory to earth; pause for a moment at the manger in Bethlehem, and join your adoration there with the worship of the shepherds from the hills, for the Babe before whom they bow is Emmanuel, the only begotten Son of God — given for the world. Travel further, for Jesus must go further if we were to be saved from perishing; keep His company as He moves amid the miseries of men, rising up day by day before the sun, to be ready to heal their sicknesses and assuage their sorrows; travel with Him through Gethsemane; it is a rough way for His feet to go, but He does not refuse to tread it, see Him move onward with steadfast face, despised and rejected of men, spit upon, scourged and crowned with thorns; follow Him through the gates of David's city as He bears His cross to Calvary. Do not stand with the mocking multitude lest you partake of their spirit, but with the mother of Jesus, and His mother's sister, and Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils, and the disciple whom Jesus loved; you will be in good company if you stand with them to "Behold the Lamb of God" crucified for a world of sinners.

You have yet to learn the meaning of it, you have yet to learn why the giving of God's only begotten Son should have meant sorrow and sacrifice and death for Him, and salvation and life for you; but it was only on this road that the love of God could reach you. He had loved the world in vain apart from this.

Chapter 4

The Gospel Begins with God

Sir James Jeans and the Stars. — God is Great and I am small, can He Think of Me? — How we may Know that He Cares. — The Souls of Men are of More Value than the Stars.

Our text begins with God, and God is great; it tells us that He loved the world, and the world is small. Even to us it appears to be small in comparison with what we used to feel about it, now that men can fly round it in a few days; but how small it is in comparison with the universe.

Sir James Jeans commences one of his books with a staggering paragraph. He says, "A few stars are known, which are hardly bigger than the earth, but the majority are so large that hundreds of thousands of earths could be packed inside each and leave room to spare; here and there we come upon a giant star large enough to contain millions and millions of earths. And the total number of stars in the universe is probably something like the total number of grains of sand on all the sea shores of the world. Such is the littleness of our home in space, when measured up against the total substance of the universe."

Those who believe the Bible, and they are wise men who believe it, know that God, and not accident, is the Maker of those mighty stars, for the Bible begins with, "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and as to the stars and their number and their names, it also tells us that "He calleth them all by their names" (Ps. 147: 4). And the question may well arise in the mind, "How can God, who is so great, care for a world that is so small?" and, further, and more puzzling still, how can He have a personal interest in any one of the two thousand millions of people who live on it? It was this that puzzled a man with whom I talked. He had imbibed more learning at Continental Universities than comes within reach of most English-speaking men, and he was not an atheist. He had a reverent and humble mind, and believed in the existence of God, but he could only conceive a God who was great and distant. He was impressed with the greatness of God, for he had studied. astronomy, and he owned that only an omnipotent God could be the Maker of those countless worlds that bear their silent testimony to His eternal power and divinity; but he said, "How can God, who is so great, take any notice of such an insignificant and useless man as I am?"

How shall we answer his question? There is only one way, we must believe God's Word as to it. We receive the witness of men, but the witness of God is greater. If a man brings us tidings that we are glad to hear, we believe him; why should we not believe God when He speaks? Or do we imagine, as some do, that God, having made us, is unable to communicate His thoughts to us? The notion is absurd. He that made the mouth, can He not speak? He has spoken, and His words tell of a love that exceeds all our comprehension. We may not understand it, but we may believe it, and "he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son." And what is the record? It is that to all that believe, "God hath given eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

There is no other way of knowing this great fact; we cannot arrive at it by studying the stars or by digging into the secrets of nature. The philosophies of men do not reach to this. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" No, here the best intellects are baffled, and the wisest men are fools, for the things of God knoweth no man, until they are revealed to him, but God has revealed them, and they are very real to the man who believes. God has revealed His love, and that revelation is contained in the words of John 3: 16. And they stand out, even amongst the words of Holy Scripture in an unsurpassed glory. The man whose mind is blinded by the god of this world will refuse the revelation, but the heart in which faith has awakened will receive it, and sing:

"How Thou canst think so well of us

Yet be the God Thou art,

Is darkness to my intellect,

But sunshine to my heart."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet, spent a night behind a telescope at the Greenwich Observatory, and afterwards remarked, "That's the sort of thing that makes one think little of county families." And indeed it is as well to be impressed with the littleness and futility of men, who strut and pose in their pride, yet we must not judge of things by their size. We are impressed with the vastness of the stars, as astronomers descant upon them, but when we come to the Bible, they are treated in a mere incidental way. The creation chapter tells us, "He made the stars also."

And we may be sure that they were all made for a great purpose, the fact that God calls them all by name means that, and that purpose will be revealed when "the mystery of God is finished." But the souls of men are evidently of more value to God than the stars, for, for their salvation He gave His only begotten Son. It is to man that He has revealed His love in JESUS, and "there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

We are, indeed, small and insignificant, one blast of God's indignation against us for our sins would have been our utter extinction, yet of such value were we in His sight that He gave His only begotten Son for us, yes, for ungrateful rebellious men He gave His Son!

For men, both vile and guilty, the living stream of blessing flows! It is a wonderful story, but is it true? "If only what you have been telling us were true," said one of my hearers to me, at the close of a Gospel service. "Yes," I said, "wouldn't it be good?" He admitted that nothing would equal it in goodness. "Well," I said, "you may stake your immortal soul upon it, it is as true as it is good, and it is as good as it is true; for it is 'the Gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.'"

Chapter 5

The Gospel and the Law

The Gospel begins with God, the Law begins with you. — The One who spoke at Sinai came into the World to tell us of God's Love. — The Lawful use of the Law. — How Aidan won the Northumbrians.

Again I want you to notice that our text begins with God, and in this it is unlike the law, which God gave at Sinai. The law began with you. The Lord Himself summed up its ten commandments in two marvellous sentences, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." We need not trouble just now about the second part of the law, important as it is, for no man can be right as to that, who is wrong as to the first part of it, and alas, all men have been wrong there. The first part of the law is the crux and test; and it begins with you and ends with God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." It was like a golden ladder set up on the earth, and reaching up to the throne of God, but never did sinful feet mount one rung of that ladder; every man has turned away from it, for every man has loved himself more than he has loved his God.

If God's dealings with men had ended with the law, our case would have been hopeless, for its just condemnation would have been our doom; but thank God, the law was not the end. The law was given for a wise and just purpose. God had a right to say how His creatures should live, and what He expected them to be, and to refrain from doing. And every right-thinking man owns that the law is good and just and perfect. A life lived according to its standard would be a good life, even though its commandments are, with perhaps two exceptions, only prohibitive. But every man has failed, if not in every point of the law, at least in one, and having failed in one, he is guilty of all.

Now the law is like a plumb-line that exposes the crooked wall, but does not put it straight; it is like the mirror that shows a man that his face is dirty but does not wash it; it can do nothing more for a man than expose and condemn him, for "whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth might be stopped and all the world become guilty before God." It is good for a man to face the law; to stand in those awe-inspiring chapters, Exodus 19 and 20, and to behold the Mount Sinai wrapt in a cloud of darkness, out of which the lightnings flashed, and the thunders spoke; and to hear the voice of God there, so majestic and terrible, that even Moses did exceedingly fear and quake. It is well to consider the law, and bow before its just demands upon sinful men, for nothing could be so well calculated to make us fly from its curse to God for refuge as He is revealed to us in John 3: 16.

Could it be the same Lord who spoke in the thunders of Sinai, who, in tender accents, told Nicodemus, the Pharisee, that, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son"? Yes, it was the same, for Jesus is Jehovah. And the man who denies it does not know God, but his mind is blinded by his great foe, the devil, lest he should believe and be saved.

Our text is not like the law, it begins with God and comes down to you; it does not set you climbing up to God, but shows you how He has come down to you, to save you, and what it has cost Him to do it.

Do I then despise the law? Most certainly not. I take up Paul's words, "We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully," and a lawful use of it would be to bring its lash upon the consciences of the ungodly, to show them their sins, and how far they have come short of its righteous requirements, then they might realise and learn that, "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight," for so Romans 3: 20 declares. But the man who preaches the law as a means of gaining God's favour, and as a way of salvation and life opposes the Gospel, and casts a slight upon God's great gift of His Son; he despises the great love of God, or is grossly ignorant of it and what it has done. And the man who puts himself under law in the hope of getting blessing by it, brings upon himself a curse instead, as Galatians 3: 10, 11 distinctly tells us. We have yet to meet a man whose heart was won for God by the preaching of the law; and we have never heard of a multitude of people singing, "We've found our way to God by the law. Hallelujah!"

It is the Gospel, and not the law, that puts joy into the heart, and the new song on the lips. It is the revelation of God's love that wins men from their sins as ten thousand voices from the past can tell us. I give an instance. After the death of Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, the country was overrun by pagans, and the people sank down into the grossest superstitions. A well-meaning, but austere Irish missionary was sent by the Christian colony in Iona to win them from their darkness to the Christian faith; but he was so appalled by the vileness of their lives and their unashamed debauchery, that he thundered the law at them and denounced their sins. They listened to him with a certain amount of curiosity, but were unmoved by his fierce words. After a while, he abandoned his mission and returned to his brethren, a disappointed man. Amongst those to whom he told the tale of his failure was a Christian brother named Aidan, who was a shining example of one who knew the Lord. He said, "Ah, Lord Jesus, if he had told them of the love of God, and of Thy Cross, they would have hearkened," and constrained by that love, he decided to go and tell the Northumbrians what he knew. He did not speak the tongue of the people, but Oswald, who was Edwin's nephew and successor, had spent some years in Ireland, and knew the language that Aidan spoke, and, his heart being first won by the matchless story of the love of God, he became the interpreter of the message to the people. Aidan's mission was not a failure as had been that of his predecessor, for the story he told enthralled the people, and what the preaching of the law failed to do, God's great love did, for multitudes "turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven;" and Aidan spent the rest of his life in that kingdom gathering those heathen hosts to the feet of the Saviour, and exhorting them to keep themselves in the love of God.

Chapter 6

What Sort of Love is God's Love?

Is it a pallid, palliating, polite sort of thing? — A Great Sacrifice was called for. — David's Lament for Absalom.

What sort of a love is this love of God? I knew a mother who said one day to her wilful daughter, "Go to your bedroom and tell God all about your naughtiness, and don't come down again until He has forgiven you." I need not say that she was not a wise mother. After a few minutes' silence, the little lady, in very pert fashion, returned to the drawing-room. "Well," said the mother, "did you tell God what a naughty girl you have been?" "Yes, I did," came the reply, "and He said, 'O, Miss E—, don't mention it.'" Does the child's fancy provoke a smile? It saddened me, for behind it, I saw that a false impression had been made upon her mind as to God and His character. To her, as to thousands of people who are grown up, and consider themselves intelligent, God is an indulgent easygoing Being, to whom sin is a minor affair, that nobody should trouble about at all, unless, of course, it becomes a menace to society — then give the sinner short shrift. God's love in their view is a pallid, palliating, polite sort of thing, as vague and invertebrate as they suppose His justice to be, so that it does not matter whether they please Him or not, He does not care, and if He does it does not matter; it will be all the same in the end.

The love of God is not like that; it is not the love of a weak and indulgent parent; it is a holy love, there is a force and energy and vigour about it that can only be found in God. His love transcends our highest thoughts, it baffles all illustration, but it reaches out to all men, and the meanest and most unintelligent may receive it, and the blessing of it. It is a love that hates sin, and yet has set itself to rescue men from its power and its penalty, and to do this righteously, in the only way in which it can be done, and at its own cost.

God must be against sin, for sin is rebellion against Himself; it would climb up to His throne, and cast Him from it if it could and crown the devil in His place; it has ruined God's fair creature man, for it has blinded his eyes to His goodness, and poisoned the very springs of his being; it has carried the multitudes who have died into death and the grave; it has forged the chains that bind souls in everlasting darkness; out of its foul womb have come forth sorrow, and crying, and pain, and death; it is the mother of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. How could God tolerate sin as though it did not matter? And men are sinners, and willingly so, for all have sinned, and in this there is no difference.

God has come forth in Christ to woo the sinner and win him, and yet He must deal with his sins in uncompromising justice, and so we find that our great text is inseparably bound to the words that precede it, and those words are about THE CROSS OF CHRIST. There would have been no Cross if God had not loved the world, and His love could not have been effective for the world without the Cross.

Let us have, then, the words that precede our text, for they are essential to its meaning: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life." A great sacrifice was called for, and it must be holy and of infinite value. A Son of Man must stand up as the Substitute and Representative of men; but He must be sinless. He must be one who did no sin, in whom was no sin, and who knew no sin. He must be holy, harmless and undefiled, or death and inexorable justice would claim Him as they had claimed all others. He must be one over whom death had no rights, and yet able to give His life a ransom for others, and He must be "lifted up," that upon Him the righteous condemnation of sinners might fall. He must make expiation for sins to deliver men from sin's penalty, from Satan's bondage, the fear of death and everlasting perdition; and that God's eternal justice might remain unchallenged, and His throne retain its inflexible integrity. Where could this Son of Man be found? God has found Him, and given Him for the salvation of men, for the Son of Man who was lifted up at Calvary is God's only begotten Son.

There never was a more tragic and more poignant story penned than that of David and Absalom. That wayward son of an indulgent father had slain his brother, and fled the country, for he knew well that if his father acted in justice, as a king should act, he must die for his crime, even though in his case there were extenuating circumstances. And David's heart yearned for his son, and at last he sanctioned his return and kissed him. The father and the king were in conflict in the one person, and the king was beaten; a weak love triumphed over stern justice, and brought disaster on a kingdom. That son was soon in open revolt against the father from whose nerveless hand the sceptre had fallen, and nothing would satisfy him but his father's life, and his father's throne; rebellion would be king. He failed, as sin must also finally fail in its revolt against God and His throne, but when the news was brought to the aged father that that godless son of his hung dead from the branches of an oak tree in the wood, the sorrow of it broke his heart, and to his chamber over the gate he went, sorely weeping, and saying, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Ah, yes, now he realised the only way; if he could himself have borne the penalty of his son's crime! if only he could have done that, but he could not, for he himself was a murderer, his own life was forfeited, and that by his own sentence; he could not have paid the price for his guilty son. But what David could not do for Absalom, God has done for us, and He commends His love to us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this was the only way in which we could be righteously free from sin's penalty.

"Inscribed upon the Cross we see

In shining letters, 'God is love.'"

At that Cross of Christ mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other; through the Cross God can be a just God and a Saviour. The Cross of Christ is the measure and the pledge of God's love, and at the same time it is the revelation of His holiness. God is love and God is light. How great is the splendour of the Cross, the light of it drives out the darkness from every heart that believes. And nothing else can do that.

"O the Cross of Christ is wondrous;

There I learn God's heart to me,

'Mid the silent deepening darkness

God is light, I also see.

Holy claims of justice finding

Full expression in the scene.

Light and love alike are telling

What yon woes and sufferings mean."

Chapter 7

God's Love our Only Hope

Salvation has come from Heaven. — "His Unspeakable Gift." — What it cost. — The Effect of it.

Who would have thought that our salvation would come from heaven? Naturally that would have been the last place from which we should have expected it, for it was against heaven that we had sinned. "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight," cried the penitent prodigal, and that is true of us all. Our sins were a slur upon God's majesty, a challenge to His supremacy, and a proof that we hated Him. We might have expected judgment from heaven, and wrath, and fire, and brimstone, but not love and salvation. But the unexpected has happened, and the truth must be told to all the world, that God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son. It is more than wonderful, and it cannot be explained by any standard of human conduct; it is what God is; it is the revelation of His very heart.

And yet, to whom could we have looked for salvation if not to God? Certainly no man could give a ransom for his brother; and all have sinned, hence all were under condemnation, and no one could save another. There could have been no hope for any man apart from God. If He had not intervened for our salvation, we must all have perished. He has intervened, and we who believe, wonder and worship. He "gave His only begotten Son." This was the greatest and the best He could do, and nothing less than this would have availed.

It is by words that things are explained and understood by us, yet we feel that even the richest and fullest human words that we can command are altogether feeble and cold when this great love has to be told out. Even the Holy Spirit of God, who with divine wisdom selected and gave the best words that could be given to convey to us great truths, declared the inadequacy of all human language to express the greatness of this love gift, when He inspired Paul to exclaim, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

Paul knew how to use acceptable words, wise preacher that he was, and when occasion demanded, he could pile superlative upon superlative, as when he wrote of "the exceeding greatness of God's power," and "the exceeding riches of His grace," and His ability "to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think," and of "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." But when he wrote of this gift of God, there were no words that could describe it. If there had been any in human language that could have conveyed to human intelligence the fullness and immensity of it, the Holy Spirit would have known them and given them to him, but there were none. We try to encompass this great gift with words, and we call it "great," "ineffable," "wonderful," "incomparable," "boundless," and "perfect," but they all fail. All these, or their equivalents in the languages of Paul's day were duly considered and found wanting by the divinely-inspired writer. Overwhelmed by the character of the gift, he tells us in one brief sentence that it defies definition and baffles all description, that it is inexpressible, unspeakable. "Thanks be unto God," he says, "for HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT."

The gift is the proof and measure of God's love. We may consider it, but never fully comprehend it; we may know it, yet it surpasses knowledge; we may speak of it, yet it is unspeakable; we may search the breadth, length, depth, and height of it; yet it is unsearchable; its dimensions and magnitude are for ever beyond the creature's range! The incarnation and the Cross, the rough way that Jesus trod, His sighs and sorrows, His suffering in Gethsemane, and the shame of Golgotha, the darkness, the woe, His death and blood-shedding, were all God's voice to men, speaking with a growing intensity; they were God's utterance of unutterable love; His love declared by His unspeakable gift. Whether we think of the love that gave the gift, or the gift that the love gave, or the flood of blessing that flows to men, and will yet flow to them as a result of it, there is only one thing we can do, unless we are hardened and blinded by the devil, and that is to give thanks unto God for His unspeakable gift.

"Unto me, the vile, the guilty,

Flows the living flood;

I, an enemy, am ransomed

By the precious blood.

Prostrate at Thy feet I lie,

Lost in Love's immensity."

Who can tell what it cost God to give this great gift? Mark well how language labours and strains to express the preciousness of God's Son to Him. He is spoken of as "His only begotten Son." His only one, the object of His full and undivided love, and He was this eternally. "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" are the words of JESUS to His Father. There never was, and never shall be a moment in Eternity or in Time when He did not dwell in the bosom of His Father, "the only begotten Son that is in (or exists in) the bosom of the Father," is the way He is described. The Father's bosom was, and is, His dwelling place. It is by such language that we are told how dear, infinitely dear He is to the Father, and worthy of that Father's love. But He came forth from the Father to be the Saviour of sinners! And again, I ask, who can tell what it cost the Father to send Him forth? And having come into the world, how inexpressible is the love that flowed between the Father and the Son. The Father loveth the Son so well that He holds back nothing from Him, He gives Him all things (John 3: 35), and He shares all His thoughts with Him; the flow of communion was not diminished or interrupted when He came, a Man to earth (John 5: 20). And as He lived His life, fresh causes were continually emerging that called forth fresh expressions of that love, and most of all when He laid down His life, for the Lord Himself said, "Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down My life" (John 10: 17). And on the part of "the SON of His love," there ever rose up a perfect responsive love to His Father. "He that sent Me is with Me: the Father hath not left Me alone; I do always the things that please Him", He said. And again, "That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father hath given Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence." "God is angry with the wicked every day," but in Jesus He found unceasing, never-failing delight, and Him He has given to save us and have us for Himself; so great is His love!

If there had been any other way by which sinners could have been saved, would He have done this? We are sure that He would not. If they could have saved themselves, would God have given His Son to save them? if they could have done it, He being the just God that He is, would have encouraged them to do it, and when they had accomplished the great feat, He would have put the crown upon their heads and said, "Well done"; but it was because we were without strength that Christ died for us; and "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." There was no other way by which we could be rescued from darkness and destruction. Only the only begotten Son could save us, the work was too great for man, angel, or archangel; and God gave Him that that work might be done, and that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.

This unspeakable gift produces an unspeakable joy in all those that believe. Appreciate the gift and let it be kept by the Spirit's power before the heart, and an answering joy will be there; a joy that the heart knows for itself, deep, silent and unspeakable. It is the joy of faith, the joy of love, the joy of eternal life, the joy of the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ, His sent One.

Chapter 8

What the Giving of the Son meant

Nicholas I and the Rebellion. — "They will reverence My Son." — If the death of Christ was Predetermined, why should Men be Charged with the Guilt of it? — The Death of Christ was an Atoning Death.

Long before the power in Russia was seized by apostate Jews, and the last of the Romanoffs, and his family were butchered in a cellar, the people were restless, and often on the verge of a revolt; for, though the Tsars were styled "the little father," they were tyrants with few exceptions, and some of them well deserved the title "terrible." Nicholas I was one who ruled the people with an iron hand, and early in his reign they rebelled against him. A roaring mob surrounded the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, threatening death to the Tsar and his consort, who were watching them from within. It looked as though their last hour had come, when suddenly Nicholas took up his six months-old child, the heir to the throne, and stepping out upon the balcony, he faced the multitudes that surged like an angry sea in the vast palace square. He was a young man, handsome, tall and splendid in his strength. He did not speak, he just stood there with the babe in his arms. A silence fell on the mob, which seemed more awful than its rage. Then came sobs, and then a tempest of cheers. An emotional people were moved by the sight of the solitary Tsar and his mute babe, by this confidence that he showed in them, and they sensed that the babe in his arms most surely meant peace and not war, that it was an ambassador and pledge of good-will, and not oppression. The people were won, and the dynasty was saved, and it was the showing by the Tsar of his only son to the people that saved it.

The world that God loved was in rebellion against Him, and it had no cause for its rebellion, for He is no tyrant, but the faithful Creator, and He had never left men without a witness as to His kind thoughts towards them. Paul told this to the worshippers of the idol Jupiter in the city of Lystra. Said he, "He did good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." And again, he told the great philosophers at Athens that "He giveth to all, life and breath and all things." But men were not thankful for His gifts, they did not acknowledge Him as the Giver of them, they hated Him and would not hear His word. Then He said, "I have one Son, I will send Him. They will reverence My Son." It was as though God said, "I will show them My very heart, I will prove to them that I am not against them. My Son shall be the pledge and proof of My love to them. I cannot do more; this is My last and My best."

And Jesus came — He came as a Babe in the manger, the great sign that God would be at peace with men. The Babe was God's love gift to the world; His only begotten Son. He came full of grace and truth; He came preaching peace; He came not to condemn the world, but to save it. He stood before the world showing forth the heart of God who sent Him; He was not silent, but spoke of love that passes all bounds of human thought. But men had no ears to listen to His message. When they saw Him, they hated Him and His Father who sent Him, and they had no pity, but cried, "Let us kill Him," "Away with Him," "Crucify Him." The world's rebellion was not quelled by the sight of God's only begotten Son, nor was its heart changed by it; instead, His coming brought that rebellion to its culmination and they murdered Him. But the murder of the Son of God did not turn back the tide of blessing that sprang up in the heart of God; instead, it opened wide the flood-gates, that the living waters might flow forth in ever-lasting blessing. God turned the evil and hatred of men to His own ends, so that now, "Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That blessing is flowing still, and though millions have been supplied, it flows as fresh as ever, for it is as inexhaustible as it is blessed.

There is a question that is sometimes raised, and it is an important one, as to why, if the crucifixion of the Son of God at Calvary only fulfilled what God intended, and was the great evidence of His love to the world, why should that act be looked upon as the greatest crime of the world? Why, for instance, since "the Son of Man must be lifted up," should Jesus Himself charge the Jews with being guilty of the act, when He said to them, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He"? Could man be held responsible for that which God had predetermined?

God knew beforehand, of course, that the revelation of His best would only provoke the worst that was in men, for He knew all that was in man from the beginning, though it required the supreme test to bring it out. But it had to come out, for the truth as to all things must be manifested; the truth as to God, the truth as to men, and the truth as to the devil. And all did come out at the cross, there the thoughts of many hearts were revealed. God was not responsible for the evil that was in the hearts of men, but He showed His supremacy over all by restraining that evil for a while, and then when the hour came, and it gushed forth in unrestrained and determined hatred against Him, by turning it into the channel by which it became the means of glorifying Him, and more wonderful still, the way of blessing for men. He knew what men would do, and predetermined that their act should thus turn to a triumph of His love.

But, let one suppose that what the Lord Jesus suffered at the hands of men secured redemption for us. When it says that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, we must think deeper than of His flesh torn and bruised by the nails and thorns, and if we can say, "by His stripes we are healed," we must think of something other than the scourging to which Pilate so unjustly condemned Him. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him," i.e. instead of the unsparing judgment of God coming with its crushing weight upon us, God chose that it should fall upon Him and He gave Him to be our Substitute and to bear it in our stead. He was lifted up by men, the object of their hatred and derision, but when they had done their worst, the sixth hour came, tolling in the darkness that was denser than that that enshrouded Egypt, and such as creation had never seen before; then there took place what no creature mind will ever fully understand, His soul was made an offering for sin, and God made Him, our sinless Substitute, to be sin for us, and He bore our sins in His own body on the Tree. "Through the Eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God." It is this that explains — what is, indeed, beyond all our comprehension — that cry that will never be forgotten, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which being interpreted is, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The more we consider that, and the more its meaning enters our souls, the greater will be our wondering appreciation of our great text and the love of God which it reveals to us.

The death of Jesus was an atoning death; there never was, there never will be another like it. He suffered, the Just One, for us the unjust, to bring us to God, and that is why we shall sing to Him, "Thou art worthy, for Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue and people and nation." For the efficacy of His atoning blood extends to the whole world, and whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Chapter 9

God's Kiss of Love

The Death of Princess Alice. — What held the Saviour to the Cross. — The Kiss of Forgiveness. — The Devil's lie Exposed.

Princess Alice, the greatly beloved daughter of Queen Victoria, was married to the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt. She had nursed her husband and daughters, the youngest of which, just a babe, had died, through the then greatly dreaded diptheria, when her only son was sorely stricken. Though worn out by nursing, she insisted upon taking full charge of her suffering boy. One day, when the fever was at its height, he stretched his hands out to her and said, "Kiss me, mother," and she, breaking through the restraints of prudence, pressed upon his parched lips a mother's love-kiss. That kiss cost her her life. God has stooped down to put the kiss of His love upon the world, but it cost Him the life of His Son; He knew that it would when He gave Him. "He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." He sent Him into the world, not with flaming fire to judge it, but in lowly grace to put His kiss upon it to save it. The Son of God came forth from His Father with a commandment, and that commandment was to lay down His life and take it again. It was the only way. I will quote the very words of the Lord Jesus, for the Gospel story would be incomplete without them. He said, "I lay down My life for the sheep. . . . Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, 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: 15-18).

Let no one think that it was an easy thing for the Father to give that commandment, or for the Son to carry it out. Nothing but infinite and divine love, the love of God, could have done it. In His agony in the Garden, Jesus cried, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." It was not possible, the commandment must be carried out. It was the measure of God's love to men; He so loved the world.

But see what these words of JESUS mean. "No man taketh My life from Me." It was impossible for men to slay Him. In intent they did it, on their part no effort was wanting to bring Him down into death; their malice and cruelty knew no pity; they were indeed from that point of view His murderers, they slew the Holy One and the Just; and yet, when they had done their worst, He voluntarily laid down His life, a sacrifice for sin. He anticipated that spear thrust that ripped His side, and offered up Himself without spot to God. In their mocking of Him, they cried, "Come down from the cross and we will believe on you." He could have come down from the cross. It was not the nails that were driven through His hands and His feet that held Him there. I could not admit that, unless I am allowed to spell out one word upon them. Then the nail in His right hand shall be L, and the nail in His left hand shall be O, and the nail in the right foot shall be V, and the nail in the left foot shall be E. It was LOVE that held Him there, the love of a Saviour-God. He did not die by the violence of men, though they could not have been more violent; nor did He die from any natural cause. He cried, "It is finished," with a loud voice and yielded up His own life. So that, when the soldiers came to finish the work of that brutal day, they marvelled that He was dead already. One act on their part remained to be done, that the ancient word might be fulfilled, and that the sacrifice might be complete. One of them stepped back a pace and thrust his spear into the side of the dead body of the Saviour, and forthwith came there out blood and water. "And he that saw it bare record, and, his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, THAT YE MIGHT BELIEVE" (John 19: 35).

He carried out His Father's commandment by yielding up His life, He had the power to do it because of who He was; but He had also received commandment to take it again, and this He has done. And if He had not done this, God's love would have been an impotent love, it could not have saved us. "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins." If Christ be not raised, God has lost His Son for ever, and we have no Saviour. But His resurrection is an integral part of the Gospel, for "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and was buried, and rose again from the dead the third day, according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15: 3, 4).

Death has met its Master, the power of the grave has been broken, and Jesus lives. He has carried out His Father's commandment and finished the work that He gave Him to do, and God has glorified Him with the glory that He had with Him before the world began. And all this is involved in our text; if that commandment had not been carried out, and if that work had not been finished, sinners never could have felt the kiss of God's love, and it never could have been said, "Whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Prince Ernest Louis would never forget that kiss of love that cost his mother her life, he would have been an unnatural, unfeeling son if he had; but the world cared nothing at the time for the love of God that made Him give His Son, and it cares nothing for it now. It is indifferent to the kiss of God's love. Yet if any will hear and believe the story, to them flows the rich blessing that is the result of it. And multitudes have heard and believed it, and every one of them has been kissed by the kiss of forgiveness and love. Let no one suppose that when God gave His Son His love to the world ceased. The gift did not exhaust the love; it fills His heart now as ever it did, and when a sinner, weary of his sins turns towards Him, God sees him when he is yet a great way off for the eyes of love are very keen; and He has compassion on him — for the heart of love is very tender; and He runs — for the feet of love are swift, and He falls on his neck and kisses him. Each sinner is kissed for himself and can say, as the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, that is given to him, "God who knows all, has forgiven all, and He loves me, yes, even me."

And what has the devil to give in comparison with that? He lied to Adam and Eve in the garden. He told them that God did not love them, that He was withholding something from them that would exalt them and do them good, and if they would but listen to him he would make them happier and higher than God had made them; he would make them as gods, knowing good and evil. They listened to his lying words, and turned their backs upon God who did love them, and followed the devil who hated them, to their ruin! John 3: 16 is the answer to the devil's lie, and the truth of it dispels the darkness that lies as a black pall upon the souls of men. For when a man believes the Gospel, he is saved and set free, the Son makes him free, for the Son came to undo the works of the devil, and set his captives free. It is the kiss of God's love that awakens dead souls to life, and that dissolves the shackles that bind them; they are no longer the dupes of the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, but they know that God is rich in mercy, and they know His great love wherewith He has loved them, and they know that He has quickened them together with Christ (Eph. 2. ), and they know that they are united to the One who has died for them, and they know that they can never be separated from Him for ever.

Chapter 10

It is the World that God Loves

The World and not a part of it. — The Lady who Thought she had Sinned Away her Day of Grace. — What sort of a World is it?

It is the world that God so loved; not a part of it, nor any class or race or colour in it. There is a notion abroad, and we fear what is called "organised religion" must bear some of the blame of it, that God loves the cultured, and the rich and the religious, and merely tolerates the rest; but our text sweeps away such a false conception of God and tells us that He loved the world. He is no respecter of persons. His love reaches out to all men, even to the uttermost part of the earth.

But a man may accept that as a fact because he has heard it since he was a child, and yet be unaffected in any way by it, because he does not see that he personally is involved in it; or he may refuse to believe anything about it at all because any thought of God disturbs his complacency, or he may pose as an infidel; yet it is certain that no man was born an infidel. Many a man has argued himself into infidelity simply because he "did not like to retain God in his knowledge," as Romans 1 tells us. But whether indifferent, or infidel, or whatever else he may be, there is no man in the world to whom these words cannot be spoken, and they will come home in their life-giving, saving power to all who feel their need of them.

I remember meeting a young lady who thought she was an exception to this wonderful fact. She was obsessed with the idea that she had sinned away her day of grace, and that there was no hope for her. She did not doubt that others might be saved, but she, so she thought, had had her opportunity and missed it. Naturally she became very depressed, so much so that the family doctor diagnosed the case as religious mania, when it was actually deep soul trouble. He advised that she should not be allowed to attend any religious service or read the Bible. I was preaching the Gospel in the town, and a happy Christian friend obtained permission to bring her to one of the meetings. I was told about her and introduced to her. I said, "I am glad that you have come to the meeting to-night, for I have found a text in the Bible that should suit you exactly." Her face brightened for a moment at the suggestion that after all there might be a text that she had not seen, which might yield her some comfort; but when I read John 3: 16 to her, she showed great disappointment, and said rather impatiently, "I've read that text many times." "I know that." I said, "but listen to it once more. 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever in believeth Him should not perish but have everlasting life.' What is it that God has loved?" I asked, "The world," she answered. "Are you in the world?" I asked. "Of course I am," she replied, and her manner showed that she thought it a very silly question. "You ought to be very glad for that," I said, "for, being in the world, this great love of God is for you, and the blessing of this wonderful verse is for you, and if you want to get out of the reach of it, you must fly to the moon, or take lodgings in one of the planets, or drop down into hell; then you will be able to say, 'There's no hope for me, I cannot be saved. ' But as long as you are in the world God's love reaches even to you." "Let me look at it," she said, and taking my Bible, she eagerly read over the familiar words, and as she did so, the cloud departed from her face; she was transformed; for the light that shone into her heart dispelled the darkness of unbelief, and showed itself in a happy and grateful smile. She begged the loan of my Bible for the night, and returned it to me the next day, a happy woman. Eleven years after I received a message from her through a friend in Scotland, She wondered if I remembered the woman who borrowed my Bible to read over John 3. 16. I certainly did remember it, and she will never forget it.

But what a world it is that God has loved! It reeks with moral putrefaction, and prefers its sins and miseries to His great love and eternal life. When His Son came into it, though He was its Maker, it did not know Him, and the leaders of it crucified Him, Clearly is their guilt recorded in the Word of God; it says, "The princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory." It was not the rabble that took the lead in that great crime, but the princes, the best the world had ever produced. The rabble joined in it, for the universal cry was, "Away with Him." But the great men first raised that cry. That was what the world thought about the only begotten Son of God, but it did not change God's love to hatred, nor the purpose of His beloved Son to save men. They laid the cross upon His shoulders, but He went forth bearing it. There was no resistance on His part, for He had come to do His Father's will, and that will was that He should die for sinners. And in this was manifested the great victory of God's love over man's hatred. And now the word is going forth to all the world, to men of every colour and race, "that whosoever believeth Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their transgressions unto them, nor is He imputing their transgressions unto them now, if He did, it would mean for them unsparing judgment and everlasting banishment from His presence; but He is sending the word of reconciliation unto the world, and its message is of forgiveness and eternal life, but it must be heard and received, it is the whosoever believes that do not perish, and to them alone the blessing comes, all others grope onward in the darkness to death and judgment and the lake of fire.

Chapter 11

How the Love of God Changes Men

The Man who ran away. — The Text on the Wall. — Could a Man who Killed Another be Saved? — How God's Love Changed J—.

I remember a Gospel meeting in my native town. We had been inviting the people in the neighbourhood of the Hall to come in and hear the word of God, and among some who responded was a man who sat like a surprised listener until the preaching was over; when, waiting for nothing else, he got up and ran, and did not stop until he had reached his house. When asked why he had run away from the Gospel like that, he said, "God is in that place." But would he have run away if he had believed John 3: 16? I can understand a man running away from Sinai, but if he had realised the meaning of the words, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," would he have fled?

And yet this fear of God must precede the knowledge of this great love. I know that from my own experience. When I was a boy, there hung in our home a Scripture text. There were only four words in it, but those four words fastened themselves on my mind and made me tremble with fear at the most unexpected times. They were, "THOU GOD SEEST ME." I was afraid as I thought of them, and wished sometimes that there was no God. I am sure that I could have repeated John 3: 16 correctly in those days, and yet I was afraid of God. Why should any boy or man, girl or woman be afraid of God and of His eyes of love? Ah, that's the question, for it is certain that the man who ran away from the Gospel preaching and I who trembled when I thought of God and His all-seeing eye, were not alone in this. Why? It is a searching question, and the answer was, I knew that I was a sinner and that God was holy, and that man knew and felt this too; and the heart of the sinner "which is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" is enmity against God and has no desire to meet Him in any way; and in this all are alike, there is no difference.

But do I tremble now as I think of God's all-seeing eye? No, I do not, for now I know that He loved me and gave His Son for my salvation. He who saw all has forgiven all, and thus He has won my heart and I love Him because He first loved me. His perfect love to me has cast out all fear from my heart.

The Bible that tells us of God's love to men also tells us, and that just as plainly, of men's hatred of God and of His Son, whom He sent to be their Saviour. The Lord Jesus said, "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father," and, "They hated Me without a cause." These are the two facts that stand out above all others in the Bible. God loves men and men hate God, and these two facts show what a unique place man has in God's creation.

I have met men who believed they were nothing more than beasts — cleverer, of course, than the rest of the animal kingdom through the kindly efforts of a mysterious force which they call Evolution, but still beasts to live and die and be forgotten; but one thing is certain, the beasts are not enmity against God, they do not hate Him; and another thing is certain, there has been no revelation of God's love to them, though He feeds the young lions and cares for the sparrows. It is men that God has loved,

"For man, O miracle of grace!

For man the Saviour bled."

When this great fact gets into a man's heart, it revolutionises his whole life. It changes his thoughts and feelings towards God, first of all. The hatred is cast out of his heart, and he is reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Instead of running from God, it makes him run to Him; for what could be so attractive as the love of God as seen in Jesus? If God so loved us, why should we hide with fear from Him? It is this wonderful love which makes us trust Him wholly.

I knew an old man in the North of England who was not overburdened with this world's goods, indeed he was a poor man, an old age pensioner, but a happy one. We were holding an open-air meeting, and he stepped into the ring to speak. What had he to tell us? "Friends," he said, "it's just fifty years since I came out of gaol first time. The W—s got hold of me, and I'm not going to say anything against them, they were very kind to me, but they never told me that Jesus died for me, and I was very ignorant. They told me to be a good lad, but I could not manage it; it was too big a job for me; and it was seventeen years before I found out that God loved me. Seventeen years! I've come here to tell you what it took me seventeen years to find out. God loves you, my friends, God loves you. It was this that changed things for me, and it will do the same for you."

When eighteen years old, that man, then a poor pit lad, unable to read or write, was condemned to five years penal servitude for man-slaughter. In defending a friend in a drunken row, he had killed a man. In his northern prison, the prisoners talked about their chances of heaven, and they were unanimous in declaring that Geordie had no chance at all; he had killed a man; his case was hopeless. And he, poor fellow, believed them, and thought that there was nothing but a life of sin for him and hell at the end of it. Until, during his last term in gaol, the truth reached him, that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." What a revelation that was to that poor ignorant pitman! It changed his life and filled him with an enthusiasm for the Gospel that burned in his soul to the end of his days. I know of no one in the North of England who preached it more persistently than he, and there will be many in heaven as a result of the testimony of rough old Geordie M—.

And hear the story of another man in the same northern district, whose life was transformed by the same wonderful love. He cursed the Gospel preachers who came into his street to tell the glad tidings to the people. He sat at his window and cursed them while they preached. "J—, my man," said one of them, "God loves you." Those words went home to his miserable heart and the next night that hardened sinner turned in to the service in the nearby Gospel hall and there was saved. I met him after three years of Christian life. He had been away from home for the week-end preaching the Gospel that had saved him. It was the first week-end that he had been away from home since his conversion. He was telling me this and he said, "Before I was saved, my wife used to pray that I might break my neck, I was such a drunken brute, but when I came home this morning after being away since Saturday, she said, "J—, you'll never have to go away again, this has been the most miserable week-end I've ever spent." Yes, that is what the Gospel of God's great love can do for a man, it changes him, and it changes his home as well.

Chapter 12

"His Only Begotten Son"

The Only Begotten Son. — Buddha and Christ. — The Unique Glory of the Saviour.

I shall take it for granted that my readers are thoroughly interested in our great text, and that they will wish to consider further the One who is spoken of in it as God's "only begotten Son" the One whom God has given, and in whom they are to believe. The title is of the highest glory, there does not seem to be any higher. It is used five times, in John 1: 14, 18; 3: 16, 18; and 1 John 4: 9. I should like to quote a paragraph from an old writer that has impressed me. He points out that John, the beloved disciple who leaned on the Lord's breast at the Supper, is the only one of the New Testament writers that speaks thus of the Lord; and the reason for that may be that he being the last of the New Testament writers, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to give special emphasis to the full Deity-glory of Jesus, and of His eternal relationship with the Father in God-head, which even then was being challenged. He says: "When he would impress the minds of his readers with a deep sense at once of the inscrutableness of the divine nature, and the certainty and perfection of the manifestations of God in Christ, he declares, 'No man' — no being of created mould — 'hath seen God at any time; the ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, who exists in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.'" When, again, he would exalt to the utmost glory of the Word in flesh, he styles it, "the glory as of the ONLY BEGOTTEN from the Father." When he would illustrate the benevolence of God with the highest splendour, he says, "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." With a similar purpose is the epithet used by Christ Himself, "God so loved the world, that He gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And, finally, when our Lord would represent unbelief as the last extreme of human guilt, and as anticipating the judgment of a future world, He finds no stronger argument than that conveyed in this appellation, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the NAME OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD." And this is He whom God hath given and in whom we are to believe unto eternal life.

There have been and will still be many anti-christs in the world. Men who will challenge the unique place that the only begotten Son of God fills. The devil will see to that, for the one thing that he hates above all others is that the Son of God, the One who has stormed his stronghold of death and mastered him, should be magnified and praised. And the devil's work is clearly manifested in the fact that in these last days there are those who call themselves Christians, who put Confucius, and Mahomet, and Buddha, and other historical figures, on the same platform as the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our ship put in to Colombo for a day for coal and supplies, and we all were glad to go ashore after three weeks of ship board life. When we returned at night everybody was full of the day's adventures. One lady told me that she had been to a Buddhist temple, on the walls of which were paintings depicting scenes in the life of Buddha — they had all been explained by the priest in charge, "And," said the lady, "they were so much like what we read about Christ, that I have come to the conclusion that there was no difference between Buddha and Christ, and if these people believe in Buddha, that is all that is required." "And what about your believing in Buddha, too, if there is no difference between him and Christ?" I asked. "Well, of course, I belong to the West, and so I believe in Christ, but I do not see any difference between them," she replied. "In those pictures depicting incidents in the life of Buddha," I asked, "did you see one of Buddha dying on a cross for sinners?" "No," she said; "there wasn't one like that." "Then, of course, there would not be one of Buddha, having died, rising again from the dead." "No," she said, "there was not." "Then," I said, "Buddha cannot be like Christ, for the two great facts of Christ are that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." I was glad that the lady finally agreed that Buddha was not like Christ.

I proclaim the unique glory of the only begotten Son of God. In Time and Eternity He has no rival. "There is none other Name given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved," for He only could die for sinners, and rise up again from the dead. O that men would understand this and turn to Him wholly!

It is 6,000 years since Adam opened the door for sin to enter into the world and death came in with sin (Rom. 5: 12). At his surrender to Satan in the Garden he became a sinner by nature and practice, and he has transmitted that nature to his posterity, and death has passed upon them all, "for all have sinned." Great men have arisen in the world's history, who have dominated other men, like Nimrod, and Buddha, and Mahomet, but they have all died, because, like Adam, they were all sinners. Not one of them, even if he had desired to, could stand up as the substitute for others, and bear sin's penalty so as to take from death its dominion. The dark tide of death has rolled on and risen up against every man, sweeping away the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the wise and the fool. There was no hope or help for men in any of Adam's children. Then it was that God intervened by giving His only begotten Son.

His coming was predicted of old. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel." This was the sign. It was the sign of man's utter impotence for his own redemption, and that God would undertake his cause, and that this should proceed from Himself and be entirely apart from any aid that men could give. "A virgin shall conceive." "It is impossible," cries the infidel. Yes, it is impossible with men; that is the very lesson that God would teach us by the manner of His intervention. It is impossible that men should devise or evolve any scheme or system of redemption, or deliver and uplift themselves from the damning effect of sin; they cannot set themselves free from the law of sin and death, with men it is impossible, but not with God. He stepped into the scene of man's utter ruin, and said, "Stand still, stand aside, and see the salvation of God," and so, in due time, Mary brought forth her firstborn Son, "And His Name was called Jesus." He was Immanuel — the only begotten Son — "Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." The Son of the Father's love by whom all things were made (Col. 1). "Who is over all, God blessed for ever." "How do you know that Jesus Christ is God?" asked a scoffer of a man who had confessed the Saviour's Name. "How do I know that Jesus Christ is God? Why, He saved me," was his simple, yet conclusive, answer.

It is He, the Son in the God-head, who came forth from the Father in whom we are asked to believe. The epithet "the only begotten Son of God" tells us how eternally near and dear He is to the Father who sent Him, and He sent Him to be the Saviour, and being who He is, His mission cannot fail.

Of every other child born into the world there was a doubt as to his career and destiny. What will he become? was the question that sprang to the mind in respect to every one of them.

One might have been born a king, but who could tell whether he would ever be enthroned, or that accomplished, whether he would not be dethroned again by a more powerful rival. But Jesus came into the world to fulfil a great purpose, He came to die and rise again, and to become by His death and resurrection the Saviour of men. He has accomplished the work that God gave Him to do: It is finished; and He has gone back again to heaven, that from thence He might give everlasting life to all who believe in Him. "Now He that 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." Of which of the great names in human history could that be said? Buddha means the Enlightened, but those who follow him grope in impenetrable darkness. Jesus is the Light of the world, and He appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and to dispel the darkness, and reveal what God is in the fullness of His love. He is the eternally worthy object of the Father's love, He is the worthy object of every sinner's trust.

Chapter 13

"That Whosoever Believeth in Him"

What "whosoever" means. — Duncan Mathieson's Story. — The Mistakes that People make. — The self-righteous old Yorkshire Man.

The first half of the verse is God's side of it, the second half is yours. God's love is for the world, but it is the "whosoever that believeth" that receives the blessing of it. You had no hand in moving God to love and to give, but everything depends for you whether you do or do not believe. That "whosoever" is a great word and wonderful; it stretches out its long arms of welcome to all men and would enfold them all in its embrace of love. It makes its appeal to the reader of this book, as it made its appeal once to the writer of it, in his case not in vain. It tells us that God is no respecter of persons, "but that the same Lord is rich unto all that call upon Him"; for there is no difference now, Jew and Gentile, bad and good, poor and rich, old and young may all come and believe and be saved, but every man must do it for himself.

The happy and believing "whosoevers" are being gathered out of all nations, for in these days the word of the Gospel is running with swift feet; it is travelling north, south, east, and west; and multitudes who have been bred in heathen darkness are hearing it with amazement and joy, and they shall sit down in the kingdom of God, for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It would be well if the men and women of these "Christian" lands awoke to the solemn fact that they are in danger of being shut out of the blessing for ever because of their indifference and unbelief. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out."

It was by this "whosoever" of John 3: 16 that light dawned upon the heart of Duncan Mathieson, the Scottish evangelist, who carried the Gospel to the suffering Britishers in the Crimean war, and did for their souls what Florence Nightingale did for their bodies. For many weary days he had searched for faith, which he thought was some mysterious thing that he would have to possess if ever he was to be saved from perdition and have peace with God. He often told the story of how the blessing came to him, and I will give it here in his own words:

"I was standing at the end of my father's house," he said, "and meditating on that precious word that has brought peace to countless ones: 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' I saw that God loved me, for I was one of the world. I saw the proof of His love in the giving of His Son. I saw that 'whosoever' meant anybody and everybody, and, therefore, me, even me. I saw the result of believing, that I would not perish, but have everlasting life. I was enabled to take God at His word. I saw no one but Jesus only — all in all in redemption. My burden fell from my soul, and I was saved. Yes, saved! That hour angels rejoiced over one more sinner brought to the Saviour, and new songs rang through the courts of that city to which I had now got a title, and of which I had now become an heir. Bunyan describes his pilgrim as giving three leaps of joy as his burden rolled into the open sepulchre of Christ. I could not contain myself for joy. I sang the new song, 'Salvation through the blood of the Lamb.' The very heavens appeared as if covered with glory. I felt the calm of a pardoned sinner; yet I had no thought of my safety. I saw only the person of Jesus. I wept for my sins that had nailed Him to the Cross; but now it came freely as the tear that faith wept. I had passed from death unto life; old things had passed away, and all things had become new.

"I wondered that I had stumbled at the simplicity of the way. I saw everything so plain that I longed to go and tell all the world. I felt that if I had met a thousand Manassehs I could say, 'Yet there is room.' I went everywhere telling the glad story. Some even of the saints looked incredulous. Others, like the elder brother of the parable, did not like the music and the dancing. They had never left their Father's dwelling; they had never been sin-sick, and knew not what it is to be healed; no fatted calf had been killed for them. These warned me against enthusiasm and exhorted me to be sober-minded. One old man told me that I was on the mount, but that I would soon be down again. Another said I needed great humility. But I went on singing my song. Prayer had given place to praise, and night and day I continued to thank God for 'His unspeakable gift.'"

But though the words are so plain, thousands miss the meaning of them, or are so blinded by their own opinions, or it may be by the devil, that they treat them as of no value; they prefer their own way to God's. They are acting as though the word was "whosoever worketh," when it is "not of works"; or "whosoever does his best," when "there is none that doeth good;" or "whosoever prayeth, or payeth, or does penance," but it is none of these things but, "whosoever believeth." It does not say whosoever loves God, it is God who has done the loving; or, whosoever giveth, it is God who has done the giving: but, whosoever believeth. But it is not whosoever believeth a text, even this greatest of all texts, or whosoever believeth in the Bible, or in the Christian faith, it is whosoever believeth in HIM; a living Person, the Son of God!

The text tells us about Him, the Bible tells us about Him. We should not, and could not, know anything about Him at all if we had not the text and the Bible; we who have believed, thank God for the Bible; it is a priceless treasure. We do not wonder that men who loved it in former days preferred to burn in the fires of Smithfield rather than give it up. It is God's own Word to us and we value it as such. But you may have the Bible and remain unsaved; you may say that it is a good Book, and yet perish. It is JESUS alone that saves. The Bible holds Him up to us as the object of faith; it says, "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish"; in Him alone can you find everlasting life; "neither is there salvation in any other," so the Bible tells us, and the Bible is true; it is the infallible Word of God.

That self-righteous old sinner in Yorkshire who told a friend of mine that he would go boldly up to the gates of Heaven, and show himself there, and expect to be welcomed, because he had done no harm to anybody, was as silly as he was proud, he was duped by the devil; but so also are all who hope to reach Heaven by any other way than this. The "whosoevers that believe" are those who have abandoned self-trust; they have thrown away their own self-righteousnesses as filthy rags. They have come to the Saviour as perishing sinners with:

"Naught to plead

But God's great love

And their exceeding need."

And they have got Christ instead of self; and through Him they have everlasting life, and shall not perish. Is not this what the Word of God tells us? It is, and happy is he who believes that sure Word. "Blessed is she that believed," said the saintly Elizabeth of her young cousin Mary; "for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her of the Lord."

Chapter 14

What is it to Believe?

Believing a Historical Fact. — The Plague in the City and your Need. — A Northumbrian Farmer and How he Believed.

I have met people who have said, "You talk about believing; I believe; but it has made no difference to me, what does it all mean?" And their belief has turned out to be something about Jesus and not faith in Him at all. This sort of belief is the same as they have in regard to some outstanding character in history. I, for instance, have read of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell; that period of English history always interested me more than any other, and I often debated in my mind as to whether Cromwell was a regicide and traitor or a benefactor and liberator: it was an exhilarating mental exercise, but, of course, nothing more, and that is how it is with these "believers" in the Bible facts about the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of them are orthodox, religious and estimable, they are not infidels; they believe that Jesus lived and died and rose again and ascended into heaven, these are all items in the Creed, and they do not question them. They will tell you that these are very interesting facts that have had a decided effect upon the history of the world, but they are unmoved and unchanged by them: they have yielded them a mental assent, but not the faith of their hearts that saves; and if thou shalt believe in thine heart, is an important word. Their idea is that since they have lived what they call a moral life, and do not altogether neglect religion, nothing more can be expected. The Son of God is not to them a vital reality; they do not believe that without Him they must perish, that He is indispensable to their eternal salvation.

But what is this living faith in Him that is so necessary; the faith that appropriates the blessing, and without which it is impossible to please God? Let me illustrate it. The plague is raging in your city, and the people are dying by scores and hundreds, and all the efforts of the doctors to check its ravages are in vain, for they have discovered neither the cause of it nor the remedy. One day you awaken to the fact that you are stricken; there can be no doubt about it, the symptoms are unmistakable. You are surely doomed, and are on the verge of despair, for this fell disease has rarely, if ever, been known to release its grip upon any of its victims. But just when you have abandoned all hope there steps into your room a man of whom you have often heard; he is a great physician, and as kind as he is great. He tells you that after long research he has discovered the virulent germ, and has conquered it, and that if you will submit your case to him he can and will cure you. Do you hesitate? Not for a moment. How eagerly you watch him as he measures out the dose of the precious fluid that is to heal you. And when he hands it to you and says, "Now drink that," do you say, "All right, doctor, I believe all that ever I heard about you, and I believe what you say about this medicine, put it down there, I'll take it sometime, but I want a little while to think about it"? No, you don't! That dose, and that only, as far as you know, can save your life, and you waste no time in vain talk, but with your heart beating at more than its usual rate, you stretch out your hand and take the life-giving draught and drink it down, and as all the doctor has said is proved to be true, how sincerely you thank him. You are a very grateful man, and never tire of telling others of the doctor's skill and of his infallible remedy.

Do you understand the illustration? Sin, like a plague, has stricken you: your only hope is the great Physician, who "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Have you awakened to the fact that your soul is in danger of perishing, and that it must perish unless God's only begotten Son saves it? If so, you will want Him; your soul will cry out for Him; you will not rest until you find Him; you may even take up the cry of the disciples in the storm, "Lord, carest Thou not that we perish?" Of course He cares, and you will realise that He cares for you, if you will put your case in His hands and trust Him wholly to save you. That is what believing in Him means, and nothing less than that. And He has never failed one who has believed in Him like that.

An old friend of mine proved this, when he discovered that he was a sinful man and in danger of perishing. It was Christmas Eve, and he had been invited to join in the festivities of the season. There was to be dancing and drink and music and singing, and though very miserable, he started out for the great house at which the night was to be spent, but he hesitated at the gate. One of his mates took him by the arm and said, "What's the matter with you? Come on." And that did it. He told me that it seemed to him as though the very devil was in that tug at his arm, and that that "Come on" was the devil's invitation to him to forget that he was a sinner and that his soul needed saving, and to reject the Saviour. He pulled away from the temptation, and leaving his friends he ran home to his bedroom. He was alone in the house, and falling on his knees he cried out, "Lord, I'm in danger of perishing for ever, and I deserve to perish because of my sins, but if I have to perish, I'll perish at Thy feet." Did he perish? No, how could he when he cast himself like that into the Saviour's hands? Does not our text say, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish"? He did not perish, but became one of the brightest, happiest farmers in the county of Northumberland. He is now with His Saviour whom he trusted, but his happy Christian life was spent in pressing on others the claims of the Lord, and telling them of the joys of everlasting life that He gives to those who believe.

And how does a man acquire this faith that saves? It comes by hearing, for the Scripture says, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God;" and Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."

Believing in Him is a vital thing. It is living faith in a living Saviour. Simon Peter had it, when speaking on behalf of his friends, he said to the Lord, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Chapter 15

What does it Mean to Perish?

"I'll never believe in Hell." — The Words of the Son of God. — The "Whosoever" of Revelation 20.

God has done a great thing that men might be saved from perishing. He could not have done a greater. He has given His only begotten Son. And after such a proof of His love, who would dare to question what Peter tells us in his second Epistle, chapter 3: 9, that He is "not willing that any should perish." Yet our text and many another show plainly enough that men are in danger of perishing; and if this is so, it is surely an end to be escaped if that is possible, and since it is possible, no man ought to be indifferent about it.

But what is it to perish? I heard a preacher spell out the word like this P-E-R-I-S-H — to Pass Eternally Ruined Into a Sinner's Hell, What a terrible doom that must be! And almost too solemn a matter to be turned into an acrostic, Yet that is exactly what it is to perish. Let me hasten to say that hell was not prepared for man, the paradise of God in Eden was his prepared dwelling place; I am quoting the Lord's own words as to hell: He spoke of "everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels" (Matt. 25. 41). Then why should men be condemned to such a doom? Because they will follow the devil in his revolt against God. The turnover from God to the devil was deliberate on Adam's part, for he does not seem to have been deceived as Eve was, and by him sin entered into the world and death by sin, and death has passed upon all men for that all have sinned. There has been no difference in this, we have every one turned to his own way. The devil was the first to take that self-willed rebellious road, and Adam was the first man to follow the devil's lead, and, like sheep, we have all gone the same way; and the end of that road is hell.

I own that this is not a subject upon which I can write with pleasure; it is a solemn and awesome subject. Men do not like it, and I do not wonder; and many modern preachers, in order to be popular, and please men, have cast it out of their theology; but can they stamp the fear of it out of the consciences and souls of men? Some years ago, I was introduced to a man in a Yorkshire town, who wanted a talk with me. He was a working man with more than ordinary intelligence, and instead of backing horses and handing his weekly surplus over to the bookmaker, he spent it in books and possessed a library of which he was proud. But most of his books were on Eastern philosophy, for he had become a Theosophist. I pressed upon him the great fact that God had highly exalted JESUS, and given Him a Name above every name, and that every knee must one day bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is the Lord. He, on his part, was quite willing to own that He must have been a good man — His teaching and works he thought proved that, but he would admit nothing more than that. As I had not spoken of hell, it seemed strange to me that he should declare several times during our conversation, "I'll never believe in hell," and as often as he did so I replied, "I am not asking you to believe in hell, but to confess Jesus Christ as your Lord."

We parted late that night, and it was a long time before he was able to sleep, his confidence in the "wisdom" that he thought he had acquired had been shaken, and he was perturbed and restless. He dosed off at last, but was suddenly awakened in the early morning to find his bedroom alight with a lurid glow, and his first thought and exclamation was, "I'm in hell." It was a great factory on the opposite side of the road that was ablaze, and it was the flames that were pouring out of the windows of it that lighted up his room. But why should his first thought have been of hell, when but five hours before he had asserted at least half a dozen times that he would never believe in such a place? Ah, it was his conscience that spoke out before he had time to marshal his arguments. Deep down in his soul he knew that there was a hell and judgment to come, and the Eastern philosophy that he had imbibed had been unable to stamp that knowledge out of him. I am glad to say that within a week, he had thrown to the winds his false theories, and had bowed down before the great Saviour; he had become one of the "whosoevers" that believe; and he made a bonfire of the books that had deceived him, for, said he, "Now I have found the solution of all my difficulties in Christ."

It is out of the lips of the Son of God, who came from heaven to tell us of God's great love, that the most solemn warnings as to hell have come. He said to His followers, "In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you." If there had been no heaven to win, He would have told us, and if there had been no hell to shun, would He not have told us? But it was He who said to the self-righteous, hypocritical Pharisees, "How shall ye escape the damnation of hell?" He it was who warned men of "Gehenna, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." He told His hearers of one rich man who, after death, lifted up his eyes being in torment. You see, I am not giving you my opinions on so solemn a subject as this, I would not do that, for my opinions would be of no more value than yours. I am giving you the words of the Son of God, and His words are truth. He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away" (Mark 13: 31). Have you believed them? His words are spirit and life, those that warn of judgment to come equally with those that tell of the love that saves.

Why did He who was the gift of God's love to men utter these solemn warnings? Why does a mother warn her child of the dangers of the road, or command him not to play with matches? It is her love for him that makes her do it, and it is the same love that made God give His only begotten Son that men might have a way of escape from perishing, that warns them of the irrevocable and everlasting consequences to them of neglecting His great salvation.

This "whosoever" of John 3. 16 is not the only whosoever in the Bible. It is the whosoever of blessing and salvation and eternal life; but there is another. It occurs in the account of the last judgment, at the great white throne; it is the whosoever of damnation and the second death. We read "The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works . . . and whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." And again, "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death." AND THAT IS WHAT IT IS TO PERISH.

Chapter 16

Everlasting Life

What is everlasting Life? — "Sanctifying Doubts." — "He said it." — A Saved Jewess. — A place in God's Family. — Glory.

Everlasting life is everlasting. It is a life that no one can ever lose who has received it as the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Think of the Giver of it — God; think of the One through whom it comes — Jesus Christ our Lord, and then say whether it can be forfeited or withdrawn. If it were something that was granted to us in return for some merit or faithfulness, then we might fear that if the merit ceased, the blessing would be forfeited, but since it is the sovereign gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, it is ours for ever, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. And further, this life has not been deposited in us for us to keep it, with the danger of losing it always near. See what the word of God says about it, "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5: 11). Can I lose that which is treasured up for me in the Son of God? There is no "Safe Deposit" nor strong room on earth, but what thieves may succeed in breaking in, but what thief can take from Christ what He holds for me? He has met every foe and overthrown every adversary. His hand has smashed the power of death itself, and it is that hand which holds the believer in everlasting security; and to every one of them, He gives eternal life and they shall never perish. We have this life, if we have it at all, by having Him, for "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John 5: 12).

But again, He Himself is the life, and He is our life. "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14: 16). "Christ who is our life" (Col. 3: 4). "This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5: 20). We may not understand what all that means, but if we have believed in Him, we shall delight to consider it and meditate upon it, and the Spirit of God will unfold its meaning to us.

Now God wants every believer to know that this life is his. There are thousands who are believing and doubting; they have an uncertain sort of hope that all will be well in the end, but they cannot go further than that. One old lady in the North of Scotland, who was a sincere and devout believer, declared to a friend of mine that "she would never give up her sanctifying doubts." But hear what the Word of God says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5: 13). Not "hope" or "doubt," nor even "feel," but "know." Who amongst all who have cast the burden of their sins at the feet of the great Saviour, and who have looked up to Him in simple, unquestioning faith can doubt His Word? It was He who said of His sheep, of all those who have believed on Him, "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." Is not that enough? I remember a woman in Canada, who seemed as miserable as a sinner could be out of hell. And her misery arose from the fact that she knew that she was a sinner, but had not turned wholly to JESUS. One day I met her and saw at once that there was a change in her, and she told me how it happened. It was His Word that had done it. "He said it," she said. He said, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish," and that was enough for her, and she was astonished at the wonder and simplicity of it.

But everlasting life is more than a new life that can never be lost; it brings its possessor into new relationships, and herein lies the joy of it. A baby when born into a family does not at first know its father, yet it is a member of the family, and its father's child. And every one that is born into God's family is one of His children. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God." In God's family the babes know their Father from the very beginning. They can look up to the great God and address Him with the happy freedom with which a child addresses its father, and they may know, not only that God loved them, when they were far from Him, and gave His Son for their Salvation, but now He loves them with a Father's love, they are His children and infinitely and eternally dear to Him.

I met a Jewess. The light of the Gospel had shone into her heart, and she had become a happy believer in JESUS. She had learnt that the Nazarene, whom the leaders of her nation had rejected and crucified was the only Saviour, and that God had made Him both Lord and Christ. I asked her what verse in the Bible she loved most, and she quickly answered," John 3: 16. And she explained to me that she had been reared in the belief that God was great and terrible, and that her nation was suffering under His stern hand, and she had feared Him greatly, and John 3: 16 had shown her how great His love was, and had changed her view of Him entirely, and so she treasured it and loved to repeat it. I said to her, I have another verse for you, which, perhaps, you have not seen, and I read John 16: 27, "The Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God." It was a few minutes before she began to realise what it meant, but when she did understand it, tears rolled down her cheeks, tears of joy they were, for she saw that she was loved as a child. She was cast off by her relatives, but she was not an orphan, God was her Father. No longer did she stand afar off in fear and trembling, but she could draw nigh, indeed she had been made nigh by the Blood of the Cross, she was a child in God's family, loved with a Father's love.

"So dear, so very dear to God

She could not nearer be.

The love wherewith He loves His Son,

Such is His love to me."

I must quote here the words of the Lord Jesus on the great resurrection day; said He to Mary, "Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God." It is this that He spoke of, when He said to His Father, "This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

Eternal life is a most blessed present possession, but it has to say to the future also. Those that believe in the only begotten Son of God shall not perish, death cannot rob them of eternal life. Their destiny is eternal glory with Christ. "When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3: 3). "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3: 2, 3). He said, "In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, ye may be also" (John 14: 2). When these glorious words are fulfilled, all the ransomed hosts shall have everlasting life in its full and unhindered power, and will be in the home and sphere of it.

But while the believer waits for the full glory of eternal life, he has it now as a life that triumphs over the power of death, if he is called to die. The body of the Christian is still subject to death, but not his spirit, for eternal life is an overcoming life. Death is the king of terrors to them that believe not, but it is not that to those who are God's children through faith in Christ, for death has met its Master; it is a defeated, throneless, crownless king; wrenched from its grasp are the keys of its stronghold; annulled is its power; and delivered from the fear of it are those who were once in bondage to it. The believer shares in the triumphs of Christ, who is his life, and can say, even in view of death, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

An old Christian, and a valued friend of mine in Adelaide, Australia, was stricken with paralysis, and it was clear that his service for Christ was done and his life on earth was drawing to its close. The last hour had come, and his family, Christians every member of it, were gathered in his chamber. The paralysis had robbed the dying man of the power of speech, but not of his joy in the Lord; his family could see that, and had no misgivings for him. Yet they longed for some final word, some cheer and comfort that would abide with them when he was gone, and it was quite right and natural that they should. In the hope that, at the very last his speech might be restored to him, they asked if he had anything to say to them. But he could say nothing with his mouth; articulate he could not, yet they were not to be disappointed, for his last word was to be given to them in a more deliberate and thrilling way than by mere speech. He had learned to spell out the deaf and dumb alphabet upon his fingers in order to preach the Gospel to some deaf mutes who lived near his home, and now this knowledge came into blessed use, for upon his fingers he spelt out one word, slowly and with emphasis, and his family, as they eagerly watched the dying fingers, read all they desired, for the word spelt upon them was G-L-O-R-Y.

Chapter 17

An Appeal

A Personal Matter. — "I never knew before that God Loved me." — The Devil's Lure. — Too Late. — The Last Judgment. — Longsuffering Love.

Now I come to the end of my little book, and in this last chapter I must make an appeal to you, my reader. I have not done so before, for I wanted you to read on, and I know that when some readers come to a personal appeal in a book of this sort they will read no further. Yet the matter is intensely personal, for it is certain that no man can be saved by proxy, every man will be saved or lost for himself. It is strange how differently people are affected by this Gospel of God's love, some are entirely unmoved by it; I am reminded when I think of them of the words of an old preacher. He said, "When Jesus died, the rocks were rent and broken, and if a man is unmoved by that death, then his heart must be harder than the rocks," and that is most surely true. How is it with you, my reader? Has your heart been moved by it? If not, you may judge for yourself how hard it must be. Others are profoundly moved and saved by it the very first time they hear it.

I had this story from the lips of a great friend of mine, a retired army officer. It was his own experience. He was a young lieutenant at the time, and as wild as any of his brother officers, when God saved his soul and changed his life. Not only he, but several others were affected in the same way, but his conversion was the greatest surprise because it was the least expected.

These young officers felt they would like to tell others of the love that had blessed them, and preach the Gospel that they had believed. So, they rented a hall in the South of England town in which their regiment was stationed and started their preaching, and my friend's turn came to tell the story. He decided to take John 3: 16 for his text, and I give it for the last time in this book. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

He could not have chosen a better text. But when he had read it and looked up from his Bible to the crowd before him, he could not think of anything to say about it. Anyhow he would repeat the text if he could remember it, and so he began, "God — God — God — loved the world — God, God so loved the world — yes, God so loved the world that — that and that was as far as he got, for, catching sight of an open door at the back of the platform, he made a dash for it and disappeared through it to the astonishment of his audience.

He paced up and down the ante-room, abusing himself for his folly in attempting to preach a sermon, and vowing that he would never do it again, when a knock came to the door and a young woman was brought in. The tears were running down her cheeks, and she could not speak for sobs. "What's the matter with you?" said the would-be preacher, "is your father dead?" "No," came the answer that astonished him, "but Captain, I never knew before that God loved me." It was an astonishing result from what he had thought was a great failure. The stumbling words had gone home and done their work, and there knelt together in that ante-room two astonished people — she that God loved her, he that God should have used his blundering to show her this.

Why should she have believed it so readily while others treat it with such indifference? Certainly her tears of joy and grateful thanksgiving proved that she was wise, and if so, then those who are indifferent to it are fools, for how shall they escape if they neglect so great salvation? Do they hope for another chance, something better than the Gospel? God has nothing better to offer to any man.

This Gospel is God's best and His last. If men have no ear for it, it is because they are listening to the devil. Sin within them answers to his temptations without, and they are lured farther and farther from God by his false words. They go with him one mile, intending then to stop and be saved, but the way seems pleasant and they cannot stop; so he leads them on mile after mile, until the end of the downward road is reached, and the end of it is hell. They cannot see the end as they travel to it, for there are many turns and twists in it, and they come upon it suddenly and unawares, and when it is too late to turn back — TOO LATE.

In the Art Gallery of my native town there used to hang a picture that told a sad tale. The background was a rose-covered cottage. The door of the cottage stood open and within could be seen the form of an aged woman lying dead in her coffin. A young woman stood at the door, the daughter of the dead woman, and approaching the gate was a young man, evidently a wanderer, and a dissipated one, a prodigal son. The young woman pointed with one hand to the dead mother, and the other was stretched out accusingly at her brother, and on her face there was a mingled look of sorrow and reproach. Every figure in the picture cried, "Too late"; but the lines upon it added to its pathos and told of a disappointed love.

"She waited long for you

But now you are too late."

In his case, love had watched, and waited, and died. In your case, my unsaved reader, love is watching and waiting for you. It is not yet too late.

"Long-suffering love waits, wanderer, for thee,

Oh! hear the sound of Heaven's sweet melody.

Come Home, oh! Come,

The love of God believe."

But you may soon pass beyond the reach of that love. It offers you forgiveness, life, and heaven now, but to-morrow may be too late. You are here to-day, and God's Word says, "To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." To-morrow you may be in eternity. To die is a solemn thing for anyone, but for the one who has despised and rejected the Gospel, it is terrible beyond words. It means to perish, to drop into hell, to be lost without hope, to be for ever without God and without Christ. To-day is the day of mercy; to-morrow may be the day of doom.

And what will you do in the great judgment day when you stand, raised up from the dead, before God, the Judge of all, before whose face the heavens and earth will have fled away; and when the books are opened, and your life's record is unfolded there, for the dead are to be judged out of the things that are written in the books; and when it is plainly shown that your name is not written in the book of life, when it might have been, and would have been if you had believed the Gospel; and when with all those who shared in your rejection of Christ you are cast into the lake of fire? Remember it is the same love that has provided salvation for you that warns you, and as you remember that, face this question.

I was asked, "Why don't you compromise with modern thought on this question?" But how can I, or any one else who believes the Bible, compromise upon it? If it were a theory spun out by a certain school of thought we would abandon it with alacrity, if it were our own opinion, it would be of no more value than any other man's; but since it is the word of God, we cannot compromise. We are only stewards of that faithful Word, and we must pass it on as we receive it, for it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.

Once more God commends His love to you. He wants you to know the greatness of His interest in you. He could not have saved you at the expense of His righteousness, He must be just; a sacrifice for sin was a necessity, and this called forth the full energy of His love, He gave His Son for your salvation.

God's love led the Saviour to Calvary. God's love finds its delight in blessing the worst and cleansing the vilest. God's love has filled millions with joy and it will be their theme for ever. God's love lingers over you, it yearns for you, yes, even for you. "And there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

STEM Publishing: W. T. P. Wolston: Gospel Narratives

A Student Story;

or Bread Cast Upon the Waters;

And other Gospel Narratives.

by W. T. P Wolston.

Publisher: "Gospel Messenger" and George Morrish.

CBA10766.

Contents

A Student Story

Noah's Carpenters

Divine Openings

A Leap in the Dark

The Rope from Above

Milk without Money

The Comfort of the Blood

Go to Joseph

A Student Story;

or Bread Cast Upon the Waters

The shades of winter evening were rapidly deepening, and flinging obscurity over the subjects which lay upon the tables of a well-known London dissecting-room, a quarter of a century ago, as a group of medical students might have been seen standing round one of these tables, evidently, for the moment, deeply engaged. The fading light, shut books, closed dissecting cases, and somewhat grave faces of the dozen listeners, showed that anatomy was not the topic in hand, as a seated student, who had till then been busy with his "Part," replied to the queries that came from every quarter of the group.

The conversation had been begun by S-, a typically thoughtless, and careless, young would-be medico, who, in passing the seated dissector — known to be a Christian — had railingly said, "Well, Spurgeon, how many have you baptized lately?" Medical students are notorious for their love of bestowing a sobriquet on all and sundry, from professors downwards; so the student thus addressed had, soon after he joined the college, and it leaked out that he occasionally preached the gospel, been dubbed with the name of the well-known and popular preacher.

"I do not baptize; I only preach the gospel, when, and as best I can," was the rejoinder.

"Oh! you don't baptize, you only preach. Come, tell us what you say;" and the loud tone of banter in which this was said quickly gathered, as it was intended it should, a little coterie of kindred spirits, expecting some fun from the roasting of the young Christian. At that moment, however, the senior demonstrator of anatomy, a grave demure man, of whom the students stood rather in awe, joined the group, and took part in the conversation later on.

"You want to know what I preach, do you? I preach glad tidings; the love of God to ruined man; the death and resurrection of His Son the Lord Jesus, and that faith in Him alone secures salvation; that man is guilty, undone, lost; and that the 'Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.' Human efforts are all in vain. Man's so-called good works are all valueless to win salvation. 'Salvation is of the Lord,' and 'the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles;' whosoever will may have it, without money or price. 'The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' The last time I preached I spoke on the 10th of Acts, where it says about the Saviour, 'To him give all the prophets witness, that, through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.'"

"And do you mean to say that your sins are all forgiven, and that you are saved, Spurgeon?" continued his first interrogator.

"Through God's grace I can most certainly say so. I have had that joy for more than a year now."

"Well, that is presumption, and no mistake," "Did you ever hear the like?" "That's rather good to believe," put in a chorus of voices at once.

Nothing daunted, the assailed one replied, "How can it be presumption to believe God? If my salvation depended on my good works, I might well be filled with doubt and uncertainty; but if it depend, as it does, on the perfectly finished and accepted work of the Lord Jesus for me, it would be presumption to doubt that salvation, when God says so plainly in His Word to every believing soul, 'Thy sins are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace' (Luke 7). When an awakened sinner once asked, 'What must I do to be saved?' God's Spirit replied, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' And further, He has said in Ephesians 2, 'By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.' It surely cannot be presumption to believe the God of truth, when He says He sent His Son to save me, and that when I trust in Him I am saved."

"But you do not give sufficient place to our works," put in the senior demonstrator, who had been listening quietly till now.

"If God gives them no place, sir, had we not better leave them out of consideration? It says in Romans 4, 'If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. But what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' Our works are either 'wicked' (Col. 1: 21) or 'dead' (Heb. 9: 14), and certainly they cannot save us. Christ's work is finished, by it God has been glorified; and it is due to Christ that the one who forswears his own works, and trusts alone in Him, should partake of the benefits and fruits of that atoning work of His, by which alone can sin be put away."

"Ah! that makes it far too easy," said one; "Depend upon it, Spurgeon, you are all wrong," said another; and with varying other such comments the gathering broke up, and the dissector was left alone to pack up his tools in quietness, wondering, the while, what God would bring out of the incident. The bread of life had been simply presented; whether any were hungry enough to eat thereof, was a question. At any rate, the young believer found comfort to his heart in the words, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days" (Eccles. 11: 1), and, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isa. 55: 11).

Two days later this young student was again busy with his scalpel and forceps, sitting alone at a table, when one of his seniors, named J-, brought his "part," instruments, and book, and seated himself opposite to him, and began to dissect. Work went on quietly for a little, and then J- said, "That was strange stuff you were telling the fellows the other afternoon. I said nothing at the time, but I don't believe what you were saying. I don't at all pretend to be a religious chap myself, but I am sure a man would need to work hard to get to heaven. Your way of it would not be mine at all, if I cared for that sort of thing, which I don't."

"It is not my way, J-, it is God's, and that makes an immense difference. When the Lord was upon earth, and the Jews came and asked Him, 'What shall we do that we might work the works of God?' do you know what He answered them?"

"No. What?"

"'Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent' (John 6: 29). To believe in the Son of God is all that you or I have to do to get saved."

"But, man, it stands to reason that we ought to do something ourselves. Why, by your way everybody may get saved. Do you believe they will?"

"No, I believe nothing of the sort; for alas, all will not take the place of being lost sinners, and hence do not feel their need of a Saviour, and so do not trust Him. His words are true: 'They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' The whole, the righteous — or those who think they are such — need Him not, but sinners are welcome to Him. As one of the latter, I have received Him, and He has saved me out and out, blessed be His name!"

"Oh, that's easily said, but I don't believe in your way of salvation at all, and you will never convince me that that is the way to be saved;" and so saying J- relapsed into silence, shortly after left the table, and for the rest of their student life took uncommon good care not to give an opportunity for a tête-à-tête with the man who knew Christ had saved him.

Some years rolled by; student days ceased, the ardently longed-for diplomas and degrees were possessed; and while J- went into practice in the far West, the other went north of the Tweed, to extend his knowledge, while filling the post of house physician in a large hospital. To that same city, in course of time, who should come but J-, attracted, as he supposed, by certain medical advantages of which he would avail himself; but led doubtless by the gracious hand of God, who had not taken His eye off him since the day an arrow, shot at a venture, had pierced the worldly coat-of-mail he wore in the London dissecting-room. Great was J-'s surprise to find his former acquaintance chief in those wards where he wanted to gather clinical information. Flung thus across his path again, J-'s friend felt greatly interested in him, and one Lord's Day said, "Do you ever go to hear the Word of God preached now?"

Sometimes; but I have not been since I came north. Where do you go?"

"I? Oh! I go to — Street."

"Who preaches there?"

"The preachers are various."

"Do they preach well?"

"That would be an open question. I believe they preach the truth, and that is what you and I want. You might do worse than come;" and so saying, a little notice of the meeting was handed to him, which he took, with the remark, "Perhaps I will turn in some night."

That evening the preacher was reading the 7th of Luke, when the door gently opened, and the unbelieving, but evidently interested, young doctor entered. His surprise was not small to find in the preacher the one who had invited him; but the Lord's sermon of twelve words: "THY SINS ARE FORGIVEN. THY FAITH HATH SAVED THEE; GO IN PEACE," soon riveted him; and though he did not go "in peace," he left impressed, and aroused to a sense of his need and danger, such as he had never experienced before.

The next Lord's Day found the doctor again present, as an aged and grey-haired servant of God sweetly unfolded the touching parable of Luke 15, and showed how, when man was lost, Jesus came after him; when he was dead, how the Spirit quickened him; and when he returned repentant, how the Father welcomed and rejoiced over him. Conviction of sin was now evident in the young physician, and two Lord's Days later, when he again heard his medical friend preach from the words, "Wilt thou go with this man?" he felt he must decide for Christ that night. He stayed to the second meeting for anxious inquirers; and then in converse with his friend, as they walked towards the hospital together, admitted that he had never been easy since the conversation in the dissecting-room. Persuaded in his mind that what he had heard was not true, he had gone home, searched the Bible for support, only to find that he was wrong himself, and that what he had heard was the truth. Convinced that he was wrong, and that God's salvation was free to all, by simple faith in Jesus, he had balanced the blessings of the gospel against "the pleasures of sin for a season", the devil had kicked the beam the wrong way, so he shut up the Bible, and turned again to the world with its sin and folly, but had never had an hour's peace. Now he saw he was lost, and was asked, "Do you believe that Jesus came to save the lost?"

"I do; I believe He came to save me, and I believe in Him."

"Then are you not saved?

"That is just the difficulty. I don't feel sure."

"Well," said his friend, "if God is worth believing on two counts, why not on the third? When God says in His Word you are a lost sinner, what say you?"

"I believe Him," he replied.

"Good. And when He says He sent His Son to die for you, and that if you trust in Him you shall be saved, what do you say?"

"I believe Him, with all my heart."

"Quite right. Now then, when He says, 'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life' (John 3: 36), are you going to doubt Him?"

"That won't do. If He speaks truly on the two counts, He must speak as truly on the third. Yes, I see it. I believe in His Son, and I have everlasting life. He says it, and it must be true. Thank God, I am saved, forgiven, — without any works of my own, — by simple faith in Jesus."

"One question more: 'Wilt thou go with this man?'" "I will go!" was the emphatic reply; and the doctor started for glory, and is yet on his road, sure of the end through grace.

Reader, have you started yet? If not, just start at once.

"We know there's a bright and a glorious home,

Away in the heavens high,

Where all the redeem'd shall with Jesus dwell

But will you be there, and I?

In robes of white, o'er the streets of gold,

Beneath a cloudless sky,

They walk in the light of their Father's smile

But will you be there, and I?

From every kingdom of earth they come

To join the triumphal cry,

Singing, 'Worthy the Lamb that once was slain;'

But will you be there, and I?

If you take the loving Saviour now,

Who for sinners once did die,

When He gathers His own in that bright home,

Then you'll be there, and I.

If we are shelter'd by the cross,

And through the blood brought nigh,

Our utmost gain we'll count but loss,

Since you'll be there, and I."

Noah's Carpenters.

You don't look at all like a patient, Miss Emmie," I said, as a fresh, rosy-cheeked girl of seventeen, the very picture of health — the daughter of Christian parents — came one day into my consulting-room.

"No, Doctor. I'm not come for advice, but mamma said that she thought you would help me with a little subscription;" and at the same time she produced a collecting-book, entitled, "Indian Vernacular Society."

"What is the object of this society?"

"Oh, its object is to teach the little boys and girls in India to read the Bible in their own language; and I am doing all I can to help it forward," she answered most eagerly.

"A capital idea," I replied. "I suppose, then, the real object is that the children may hear of Jesus, and be brought to believe in Him, and thus be saved, and know that they are?"

"Exactly so."

"Well, I hope the Lord will use this effort to the blessing of many of them," I replied; "but before going further, may I ask you, Miss Emmie, did you ever hear of Noah's carpenters?"

"Noah's carpenters! No; who were they?" she replied, rather uneasily.

"They were people who may have helped to build the ark, by which others were saved, and yet never got in themselves."

"I never thought of them before."

"Very likely. But do you not think you are somewhat like them? Here you come trying to help other people to be saved, and yet, so far as I have ever heard, you are not saved yourself. Tell me, do you think you have ever yet come to Jesus yourself, and had your sins washed away? To put it plainly, are you saved?"

This query was followed by a lengthened silence; her face flushed crimson, her eyes filled, and then, with a burst of tears, she replied:

"No, I know I am not saved. I see, I have been like Noah's carpenters."

The bow drawn at a venture had truly entered the joints of the harness, and she was from that moment a spirit-wounded, and convicted sinner. A long and interesting conversation followed, which I need not relate. We looked at the Word of God, and she found out to her utter dismay and distress, that all her own righteousnesses were but as filthy rags in the sight of God, and that she was an utterly lost soul, needing cleansing and pardon. In this awakened state, after prayer with her, she left me.

Some weeks rolled by, and I was wondering what had been going on in my young friend's soul, when she again came at my consulting hour. Her pale anxious face betrayed what her words soon confirmed, viz., that since we parted she had passed through days and nights of deep soul-anguish.

"Mamma said she thought I might come and see you again, for I am so miserable and wretched I don't know what to do;" and, indeed, she looked all she said.

"I am most glad to see you, Miss Emmie. I suppose today you want something for yourself, not for others? "

"Yes. I am most anxious to be saved, if I only knew how to come to Jesus; but I am so wicked, and my heart so hard, and I feel so dead."

"You must just come to Him as you are — in all your sins — for He has said, 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' just believe Him simply. Take Him at His word."

"I do believe on Him, but I don't get any good from it. I don't feel any different."

"You must not look at your feelings; you must just hear what He says, and give heed to His word. Now, look at this verse," and I turned to John 5: 24. "Mark what Jesus says, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.' Now, tell me, who is speaking here?"

"Jesus."

"And to whom is He speaking?"

"To me."

"Well, do you hear His word?"

"Yes."

"And do you believe Him that sent Him? Do you believe that God sent Him to save you, to die for you, and to wash away your sins?

"Yes, I truly believe He did."

"Now, then, see, you have complied with the two conditions given, you have heard and believed; listen to the three blessed consequences that the Lord says accrue to the one that hears and believes. Such an one 'hath everlasting life,' that is a present possession. Inasmuch as you hear and believe, what does Jesus say you now possess?"

"He says I have 'everlasting life.'"

"Good. Stick to that. But there is more in the verse. He says he that heareth and believeth 'shall not come into condemnation.' That, you observe, provides for the future. There can be no condemnation for the one who believes in Jesus, because He Himself, on the cross, bore that condemnation. Now, since you have heard and believed, what does He say as to your future?"

"He says 'shall not come into condemnation.'"

"If He says you shall not, do you think you ever can?"

"No; of course not. He would not tell me what is not true. He cannot lie."

"Exactly so. Thus you see He meets the present and the future in this verse. Nor is that all. We all lay in death; we were each one 'dead in trespasses and sins,' and out of that state we pass the moment we hear His voice, for He quickens us by His word; and so He adds here that the one who hears and believes 'is passed from death unto life.' Nothing could be simpler or more blessed."

Yes, I see it now. I have heard and believed, and, therefore, I have 'passed from death unto life.' Oh, how simple it all seems now!" and the pent-up feelings again got relief in a shower of tears, not now tears of conviction and distress, but those joyous, gladsome tears that will flow down the cheeks of a redeemed, pardoned, blood-washed sinner, when God's grace is tasted and enjoyed. I prayed with her, and thanked God for His grace in saving her; and she left full of peace and joy in believing.

Many years have elapsed since my young friend found Jesus, but I rejoice to know she holds on her way, a bright, happy witness of the Lord's grace, and is an earnest labourer for Christ, and a true soul-seeker in her own quiet sphere.

Reader, where about are you? Are you a Noah's carpenter or a real genuine Christian? Let not this hour pass away and leave you as it found you.

Did it find you unsaved? As you value your soul, let it not pass away and be for ever a witness against you and your unbelief Be persuaded to come to Jesus now. Then shall your future be bright and joyous, for you shall be saved, sanctified, and satisfied.

"WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?"

NOTHING, either great or small;

Nothing, sinner, no

Jesus did it, did it all,

Long, long ago.

When He from His lofty throne

Stooped to do and die,

Everything was fully done,

Hearken to His cry

"IT IS FINISHED!" Yes indeed,

Finished every jot.

Sinner, this is all you need

Tell me, is it not?

Weary, working, burdened one,

Wherefore toil you so?

Cease your doing; all was done

Long, long ago.

Till to JESUS' WORK you cling

By a simple faith;

"Doing" is a deadly thing

"Doing" ends in death.

Cast your deadly "doing" down —

Down at Jesus' feet;

Stand "IN HIM," in Him alone,

Gloriously "COMPLETE!"

Divine Openings.

"Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove, upon him; and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." — Luke 3: 21, 22.

HEAVEN OPENED ON JESUS.

This scripture presents to us a very wonderful scene, — a Man on the earth on whom heaven is opened. Supposing the heavens were opened again now, and you became conscious that the eye of God rested on you, that He was close to you, how would you feel, my reader? Do you think God could speak of you, as of this blessed One here, as "well pleased" with your ways? God's delight in Jesus was attested by the gift of the Holy Ghost. He was the seal of the Father's delight in the perfect humanity and spotless ways of that lowly, praying Man. The Holy Ghost came on the Lord without blood, without redemption. The believer gets the Holy Ghost now as the direct result of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ; it is the seal of certain redemption, as having been cleansed by His precious blood.

There had never been anything up to this moment, in the history of man, to equal this scene. The birth of Jesus was wonderful, and a messenger from heaven might and did announce His birth; but now the heaven is opened as He emerged from the water, and the voice of God, the Father, is heard saying, "This is my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." He was the only sinless, holy, perfect, blessed man in this scene of whom God could say, "In thee I am well pleased." Oh! the Christian's heart is refreshed by the sight, so unique, but so perfectly comely and fitting. There is no "hear him" at this point, as in the transfiguration on the Mount. Why? Because His moral worth and blessed words ought to have gained Him every ear, and it is taken for granted that He would be listened to, Further on in the Gospel, the Father's voice is again heard saying, "This is my beloved Son," but adding emphatically, "hear him" (Luke 9: 35).

Jesus was about thirty years of age. Time — the true test of all — had been given to show what He was. Here was One of whom the world was utterly ignorant. God's Son was in their midst, and they knew Him not. Here it is no question of a man coming, and testifying to Him, as John the Baptist had already done, but the Father of that Son speaks, saying, "This is my beloved Son."

Reader, what think you of Him? Can you answer and say, "This is my beloved Saviour." It is a sad thing if you cannot.

Having seen thus heaven opened on the Son of God here on earth, I will now point out to you a few other things in the Word of God that are opened; and I trust, as the result, that your heart may be opened, for if your heart be not opened to receive Christ, hell will yet open its mouth to receive you.

AN OPENED BOOK.

In Luke 4 Jesus is seen, in the power of the Holy Ghost, led into the wilderness, there utterly vanquishing Satan, morally, by dependence and obedience. Thereafter "he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom, was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath-day, and stood up for to read" (ver. 17). He begins at home, where He is known. "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias: and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book."

Now the passage, from which this is a quotation, goes on thus: — "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God" (Isa. 61: 2). But look at the grace of Christ; the moment he gets to that comma — and for the unsaved sinner there is really nothing but a comma between him and hell — He closes the book. If the Lord were to now open the book, it would be all over with you, unsaved reader, for "the day of vengeance" come, "the acceptable year of the Lord" has ended. Now is the "acceptable year of the Lord," — the day of grace, of mercy, of pardon, and salvation; when the Lord again opens the book, it will be "the day of vengeance," and then, where will you be?

When Jesus came to this comma, why does He not read on? Because He says, as it were, the day of judgment is deferred, put back, while grace utters her lovely messages. How long is the acceptable time called? A year! But it is "the day of vengeance." judgment will come in a moment, when you are not thinking of it. judgment is short and swift, — a day suffices for it. It is a year of grace, and will you, therefore, trifle with it? I beseech you not to.

Does a "broken-hearted" one read this? God sent His Son to heal your broken heart. Are you a "Poor" sinner? God sent His Son to enrich you with all the blessings of the Gospel. Have you been a captive to sin and Satan? Jesus came "to preach deliverance to the captives." Oh! it is worth while to have one's heart broken to know what it is to have Him bind it up. Would Mary and her sister have been without those four days at Bethany? "Oh, no," they would say, "our very sorrow, and misery, and necessity, gave an opportunity for showing what He was. We saw the tear in His eye, we heard the words of comfort from His blessed lips, we saw the work of power of His hand; no, those days we would not have been without."

Christ came, He says, "to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind." Christ opens everything. Are you blind? He opens your eyes. Are you in prison? He opens the door and sets you free. Are you in the grave? He unlocks its hold, and lets you out. What could man do for Lazarus? Lay him in the tomb. What could Jesus do for him? Call him out of the tomb, and then say, "Loose him, and let him go." It is life and liberty. This is the gospel. Do you know it? Have you been healed, delivered, set free? This is the day in which Christ can bless you, in which the Lord can receive you, — it is "the acceptable year of the Lord," and it still goes on.

I love to think it was the Lord Himself first came to preach these glad tidings. The listeners were interested for a moment, and "wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth" (ver. 22). But presently, when He began to touch their consciences, it was another thing. God must reach the conscience, for while you learn that He is good, you must also learn that you are utterly bad; while you learn that "God is love," you must also learn that your heart is full of hatred against Him. If you learn the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, you must also learn that He is the truth too. Thus, though the people wondered at His grace, they could not bear the truth, so they "rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong" (ver. 29). Awful exposure of their heart's hatred! What does He do? "He, passing through the midst of them, went his way" (ver. 30). What was His way? It was away of divine mercy and goodness to man in every conceivable condition. Did He meet hungry men — He fed them; blind men — He gave them sight; leprous men — He cleansed them; deaf men — He opened their ears; dead men — He raised them. Whatever the need was, He met it. This was His way. He was the Healer, the Helper, the Blesser, this gracious Son of God.

At length men got tired of being ministered to by Christ, when, along with His grace, the truth as to man and his real state came out, and they made up their minds that they would not bear His presence any longer. They wanted, and plotted, to get rid of Him. This is what men did with this blessed One. They cried, "Crucify him, crucify him." Tired of His presence, they put Him on the cross. Perfect love and goodness personified was in their midst, and they could only say, "Away with him!" When He was presented to them as their king, they cried, "We have no king but Caesar," mocked Him with a crown of thorns and purple raiment, and then having stripped, and nailed Him to a tree, they gambled for His garments beneath His eyes! Who put Him on the cross? Men; men with hearts like yours and mine. Yes, and our sins nailed Him there. Of this expression of perfect goodness, concerning whom God said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," man said, "He is guilty of death," and they put Him on the cross.

Look at the awfulness of the hardness of the heart of man. Dying, and — as they thought Jesus was — dying of thirst, when one more tender than others would have given Him something to drink, the rest said, "Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him." Seeing Him suffer, they say, "Let Him suffer; give Him nothing to assuage His burning thirst." And He died! And does God at once take vengeance for the murder of His Son? No; God takes that moment, as it were, to say, "I will put away everything that could come between you and Me." He rends the veil of the temple from the top to the bottom. That which stood between God and man, is taken away by God. That death of shame and agony the Saviour suffered, at the hand of man, was the actual means of putting away the very sin of those who crucified Him.

OPENED GRAVES.

A work was at that moment wrought by Jesus that opened the grave itself. Nature was, as it were, more tender than the hearts of men. "The earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose" (Matt. 27: 51, 52). What took man into death? Sin. What took man out of death? Redemption. The graves were opened the moment the Saviour died. Before even Christ's own grave was tenanted, God opened the graves of the saints. Christ has robbed death of its sting, the grave of its victory. By dying, He has annulled death? How do I see that first? By an opened grave. The whole question of sin has been settled by the cross of Christ; and the opened grave and resurrection of the dead, are God's testimony to His estimate of the value of the work of Christ, and now the believer is associated with a risen Christ.

OPENED UNDERSTANDINGS.

The Lord rises from the dead, the work of redemption accomplished. The proof of redemption is in the opened graves, - opened graves the moment He died, and empty graves the moment He is risen. The day the Lord rose from the dead, He took His place amongst His own loved ones, said, "Peace unto you," and "then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the scriptures" (Luke 24: 45).

THE HEAVENS OPENED TO US.

But the work of Christ opens other things besides the grave, for, having ascended into heaven, and sent down the Holy Ghost, that blessed Spirit of truth indwells the believer; and we read of Stephen, that "he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly 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: 55, 56). Heaven was opened then to a saint to look up and see Jesus at the right hand of God — to see a Man in the glory of God. A Man has gone in there to represent the believer in the glory of God, the Man who took his place, and bore his sins on the cross.

AN OPENED HEART.

These blessed tidings, about a risen and glorified Christ, the Holy Ghost loves to spread; and Paul, led of the Spirit, in Acts 16, finds himself called to Europe to proclaim them; and at Philippi, by the river side, "a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul" (ver. 14).

Has the Lord ever opened your heart, my dear reader?

This woman heard and believed, and then took her stand out and out with the Lord's servants; for "when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us" (ver. 15). This woman opened her heart to the Lord, and opened her house to His servants. Her heart was the Lord's, and her house was His too.

Christ opened everything; opened heaven, opened the book, opened eyes, opened graves, opened understandings to understand the Scriptures, opened hearts and houses, — and can you have a closed heart still? Oh! listen to this, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3: 20). Now you have the opportunity of opening. It has been the Lord opening hitherto. Is your heart still shut? Look then at Rev. 4, "Behold, a door was opened in heaven." The Lord has there come, and called up His own saints; and so what John sees open, the foolish virgins of Matt. 25 will find shut.

If you refuse to open your heart to the Lord, there is yet another scene that concerns you. In Rev. 19: 11, heaven is opened again, and Christ is seen coming out to "judge and make war;" and then, in Rev. 20, certain "books were opened." The book of the history of your life down here is opened by the hand of Jesus, and what does He read of you? Born in sin, lived in sin, died in sin; born in sin, lived an unbeliever, died an unbeliever. And lest there should be any doubt upon this point, God turns to His own book — the book of life; He looks down His register for your name, to see if your name is recorded there. Alas! it is not there. Oh, what a fearful thing for you! Will you not turn to Jesus today? Will you still shut your eyes to everything that He has opened? If so, you shall yet see two things, — you shall see the Lord when He opens the heavens in glory, and the books in judgment, and you shall see what may well fill you with dismay, for you will behold, and descend into

AN OPENED HELL,

when the prophet's woe is fulfilled on the careless pleasure-loving worldling, according as it is written, "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my, people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it" (Isa.5: 11-14).

"A Leap in the Dark."

"Then to you death will be a leap in the dark?"

"Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be."

The one who made this terrible confession was a shoemaker of middle age, slowly nearing the grave under the fell power of consumption. Worse than this, he was an infidel, — a determined, avowed sceptic. I had been asked to visit him in his attic quarters by an old friend, who was himself a shoemaker, but, through grace, a Christian, and naturally most anxious about his unbelieving acquaintance. His friend obtained his permission for me to call by saying that, as a physician, perhaps I could give him some prescription which would relieve his sufferings; and when he begged me go, told me briefly of the sadly darkened state of the shoemaker's mind, urging me to put Christ before him if I could.

Having carefully examined him, and thus got his confidence by the interest which I displayed in his case, he asked me, at length, if I thought his condition amenable to cure. To this I replied that I was sorry to have to tell him I did not think he could recover.

"Then, how long do you think I have got to live, doctor?" he said.

"A few months, perhaps a year," I replied.

He made no reply, and the stolid look of indifference on his gloomy face was in no way changed by my remark. As he said no more, I continued, —

"And are you ready to die, Mr F-?"

"Of course I am, as ready as you, or any one else."

"And what has made you ready? Are your sins forgiven, and all washed away in the precious blood of Christ?"

"Oh, that's all stuff. I don't believe in any of that nonsense. I'm a freethinker."

"So I regret to perceive; but your being a freethinker will not fit you for God's presence?"

"I tell you I don't believe in a God at all, so I shan't have to meet Him!"

"Your not believing in Him will not help you to evade the solemn certainty of having to meet Him. The Scripture says, 'So, then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God.'"

"But I don't believe in the Bible. It's only fit for old women who can't reason. No reasonable man believes it in these days."

"Well, I am not an old woman, but, I trust, a reasonable man, and yet I am free to confess that I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I believe it heartily from cover to cover."

"And what good has it done you?"

"Untold good, thank God. It has given me the knowledge of Himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know from its blessed pages that my sins are all forgiven, that I have eternal life, and, though I am sure of nothing for a moment in this life, I am quite clear and happy as to the future were I to die, or the Lord to come."

"Oh, that's all a delusion. Nobody knows anything about the future. How can they? No one has come back from the dead to tell us what comes after death."

"That is a great mistake. Why, the One who died for me is the very One who has come back from the dead, to assure me as to my future blessedness, as the fruit and consequence of His death for Me."

"I don't believe a word of it. No one can know what will be after death."

"Then to you death will be a leap in the dark?"

"Well, yes, just so; I suppose it will be," was his rather hesitating reply.

"Ah, my friend!" I exclaimed, "I am far better off than you, through God's infinite grace. If I should die, death would be a leap in the light."

"How do you make that out?"

"Because I have got the light now. Christ is my Light. He said, 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life' (John 8: 12). And He said also, 'Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness' (John 12: 35, 36, 46). Both you and I are, alike, sinners before God, but the difference between us is this: — You do not believe in the Lord Jesus, are walking in darkness, and know not whither you are going, viz., to judgment, and the lake of fire; I do believe in Him, have got out of darkness by letting in the light, and know clearly where I am going, viz., 'to be with Christ, which is far better.' Don't you think now that I have the best of it? All I can say is, that a man who takes a leap in the dark, when he may take a leap in the light must be a downright fool. What say you to that?"

He paused a moment or two, and then replied, "Well, sir, I never looked at it quite in that way before. I won't say there's not some reason in your argument."

With this our interview closed. I left him with my heart lifted to God that His Word might do its own work in his heart and conscience. I never saw him again. Upwards of twelve years have rolled away. Last June his friend, who had asked me to visit him, called to see me, and said, "Do you recollect, many years ago, visiting an infidel shoemaker in L- Street?

"Perfectly; and what took place between us too. What became of him?"

"He died in the Royal Infirmary just a year after you saw him."

"Died an infidel?"

"Oh no, thank God, he died a happy Christian, confessing his faith in the Lord, and giving a bright testimony. He dated the beginning of the change in his heart from that morning you saw him. Something you said to him about 'a leap in the dark' stuck to him, and he was never happy till he found the Lord."

"The Lord be praised," was my rejoinder, as I heard, with deep joy, of the Lord's grace to one who seemed so fortified in unbelief. It is, however, but another illustration of His goodness, and of the truth of His Word. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper whereto I sent it" (Isa. 55: 8-11).

And now, my dear reader, let me, in penning a few concluding lines, ask you, Are you still in "darkness," or have you received Christ as your "light"? When you pass into eternity, will it be for you "a leap in the dark," or "a leap in the light"?

I beseech you, most affectionately, not to put these queries from you. Answer them honestly before God. If you cannot reply, "To me death would be a leap in the light," turn to Jesus now. Trust Him, as you read these lines, and your eternal salvation is sure. "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness," may well win the confidence of your heart towards the blessed One who speaks, and who —

"Suffered in the shadow

That we might see the light."

Yes, He tasted death that we might live; endured the darkness, that we might enjoy the light; and sustained the judgment of God, that we might be freely justified. "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Again, "But now once, in the end of the world, hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation" (1 Peter 3: 18; Heb. 9: 26-28).

Trust Him then, simply, my reader; and then when called hence, whether by falling asleep in Jesus, or, better, His coming in the air for His own (1 Thess. 4: 13-18), to you and to me, through infinite grace, it will be  A LEAP IN THE LIGHT.

The Rope from Above.

Some years since I was passing early one morning down one of the thoroughfares of Edinburgh, when I noticed numbers of people hastening rapidly in the direction in which I was going. The cause of the unusual stir I had no need to inquire, for just then the road made a bend, and full in view was a large crowd gathered before a house on fire. Sheets of flame leapt out of the windows, and dense volumes of smoke were rolling forth from the first floor.

Technically speaking, the burning house, itself the centre of a row, was "a first flat" and, fortunately or not as the case may have been, the tenants were out at the time. For the sake of my readers who are not acquainted with the "flat" system of building houses, I may say that the house in question, and two above it, entered from the street by a stair common to them all, each house having its own door opening into the stair at various levels. This being so, ingress to or egress from flats No. 2 and 3 can only be had by passing the door of No. 1, which really answers to the drawing-room floor of an ordinary house, the ground floor being usually, as in this case, a shop.

Drawing near the scene, I saw at a glance what was the state of matters. Neither fire-engine, fire-escape, fireman, nor fire-ladder were as yet at hand, while at the open windows of flat No. 2 stood two females, an aged woman and her daughter. Their dishevelled state and general attire told that from their slumber they had been awakened by the cry of "Fire," Only to find the floor beneath their feet in flames, their house filled with choking smoke, and the common stair, by which they sought escape, a miniature crater through which it was hopeless to attempt to pass.

Baulked in their efforts to leave by the stairs, at the windows they now appeared in company, uttering distressing shrieks of fright, and imploring help from the populace beneath. A fearful agony was on the face of each as they cried, and looked in vain for help from below. True, the help of firemen and ladders had been sought, but they were long in coming. At such a time each moment seems an age!

It was a touching sight as, side by side, they stood, — themselves utterly helpless, — while the devouring flame below seemed only to mock their agony, and with lurid blaze ever and anon leapt madly forth and up, from the window directly beneath them, as though it would gladly devour them where they stood, or drive them back to suffocation. The breeze was fresh, and the snow-white hair of the terror-stricken mother was waving wildly in the air, a strange contrast to the black smoke and lambent flames around. Altogether it was a weird and painful sight.

Just then a cheer rang forth from the crowd, and, looking higher than the women, I saw that some kindly workmen had, by another common stair, managed to get on to the roof, carrying with them a slender rope. To fasten it round a stack of chimneys — fortunately in a direct line behind the open window — was the work of a minute or two, and then, giving the rope a coil, and a well-directed fling over the eaves of the house, right down in front of the terrified, and now surprised women (for they expected no help from above), fell their only way of escape. Loud hurrahs greeted the providers of this way of salvation, while cries of "Lay hold of the rope," "Come down by the rope," indicated plainly to the unfortunate pair what they were expected to do. A way of escape having been provided by others, they were expected and urged at once to avail themselves of it. How right, and how simple this judgment; do you not agree with it, reader?

Quick as thought, I saw the women lay hold of the rope; but now the question arose, who should go first, — in other words, who had faith to trust this slender means of safety. From where I stood I could note an altercation as to who should first avail herself of it, and some minutes I think must have elapsed, while encouraging and hastening words rose thickly from below, — "Make haste," — "Don't waste time," — "You may safely trust it," etc. etc. At length the mother gained her point, — she was stout and heavy, it might not sustain her; the daughter was thin and fragile, she might safely trust it. A mother's love, I doubt not, was under and behind all, — a love only eclipsed by a Saviour's. The daughter took the rope in both her hands and got on to the window-sill. The crowd held its breath. The rope was pulled on first, to see if it held on above. All right. The thirty-five or forty feet beneath was looked at. The rope was long enough, and it was strong enough, and yet she lingered. I saw the reason why; when just about to launch away, doubts and fears evidently rose, and by the heels of her boots she clung to the raised sill. This lasted a moment, and then, with instinctive love, the mother gave her a push, and fairly forth she swung.

Descending too rapidly her hands "fired," and, while still some distance from the ground, she let go the rope and fell. Fearing this event, some strong men had gathered underneath, and into their arms she tumbled, receiving no harm whatever. The mother, encouraged by her child's success, and learning by her fall not to be too hasty in her descent, now committed herself to the trusty rope, and hand under hand slowly coming down, was soon by her daughter's side, right thankful for the rope from above.

At the time, and since, I have often thought how this scene illustrates the state of man as a sinner, and the dealings of God with him in grace. Man has sinned, and his sin has placed him in a position of imminent danger. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3: 23). This word includes you and me, dear reader. Further, "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6: 23). And again God speaks thus, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment " (Heb. 9: 27). As to what this judgment is which overtakes the dead, we are left in no doubt whatever. Hear God's testimony, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. . . . And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20: 12, 15).

Here we are told the final doom of the dead. They have no life suited to God. "Dead in sins" delineates their time condition. "Eternal life, the gift of God," they cared not then to accept; hence their eternal condition corresponds to their time state. Solemn truth! The actions of life bring forth fruit for eternity. Read what follows: "But the fearful (i.e., cowards, — those who are afraid or ashamed to trust and confess Christ), and unbelieving (those who are avowed infidels and scoffers, though outwardly moral and well-behaved, — and is it not notable that these two classes should head the list?), and the abominable, and murderers, and whore-mongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21: 8). I know men scoff at these solemn words of God. This does not make them less real or terrible, but only manifests the folly of the human heart, which refuses to believe God's testimony as to its present guilt and godless state, and future equally godless condition for eternity, and despises the way of salvation which God in His grace has provided.

The women I have written of were in as much danger while asleep and unconscious of it, as when fully alive to their critical state. Is your case different, O unsaved reader? Not one whit.

But perhaps you bow to God's Word, and seeing your guilt and sin, tremble in view of "judgment to come." It is well with you if so, and better still if you are willing to take God's way of salvation. He it is who alone can save. He has, so to speak, let down a rope from above, long and strong enough to meet any and every sinner's case, no matter how many or heavy his sins may be. Christ is God's way of escape from the lake of fire, and if you would escape the due reward of your deeds, my friend, you must trust to Him.

"Lay hold of the rope," said the crowd, preaching a suited gospel to the women. "Lay hold of Christ," say I. "This is my beloved Son, hear him," says God the Father. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Come unto me," says Jesus. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. . . . He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him," says John the Baptist. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," say Paul and Silas. "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," says Peter, the fisherman. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," says John the Evangelist. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed," says Isaiah, the prophet. "Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him," says David, the Psalmist-king. What a cloud of witnesses to His worth! He has come down to save, — it has all come from His own side, — and is it not strange that sinners will not trust Him?

Dear reader, if you still have your heels hooked on to some window-sill of feelings or hesitancy, oh, let me give you the push just now that shall cause you simply and sweetly to trust the Lord Jesus.

Fear not that you will fall. He will hold you up, the rope will not break; and His grasp of you — when once you commit yourself to Him — will never unloose; and He will land you in glory as the fruit of His work on the cross for you.

"Look to Jesus, look and live

Mercy at His hands receive

He has died upon the tree,

And His words are, 'Look to me.'

Come to Jesus, come and live;

He has endless life to give;

He from sin will set you free;

For His words are, 'Come to me.'

Rest in Jesus, there repose,

Shelter find from all thy foes;

Let His name be all thy plea,

For His words are, 'Rest in me.'"

"Milk without Money;" or,

A Lesson We Must All Learn

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." — Isa. 55: 1.

I was on an evangelistic tour through the north of Ireland, accompanied by a beloved fellow-labourer in the gospel. Being announced to preach at the town of L-, on the 14th September, two routes to our destination lay open to us, — a long detour by rail, or a direct drive of about twenty miles on an outside jaunting-car over some verdant mountains. Taking the wise advice of our host of the previous night — a beloved brother in the Lord — we chose the latter, and being well furnished with little gospel books for the journey, we started. My friend sat one side of the car and I the other, and all along our journey we scattered our precious gospel seeds, giving them to walkers, jerking them to riders in vehicles, and now and then jumping off, as our stout nag toiled up the hills; and handing them to rustic cottagers, and sun-burned reapers in the fields of golden grain which, on all hands, waved under the balmy zephyr breezes of the loveliest day I ever saw in Erin's isle. I am thankful to say our tracts were welcomed on all hands; and one feels sure the fruit of this happy service will show up, in the day of the Lord, in the persons of some precious souls blessed through these little silent messengers.

The sun began to get very hot, and quite naturally, after two or three hours of this sort of work, we became rather thirsty. We had come on no very drinkable water, so, spying a little house where I knew there would be a cow or two, I asked our driver if he thought I could get some milk there. Receiving an affirmative answer, I ran to the door, which was open, and knocked. This brought out from the innermost apartment a sedate but pleasant- looking female, evidently, I should judge, the mistress of the primitive establishment. Looking at me, as much as to say, What do you want? but not speaking, I courteously said, "Will you be good enough to sell me some milk?"

She paused a moment, and then very firmly replied "No!" following up this decided negative with a pleasant smile, and "but I will give you some," putting as strong an emphasis on the "give" as she had placed on the "no."

So saying, she turned back to her little dairy, while I turned to my friend, who had come to my side, saying, "Now, that's the gospel, is it not? God gives, but He will not sell, salvation." We had a most delicious draught of cold sweet milk, for which we most truly gave her thanks, accompanied by some little gospel books, and a few words about God's blessed Son and His great salvation, which was as free to her, by faith, as she had made her milk to us, and then resumed our journey.

Then, and many a time since, I have pondered over this scene as a lovely illustration of God's way of dealing with souls who really want salvation. We did not know, and therefore did not count, on the bounty of the one we appealed to. And so it is with man. Not knowing God, he knows not the grace and love of His heart; and, though needy, and owning it too, fancies he must bring an equivalent to God ere he can get from Him that which he needs. If you, my reader, are of this mistaken class, may God open your eyes to see His way of salvation. His grace provides it, and not your works of any kind. There are two good reasons for this. First, God is too rich to sell salvation; and second, man is too poor to buy it. Hence you must get it as a gift, if you are to get it at all.

The quotation I have made at the head of this paper shows this truth very simply. The "thirsty" are invited. And are not you among this number? You certainly are, if you have not yet found Jesus, for "your labour," whatever its nature, "satisfieth not," our verses say. Thirst is a craving which the suited fluid alone can satisfy. Now the thirst of an anxious soul is really for God and His Christ, though very likely it could not put it in so many words; but the Lord Jesus, who knows the heart well, says, "Whosoever drinketh of this water [the well of this world] shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4: 13, 14). Precious words! But not more precious than true. Again, He says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7: 37); giving also this sweet assurance, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst; . . . and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6: 35, 37).

Now, dear anxious reader, are not you invited? Do not these glorious words of the Saviour encourage you to come to Him? They ought to, if they do not. Listen again, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." "But," you say, "how can I be sure it means me? Perhaps I am not thirsty enough, not anxious enough, for salvation." Very likely; no one ever was as anxious as he should have been, considering God's view of sin, and the awful danger of the unsaved sinner. But the point is not the measure of your anxiety, but the fact of your being "thirsty" or willing at all. If so, hear the word of the Lord: "I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. . . . Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 21: 6, 22: 17). What charming words! "I will give . . . freely." That is God's side. "Let him take . . . freely." That is your side. God gives; all you have to do is to take what He gives.

"What must I bring?" say you. Nothing! Come to Jesus as you are. "He that hath no money" is the invited one. You have no equivalent for that which God dispenses, so you are bid to come and buy "without money and without price." Why "buy"? Because it supposes a person in earnest. When a person goes into a shop to "buy" an article, his very presence there shows he really wanted it, or he would not have gone to the trouble of entering the mart. Buying implies direct dealing between two parties. This is the very thing God wants. He wishes you brought into His own presence in real desire to have salvation — the water of life — Christ. You come. What then? You find all is a gift. How simple!

What earnestness is with God, when thrice in this one verse He says "Come!" I cannot refrain from quoting it again, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: COME ye, buy and eat; yea, COME, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." How blessedly falls that heaven-born word on the ear — Come! come! COME! Who could refuse such grace? Come as you are; come in your sins; come in your guilt. Come in your distress; come in your sorrow, your want, your woe, your misery, your helplessness, your nothingness, your poverty, your hardness of heart, — yea, exactly as you are, as you read these lines. Only come, come to Jesus, and you will be received, blessed, forgiven, cleansed, and saved on the very spot.

More, you will be made the possessor of a new life, for, He adds here, "Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live." This, too, is a gift, as is all else that the soul receives from God; for it is written, "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6: 23).

Rest assured, if you come in any way but as a simple receiver, you must be rejected, as was Cain. Did you never notice that the Lord Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20: 35). This being so, who is to have the more blessed place, you or God? Let one speak who knew well this truth, "Without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better" (Heb. 7: 7). Now, then, what do you say? I will tell you what I say: "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift" (2 Cor. 9: 15).

The Comfort of the Blood.

"The blood was my first comfort, and I believe it will be my last comfort. . . . I feel as though the Lord were leading me from earth to heaven, by the steps of the 23rd Psalm, 'The Lord is my shepherd, . . . and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'" The words came slowly from the lips of the dying man — a doctor — passing away from a loving wife and children, in the prime of life, with a rest and joy in the Lord I have never seen surpassed. A few days later he passed away, with "Bless the Lord" on his lips.

Many physicians are infidels. Why, I cannot say. I would that all such could have seen this dear friend of many years patiently pass through months of weakness, always rejoicing in Christ, and then at the last bear witness to the comfort of the despised blood of Jesus.

Ah! there is no real foundation for the soul apart from the blood of Christ. That blood cleanseth from all sin, removes every stain, purges the conscience, purifies the soul, relieves the distressed and sin-burdened heart, and sets the one who trusts it perfectly free in the presence of God. Death is robbed of its sting, the grave of its victory, and "judgment to come" has no meaning for the one who rests only on that which the Holy Ghost calls "the precious blood of Christ."

What folly can exceed that which despises God's only way of salvation — Jesus's blood? No solid real comfort is found apart from Christ and His blood.

What a portion is the Christian's! He has a title without a flaw, and a prospect without a cloud.

Infidel, what comfort will you have on your deathbed?

"Go to Joseph."

Joseph is a most beautiful and complete type of the Lord Jesus in the days of His humiliation and in the days of His exaltation. The day is not come yet, when God will compel men to give Jesus His due; because God has, what Pharaoh had not, long patience, and the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation.

Joseph, you will remember, went out in the guilelessness and love of his heart to meet his brethren (Gen. 37). They plotted against him to slay him, and at length he was sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, the price of the meanest slave. And I need not remind you of Another, who came from His Father's house to see how His brethren fared, and met with precisely the same treatment, — "His own received him not," — and at length for thirty pieces of silver He was betrayed, and sold, and then cast out of this world; not into a dungeon, but into a grave.

It is true loving hands took Him down from the cross, and placed Him in a sepulchre; but wicked hands sealed Him there, and the world hoped never to see Him again; "but God raised him from the dead." The One whom men slew God raised up.

He came in all the love of His heart; but man had no love for Him. I ask you, my reader, Have you any love in your heart for Him? Does He look in and see in your heart affection for Himself? If not, do not you be the one to judge those who cast Him out in the day of His lowliness and humiliation.

As Pharaoh placed Joseph by his own side in his day, and they cried "Bow the knee" before him (Gen. 41: 40-43), so God has placed Jesus at His right hand today, and commands men everywhere to bow to Him. Every knee shall bow to Jesus; but God would have you bow your knee — and more, bow your heart — to Jesus now. Have you gone down in His presence, delighted to own His value now, delighted to call Him Lord? If not, the sooner you do, the better will it be for you.

The humiliation of Jesus gave Him a moral claim on God for exaltation, and He has exalted Him, and "given him a name which is above every name." There is no name like the name of Jesus. God has declared that all shall own Him Lord, — angels, men, and demons, — and you may be sure all includes you. The demons never owned Him Lord when He was on earth, but the day will come when God will compel them to own Him Lord. And for you, my reader, when is to be your day of owning Him Lord? now, when He is waiting on you in long-suffering grace, or in the day of His power, when you must bow? "Bow the knee" is God's word to you now.

Doubtless to many a proud Egyptian noble there was great humiliation in having to bow to this Hebrew servant; but the day of famine came, and neither their pride nor their parentage would meet, the pangs of famine. Then they cried to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's word was, "Go to Joseph." And many a soul in trouble cries to God. What is God's answer, as it were? "Go to Jesus." Have you, my reader, the sense of soul hunger? God's word is, "Go to Jesus." Do you say, I know what soul hunger is; I would like to be saved, if I knew how to go to Jesus? Look, and see, in this interesting narrative, how they came to Joseph.

He was, according to the meaning of his name ZaphnathPaaneah, "a revealer of secrets," and "the saviour of the age." And is not this what Jesus is?

Look at Him in the 4th of John, when that poor woman meets Him at the well. Does He not show Himself to her as the revealer of secrets, when He said to her, "Thou hast had five husbands"? Ah! Christ knows all about you; Christ knows every sin; and for those who believe in Him He has pardoned every one. Knowing all about us, He loved us; and loving us, He came down to save us.

When the woman found He knew all about her, does she fly? No, she stays and talks with Him, and one moment she is a convicted sinner, and the next Christ reveals Himself to her, and she leaves her waterpot and goes into the city, and says, "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?" Instead of being afraid of Him, she calls to all to come and know Him too; and they come and find He is not only the revealer of secrets, but the Saviour of the age, — the true Joseph.

Have you come to this Revealer of secrets, this Saviour of the age, yet? Does your conscience answer, No; I have not come to Him yet? Why not, my reader? Perhaps you say in your heart, I do not know how He would receive me if I came.

Let us look at how Joseph received his brethren when they came to him in their need.

"Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt" (Gen. 42: 1-3). They heard that there was corn in Egypt. They heard that there was deliverance to be had if they could only get it, and they were perishing. They heard there was salvation, and they felt their need, and felt they would like to be saved, but they could not get salvation without going to the saviour. They could not get deliverance apart from the deliverer; they could not get food in their hunger save from Joseph, — Joseph the despised one, the one they had hated, the one they had cast out and sold, but the one whom God had raised up to have every resource in his power, everything that could meet their need.

And you, my reader, do you feel you are in need of salvation? Have you heard of a deliverance which you would like to be yours? Is your soul hungry, and have you heard of "bread enough and to spare"? Have you heard of salvation that others have known, and would you know it too? Then you must come into living contact with the Saviour. It is from the Saviour only you can get salvation. Jesus is that Saviour, and he waits and longs to save you.

Joseph's brethren are in need now, and they come to Joseph; and you must do just the same — come to Jesus.

"And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land; and Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth" (ver. 6).

They come and bow themselves down to Joseph; and it is a blessed thing when you are compelled, even by your need, to bow to Jesus, for He is the only one who can meet that need.

"And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. . . . And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. . . . And he put them all together into ward three days" (vers. 7-17).

His brethren did not know Joseph, but he knew them. He spake roughly to them. They thought he was a hard man. Do you think Christ is an it austere man"? He will tell you what you are; tell you that you are a sinner full of enmity to God, that there is no good thing in you. People do not like that. They do not like to be shown what is in their hearts.

Joseph deals with his brethren as God does with the sinner, for God must get at our consciences, and must make us feel and know what we have been and are. So Joseph's dealings with his brethren arouse conscience, for they say, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us" (ver. 21).

It is a wonderful thing when the soul is brought to this point, to own itself a guilty sinner before God. God must have reality. Have you, my reader, ever seen yourself thus in the light of God's presence? Has your conscience ever been awakened to cry, I am undone; I am verily guilty?

"And Joseph turned himself about from them and wept." And did not Another greater than Joseph weep over guilty Jerusalem; and not only weep, but shed His precious blood because of the love of His heart to guilty man?

"Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack" (ver. 25). What is the lesson of the money in the sack? That if you are to get salvation, you cannot buy it. You are too poor to buy it, and God is too rich to sell it. Salvation must be God's free gift, and you must have it as a gift, or not have it at all.

Joseph's brethren come back, and tell their father all that Joseph had said; and Jacob refuses to let Benjamin go down with them, for he says, "His brother is dead, and he is left alone; if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."

But the famine increases. Their need increases; food they must have or die. Judah offers to be surety for his brother, and Jacob is constrained to let the lad go; but he says, "Do this: take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present. . . . And take double money in your hand; and the money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand; peradventure it was an oversight. Take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man: and God Almighty give you mercy before the man" (Gen. 43: 11-14).

This is man's way of getting salvation. People think they are going to be saved by propitiating God. They will work and give alms, and what not. But it will not do. No money will buy salvation, and God does not want appeasing. He is waiting to be gracious, waiting for the moment when He can display what is in His heart, which is only love.

Joseph's brethren came down again to him, and when he saw Benjamin he gave commandment that they should be brought into his house. "And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph's house." Yes, the soul wakes up to learn it is guilty, and then it fears the presence of God. But Joseph spake comfortably to them to win their hearts, and they sat at meat with him. "And the men marvelled one at another. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him; but Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him."

Then in Genesis 44 they have to confess their sins. Judah says, "God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants" (ver. 16). This is the point God would bring us to. Not only conscience making us see our state, but also there is the owning of that state. "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." So said David in Psalm 32, and so must every soul that really turns to God.

In Genesis 45 the wonderful climax is reached. Joseph reveals himself to them. "I am Joseph." The Joseph they had sold as a slave stood before them as ruler over all the land, but meeting them in all the grace of his heart. He caused every one else to go out, and the guilty were left alone in the presence of the saviour. What a lovely picture of divine grace follows: "And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt" (Gen. 45: 4).

When the work in the conscience is done, then the Lord can come near and reveal Himself. He never comes and reveals Himself till the sinner takes his true place — is angry with himself.

"Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither," he says: "for God did send me before you to preserve life." You have been guilty, Joseph says, but God had a purpose in it.

And man was guilty of nailing the Saviour to the cross; but God had His own thoughts, His own meaning in it all, and that very death, on the cross, of the Saviour, becomes the basis and groundwork, through atonement, of the great deliverance Christ accomplishes for the sinner; salvation for him is the fruit of the sufferings of the Saviour there.

But after all this display of the heart of Joseph to his brethren, and after seventeen years of caring for them, and giving them the best of everything, and rewarding them only love for their hatred, the last chapter of Genesis shows they still did not fully know Joseph.

"When Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him" (Gen. 50: 15-17).

All this is like some doubting, fearing, unhappy Christians, who tell me they believe on the Lord, and yet they have not peace. They are full of fears; they are not sure He has received them and forgiven them: they do not know His heart; and another thing, they have never had all out with Him. Have no reserves, my reader. Have it all out with Jesus, and do not you be the one to make our Joseph weep; for the heart of the Lord Jesus feels today your lack of trust in Him, after all He has done for you, all the kindness and the love He has shown to you. Wound not then His loving heart by any lack of confidence in Him.

"And Joseph said unto them, Fear not." That is just the way the Lord Jesus loves to comfort the soul. To get the confidence of the heart, He says to the trembling one, "Fear not: I am Jesus."

Joseph says again, "Fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

And that is what Jesus says; for we are not only sheltered by His blood, but saved by His life. He will nourish and care for each one all the way along. Oh, my reader, believe Him simply, and never wound His heart again by one single doubt.

SWEET was the hour, O Lord, to Thee,

At Sychar's lonely well,

When a poor outcast heard Thee there

Thy great salvation tell.

Thither she came; but, oh! her heart,

All filled with earthly care,

Dreamed not of Thee, nor thought to find

The hope of Israel there.

Lord! 'twas Thy power unseen that drew

The stray one to that place,

In solitude to learn from Thee

The secrets of Thy grace.

There Jacob's erring daughter found

Those streams unknown before,

The water-brooks of life, that make

The weary thirst no more.

And, Lord, to us, as vile as she,

Thy gracious lips have told

That mystery of love revealed

At Jacob's well of old.

In spirit, Lord, we've sat with Thee

Beside the springing well

Of life and peace, and heard Thee there

Its healing virtues tell.

Dead to the world, we dream no more

Of earthly pleasures now;

Our deep, divine, unfailing spring

Of grace and glory Thou!

No hope of rest in aught beside,

No beauty, Lord, we see;

And, like Samaria's daughter, seek,

And find our all in Thee.

"Which line are you on?"

"You don't think he'll get better, Doctor, do you? I'm sure I don't; he seems like dying tonight."

"While there is life there is hope in a fever case, so we must relax none of our efforts," was my reply.

The sick man had brought a delicate wife from New Zealand to see a noted physician. On arriving in Edinburgh, he found that death, at too early an age, had just swept the illustrious man from the land of the living, and then himself contracting typhus fever, his condition on the fifteenth day quite warranted the remark just given. The speaker was a kindly but shrewd lodging-house keeper, who had offered to the worn-out wife, and nurse of the sick man, to relieve them for a little, wait my midnight visit, and receive any directions I might give, while they got a rest.

Much interested in the welfare of his lodger, he was rather cheered by my reply, and readily took my orders. Seeing this, I added, "Whether he lives or dies is very doubtful, and all will depend on the nursing of the next twenty-four hours; but any way, I can tell you this, that Mr A- is ready to die. He is a true simple believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, has long rejoiced in the knowledge of the Lord, and of a present and eternal salvation; and if he departs, it will be to be with Christ for ever."

"Oh yes, sir, I am sure he's ready to die; he's a very good man," was the rejoinder.

"And I hope you are ready too, my friend," I said, turning to him, "for typhus fever is an ugly occupant of a house, and is no respecter of persons."

"Well, as to that I really can't say; in fact I don't think any one can know that he is ready in this life."

I did not stop at the moment to point out to him the contradiction of his two last speeches, — in one breath assuring me that he was sure the dying man was "ready," and in the next asserting that no one could know he was "ready" while here. It is worthy of notice, however, that this curious condition of matters is very common, when you begin to apply any special truth to a sinner's conscience. Perhaps, my reader, you feel there is safety (it is only fancied safety,) in generalities, and therefore avoid personalities and individualising. But let me assure you, that you must individualise yourself, and find out really where you are.

"Then, in plain language, you are not yet saved?" I went on.

"No; I could not take it on me to say that," was his reply.

"I see. But if you are not yet saved, have you found out that you are lost?"

"Lost? Me lost? No, God forbid! I shouldn't like to think I was lost."

"Well," I argued, "that is strange. You are not saved, and you will not own that you are lost."

"Certainly not. Of course I am not as good as I ought to be, — no one is, — but I am respectable and religious; that is, I go to church now and then; and though I can't say I'm saved, I shouldn't at all like to think I was lost. Because a man is not saved, it surely does not follow that he is lost."

At this moment the shrill whistle of a railway locomotive, about to move in the Waverley Station near by, disturbed the midnight silence of the air.

"What is that?" I exclaimed, hoping to shunt him to a subject which would just illustrate my point.

"That is the whistle of a railway engine."

"So I thought. By the way, can you tell me how many lines there are on a well-conducted railway?"

"Two, of course."

"And what do you call them?"

"The up line and the down."

"Exactly so. Now tell me, did you ever see a man with one leg in an up train and the other in the down?"

"No, of course not, and I never expect to. If a man is on the rails at all, he is either in the up, or in the down train; he can't be half in one and half in the other."

"I quite agree with you; and now I would just ask, Which line are you on? You are either an unbeliever or a believer. If still an unbeliever, you are in your sins, and steadily going on your way towards death, judgment, and the lake of fire, — the awful terminus of the down line. If, on the other hand, you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are certainly on the up line, and soon will find yourself in the glory to which the Saviour's blood brings every redeemed sinner at last. Now, be honest with yourself, which line are you on?"

The appeal laid hold of his conscience, and after a moment's silence, during which I saw he was convicted, he replied, "I admit your illustration is very apt; I never thought of it in that way before, but I must see to the matter in future."

Whether the Spirit of God used this to his awakening and conversion, I cannot say, as I did not meet him again, but my patient through mercy recovered.

And now, my reader, let me ask you, "Which line are you on?" It is the merest evasion of the truth, and the veriest folly, to say you cannot tell. If your lips will not utter the truth, let God's Word witness against you.

Did not David say, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me?" (Ps. 51: 5.) Are you other, or better, than the sweet Psalmist of Israel? But, again, he testifies, "God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Ps. 53: 2, 3). He convicts himself of sin in the first passage, you and me in the second. How solemn!

Hear another witness. What says Isaiah? "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isa. 64: 6). This testimony is tremendously solemn as to the natural state of every one.

Again, hear the words of our Lord Christ, and He spoke to a most respectable, religious, and morally excellent man, when He said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh. . . . Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3: 6, 7). What an inexorable "must" is that! It applies to the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate, the moral and the immoral, the religious professor and the careless scoffer, to prince and peasant, peer and pauper. It embraces all, and excludes none, from the necessity of the new birth; and it is manifest that all are yet on the "down line" who have not been born again by the Word and Spirit of God.

But, further, the Lord says to Nicodemus, — "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3: 17, 18). Now nothing can be plainer than this. The man who has not truly and really believed in the Son of God, who has not, in other words, been "born again," and turned to God through faith in Jesus, is "already condemned." He is not on trial, and the state of his soul an open question. The trial is over. The judge has spoken. The verdict is given. The unbeliever is "condemned already." The only thing future, is the execution of the sentence, — death; and "after this the judgment," — the lake of fire for ever, "the second death."

The testimony of Scripture then, my reader, is clear as to the line you are upon, if still an unbeliever. You are already a lost sinner, and as such you are treated and addressed by God, in the gospel. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," is the glorious news which Jesus Himself first proclaimed, and which the Holy Ghost yet carries forth. As an evangelist, it is my joy to tell you this. You are lost, but Christ came for such as you. He came "to seek and to save that which was lost." Now, I beseech you, let Him save you. If He does not save you now, He must execute judgment on you in a day not far distant. Which shall it be? Will you have salvation, or judgment, from the hands of Jesus? "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."

Friend, I urge you, with all the energy of my soul, to open your eyes, see that you are on the down line, call a halt on the spot, turn to Jesus just now, and join that blessed company of saved sinners, who, having believed simply in the Son of God, are "not condemned," and "shall not come into condemnation," but "have everlasting life," and are consequently, through grace, on the "up line."

Just listen simply to the words of the blessed Lord, and believe what He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed [from the down line to the up] from death unto life" (John 5: 24).

In view thus of the Word of God, any honest soul can tell, with the greatest certainty, its real spiritual whereabouts and direction. So I beg you, my beloved reader, just look this matter full in the face. If you are not yet Christ's, do not lose a day without turning to Him. If His, through grace, seek to serve and follow Him faithfully.

Reader, "Which line are you on?"

PASSING onward, quickly passing;

Yes, but whither, whither bound?

Is it to the many mansions,

Where eternal rest is found?

Passing onward —

Yes, but whither, whither bound?

Passing onward, quickly passing,

Nought the wheels of time can stay

Sweet the thought that some are going

To the realms of perfect day

Passing onward

Christ their Leader — Christ their way.

Passing onward, quickly passing,

Time its course will quickly run

Still we hear the fond entreaty

Of the ever gracious One"

Come and welcome,

'Tis by Me that life is won."

A Bright Sunset.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." These familiar words fell on my ear, rapidly, and repeatedly uttered, as, at noon on Monday, December 22, 1884, I drew up at a house where I was attending a lady. Another doctor's carriage, and a cab standing at the door, made me think that something was amiss, and I was left in no doubt that something had happened, as again and again "Bless the Lord, O my soul," came from the lobby within.

On the floor of that lobby, his head and snowy locks only supported by a pillow, was the speaker, the owner of the house, my aged and valued friend of many years' standing, Mr B-. I soon learned that he had gone out for a walk that morning, and had just been brought home in a cab, and a passing physician called in.

The frost being keen and the cold intense, we rapidly got the old man, for he was nearly eighty-two, into a bed close at hand, and, surrounding him with hot bottles, hoped that, with other suitable measures, he might get over the deadly chill which was apparent in every member. While thus ministered to, his lips ceased not saying, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." This continued for a little, when he interposed, "Give me air, air, oh for air!" Fanning him briskly with one hand, I rubbed his icy cold hands with the other, which brought forth, "That's good, that's good, thank the Lord, that's fine. Bless the Lord, O my soul."

Judging that he was capable of replying to my queries, I said, "Open your eyes, Mr B-; do you know me?"

"Know you? of course I do. You are my kind friend Dr W-. You've come at the right time; the Lord sent you, I am sure, and He's taught you just what to do for me. Rub away, rub away, that's fine, and doing me good. 'Bless the Lord, O my soul.' Bless Him, bless Him, 'and forget not all his benefits.'"

"Ay, that's right, we can't bless Him too heartily," I replied, "but tell me what has happened; have you had a fall?"

"No, I did not fall; I was just quietly walking over George IV. Bridge when I felt something queer at my heart, so I just slid gently to the ground, and when I came to I asked a gentleman who came to me to call a cab and bring me home, and here I am, and you're looking after me;" and "Bless the Lord, O my soul," again rang through the chamber. It was a touching and never-to-be-forgotten scene, for the joyous and praiseful spirit of the old saint was lovely to witness.

After a little while he again said, "Air, air, give me air;" and putting his hand to his heart, added, "What is this heavy weight I feel here, doctor? I feel something I never felt before, but my dear wife, just before she passed away, said she felt it. Doctor, I think I'm going to follow her. I think I'm going now, going to be with Jesus, going to see my precious Lord Jesus, who loved me and died for me. 'Bless the Lord, O my soul.' I should like to say 'good-bye' to my dear children, but if I can't, never mind. I shall meet them again in glory. I'm only going a little before. The Lord is coming soon, and then we'll meet again. 'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies.'"

His strength now began to fail, he said little more, and, as the clock struck one, he quietly passed away to be with his Lord and Saviour, whose love he had known for nearly half-a-century here, and will taste for ever on high.

The worshipful departure of this dear old saint reminds one of the patriarch, of whom it is written, "By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph: and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff" (Heb. 11: 21).

Reader, could you depart thus? I have little doubt you say, "I would like to." But let me remind you it is of no use joining company with Balaam, and saying like him, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" unless you are numbered with those whom God counts righteous now, by faith in Christ Jesus. As a man lives, so does he usually die. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked."

How different to what I narrated may be your end. Auld Peggie's was different. A Christian friend of mine called, and pressed Christ on her. She put down her pipe, and weighed the matter a little; then, with callous unmoved face resumed her smoking, as she slowly said, "Na, na; I've lived without Him seventy years, and I can live without Him the rest o' my days." Shortly after she was found dead in bed, the pipe broken on the floor, and her withered arms thrown above her head, as if there had been fearful conflict with some unseen foe.

Will you imitate Caesar Borgia? who said, "I have provided, in the course of my life, for everything except death; and now, alas, I am to die, although entirely unprepared."

A dying colonel said, "I would gladly give thirty thousand pounds to have it proved to my satisfaction that there is no such place as hell." Friend, are you going there?

A wealthy manufacturer hearing of the death of an acquaintance, said, "Is he dead? It is very different with me; for my part I am so engaged in business that I could not find time to die." Scarcely were the words uttered than he fell on the floor, a corpse. Sharp work this, my reader; are you ready? You may go next, mind.

A dying queen's last words were, "All my possessions for a moment of time." She had it not, and you may not have another granted to you. How solemn for an unsaved soul!

How terrible to die like Gibbon, saying, "All is dark and doubtful."

Better far be like the one whose sudden and unlooked-for end I have narrated. Another dear friend of mine passed away saying, "As I may not be able to express myself distinctly by-and-by, I wish now to state that I am in perfect peace, resting alone on the blood of Christ. O precious blood of God's Son, which cleanseth from all sin! I find this amply sufficient to enter the presence of God with. 'When I see the blood I will pass over.' Oh the precious, precious blood of Christ!"

Friend, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," is God's way of salvation. You have only to believe. Works cannot save. Faith in Jesus can. Trust in Him then. Trust Him now, just now, as you read this. Delay is dangerous, nay more, it is the veritable doorway to hell. Millions are there who never meant to be, but died just before they believed the truth. They, believe it now, fast enough, when it is too late to avail them. Don't join their company, I beseech you.

STEM Publishing: W. T. P. Wolston: Seekers for Light

Seekers for Light.

Fourteen Addresses to Edinburgh Students.

by W. T. P. Wolston, M.D.

Contents.

Chapter  1 A Fisherman's Discovery

Chapter  2 Truth — What is it?

Chapter  3 A Publican's Guest

Chapter  4 A Ruler's Difficulty

Chapter  5 A Thief's Confession

Chapter  6 Grace — What is it?

Chapter  7 A Chancellor of the Exchequer's Dilemma

Chapter  8 Eternal Life- How to get it

Chapter  9 A Soldier's Desire

Chapter 10 Faith — What is it?

Chapter 11 A Jailor's Enquiry

Chapter 12 A Rich Man's Perplexity

Chapter 13 A Prisoner and a King

Chapter 14 "No Man Can Serve Two Masters"

Preface.

God takes great interest in young men. Life is before them, and He would have that life devoted to Him. It was an angel who first heard the command, "Run, speak to this young man" (Zech. 2: 4), but, since then, He has often stirred His servants to specially seek them. It was an impulse of that sort which led to the delivery of the addresses in this little volume, and the Lord graciously blessed the spoken word to many a youthful heart.

The knowledge of this has led to their publication. That God may deign, by these simple unvarnished words, to win many more hearts for His dear Son, is the fervent desire, and prayer of the Author.

46 Charlotte Square,

Edinburgh, 16th December 1897.

STEM Publishing : W T Turpin : Gospel Papers

Gospel Papers

Edited by W T Turpin.

Contents

1 "The Persecutor Surprised"

2 A New Well, or will the Old Well do?

3 "The, Day of the Lord, the Night of the World"

4 "Conviction and Confidence"

5 "The Storm-cloud Behind"

6 "The Blood-sprinkled Lintel"

7 The First Word of the Risen Saviour

8 Christless Religion!

9 There is a Saviour in Glory

10 The Record of God

11 Despising and Perishing

12 "Rejected Convictions"

13 Saved Now and for Ever

14 "It Behoved Christ to Suffer and to Rise"

15 "Caught Away, or Left Behind"

16 The Wreck and the Island

17 Fragment

18 "A Feast of Fat Things"

19 Perfected for Ever

20 "Life or Judgment"

21 "Who is on Our Side — Who?"

22 The Lord Jesus in Moses, the Prophets, and all the Scriptures

23 "God was in Christ"

24 "The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ

25 "The Conscience and the Heart"

26 "The Jailer Liberated"

27 The Prodigal's Reception

28 "He Died for Me"

29 Jordan: or Death Abolished

30 A Word to Anxious Ones

31 The Good Samaritan

32 The Dumb to Speak; or, the Mouth Closed and Opened

33 A Path through Grace to Glory

34 The Old Creation and the New

35 The Syrophenician

36 A Voice from the Deep

37 "Touch this Rock;" or the Heart made Light as a Feather

38 Too Late

39 "Fast Asleep"

40 "Rest . . . Rest"

41 "The Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God"

42 "Salvation, Liberty, Food and Safety"

43 "I Shall Lie Down Happy To-night!"

44 Crucifixion and Mortification

45 Simeon; or, the Reception of Christ

46 She Fell Asleep

47 Christ Our Peace; or the Only Foundation

48 "Is it Peace?"

49 "Without Hope"

50 The Glory of the Cross

51 "No, No"

52 Sowing and Reaping

53 God Speaking from Heaven

54 "The Master of the House Risen Up, and the Door Shut"

55 The Light and the Blood

56 The Veil Rent, the Rocks Riven, the Graves Opened

57 "What hath God Wrought?"

58 The Harvest Past, the Summer Ended

59 Death, Guilt, and the Power of Satan

60 The Three Crosses

61 "Peace with God"

Poetry

62 "In His Hand"

63 Righteous in Him

64 "Complete in Him"

65 "Worthy is the Lamb that was Slain"

66 A Saviour in Glory

67 The Lord hath Triumphed Gloriously

68 "The Glory of that Light"

69 "Received"

70 "I will Trust"

71 "All Things are Ready — Come!"

72 "He is Our Peace"

73 The Touch of Faith

74 "The Closed Door"

75 "Chiefest among Ten Thousand"

76 "Jesus in Glory"

77 "Come"

78 "The Light from Heaven"

"The Persecutor Surprised"

Acts 9.

I would desire particularly to ask the question, why was it that God said to Moses, who was a good man, as we would popularly term it, "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet"? (Ex. 3: 5.) But that to a wretched rebel like Saul of Tarsus, in the hour when his malignity against Christ was at its height, God, as it were, draws nigh to him, addresses him by name, and then and there takes him up to make him a pattern of the grace that is in His own heart. There surely must be some weighty reason to account for the different way in which God acts in both these cases; — let us look a little at each. Moses, as I have said, was a man in his day remarkable for the very opposite of that which distinguished Saul of Tarsus, raised up as well as fitted of God to lead forth Jehovah's people out of Egypt; and yet when he ventured to draw nigh and look at the burning bush, he is not permitted. God Himself insists on distance between Moses and Himself; now it is not that the blessed God is in any sense indifferent to the sorrows or afflictions of enslaved Israel: what a blessed word that is, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;" and yet, to the man who is to carry out all that is expressed in such words, God says, "Draw not nigh," and Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

The very contrary, and contrast of all this, is supplied in what is commonly called the conversion of Saul. Why is it that God keeps up distance with Moses, and Himself draws nigh to a persecutor like Saul? The answer is at once simple and plain, because His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had died upon the cross, and in death had not only made atonement, but so glorified God, that what God was not free to do, in consistency with His own character, in the day of Moses, He is perfectly free to do in the day of Saul of Tarsus. In the day of Exodus 3, and up to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, man, as a child of Adam, was tested by God, and because under law, had demands made upon him by God in righteousness; in other words, God was demanding from man what man was both unable and unwilling to give. Man was still on his trial, and because so, to him, as such, God says you cannot come near me, "draw not nigh hither;" the blessed God may, and does bear with man, test him, and proves him in every way, but nearness to God is that which cannot be known, while as yet the first man is on his trial before God; but it may be said, Why could not God have granted that nearness to Himself, or Himself drawn nigh to a sinner, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ TO BE offered? The answer is as simple as it is plain; so long as the history of the first man (or man as connected with Adam) is not closed or ended, on the contrary, is allowed a place, though on trial, God must, while demanding from him, keep him at a distance, else we should have a wilful rebellious creature allowed on that ground, and brought into that relationship, which is true only of the one who is in Christ a new creation; — and beside all this, as long as the first man is a recognised existence before God, God must, in consistency with Himself, demand from man; but this very demanding from him is in itself keeping man at a distance, as he cannot answer to the claims of a holy God. When I speak of the first man, I mean man as he is by nature connected with Adam, who brought ruin upon the race; and when I speak of a recognised existence, and God making demands upon it, I mean that judgment had not been executed upon it; God looked at it as still to be tested and tried, and consequently looked for what became Him from it.

But to turn to the history of Saul of Tarsus; how different it is there! God comes to give righteousness, not to look for it, or demand it. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had been to earth, had died on the cross, and by His precious death had made propitiation, and as well as ending in God's sight the first man He supplied an answer to every righteous claim of a holy God. God can now come out and express His love for the sinner, yea for the very chief of sinners; and here it may be well to look at what made Saul of Tarsus the chief of sinners. It surely was not that he was an immoral man, or an outcast from society, as they say: were he so he would never have been selected for, and charged with, the mission on which he was running, when God stopped him; on the contrary, Philippians 3 tells us that Saul was one unequalled among his fellows for morality. "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless." What made him chief of sinners was, not immorality, but the dreadful will and purpose with which he set himself against the purpose and mind of God. Listen to his own account of it;" I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." (Acts 26: 9-11.) Who could conceive wilfulness or wickedness more desperate than this, to force from city to city the scattered saints of God, and not this only, but to compel them to blaspheme the one who was to them above every one; on whose account they are suffering at the hands of this relentless hater of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, what contrasts rise up before the soul as we think of it! With the natural thought of God and His ways, how would you predicate the course He would adopt with a wretch like Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the object of his terrible hate? Why, of course, you say, Almighty power would sweep from the earth a plague like Saul; the sword of divine vengeance and justice would be unsheathed to overtake such a one in his wild wickedness. But oh, how different from all this natural thought of God, His blessed way with poor Saul! Stop him God will, but with what? With the pit? No, but with glory! A light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shone round about him; at mid-day, when the sun is brightest, Saul is arrested by what is brighter still! What a sight! A scorner, despiser, hater of Christ in heaven, awakened, arrested, spoken to by that very blessed One Himself: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me"? That very One Himself who had been on the cross, under the judgment, because of man's sin; that very One Himself, who, in that wonderful moment, knew what it was to be forsaken of God, that such as Saul might never be forgotten of Him; now risen up from among the dead, received up into glory, causes the rays of that glory to fall upon the persecutor's path, draws nigh to him, speaks to him, comes not to hurl him into the bottomless pit, but to take him up; to give him forgiveness, righteousness, glory; to make a pattern man of him, a chosen vessel unto Himself; to bear his name before the Gentiles, kings and children of Israel. Such is the way of His grace now, even to the vilest sinner. Christ has died, and by His death righteousness has been established, the love of God which was not liberated to travel out to sinners until righteousness is established now goes out world wide. There is not only salvation for the vilest sinner, but glory; it is the joy of the heart of God to minister everything now from Himself to sinners. May there be, by the Holy Ghost, in the hearts of all who read these pages, a desire to accept and receive what the blessed God delights to bestow. W. T. T.

A New Well, or will the Old Well do?

A circumstance, which aptly illustrates the great truth of Christianity, happened not long since in a small village on the west coast of Scotland. The sewerage of the place needed improvement and cleansing; and in the progress of the work, one of the principal wells in the town, from which pure water had been supplied to families in the vicinity, became polluted by contact with the sewer. As soon as the cause of the disaster was discovered, remedial measures were set a-going, in the hope of restoring the now foul spring to its original purity. Every effort which skill and ingenuity could suggest was taken into consideration, but to no purpose. It was thought possible to clean and wash out the old well as far as it could be seen, but this was abandoned as useless. It was next suggested that if the old building of the well, stones, sand, &c., were removed, and a new well built instead thereof, the desired object would be attained. Many conflicting opinions prevailed as to the possibility of success, should this plan be put into execution — some for, others against; at last, it was resolved to call in a man whose occupation had been that of a constructor of wells, and whose experience justified the expectation that his counsel would lead to a proper decision. Nor did he disappoint this hope; for when called and questioned, his reply was unequivocally, "It is not possible to procure pure and sweet water from a spring polluted as this by sewerage, either by cleansing it out, as far as you can see, or by removing the old building and constructing a new one. You must build a new well, with new stones, new sand, and in an entirely new place." I happened to walk into the shop were these facts were being told, and when I heard them, it struck me, what a picture of Christianity that is! and it also struck me how little known or understood Christianity is! And now, do you not see, dear reader, how true all this is, that man, in his natural state, is the polluted well — defiled in his spring, his nature corrupt? What is to be done? God's heart is overflowing in its love for guilty man, while man's heart is overflowing with hatred to, or indifference toward the blessed God. What is to be done? God must set that filthy well — man — aside, there is nought else for it. The spring is polluted at its source, man is irreparable. So God sends His own blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world, the scene of the dishonour done to Himself, as well as the witness of man's ruin and degradation, and here where man had utterly failed to glorify God, He, that blessed One, that beautiful and perfect Man, perfectly glorified God, "I have glorified Thee on the earth," and thus exhibited what a dependent and subject man ought to be: and not only this, but as He walked this world, He manifested God His Father, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." What a wonderful thought, "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," is the One who comes into this poor world which was at distance from God, to tell out the secrets of that bosom towards poor man on it; and, inasmuch as judgment is resting on man by reason of sin, and that he is, moreover, walking the world in a forfeited life, God's Son bears the judgment, gives up His own life for man's that was forfeited, and at the same time presents His own personal excellency to God. Man's history is now closed, the old well is declared, as to its standing and state, to be irremediable; but this is not all, for He who in grace thus gave Himself, "is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," and becomes now in Himself, thus risen, the new standing for the new well. Therefore is it written, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all things are of God."

Dear reader, what wonderful words these last five are, "all things are of God:" the position is of God, the building on it of God, the builder, God. Even as in the case of the well, the old position, mortar, stones, and sand were all set aside as good for nothing, so in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the believer once a sinner, as a child of Adam, was entirely judged and put away out of God's sight; not only his sins but that which did them, his nature; and in the Lord Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the new era or second volume of our history is opened, and on the title page of this volume is inscribed — "All things are of God."

May the Lord the Spirit open hearts to see the great salvation of God, how He has settled the question of the old well with its corrupt spring, and what a magnificent well He has opened in His Son risen from the dead, the second Man, the last Adam, the ender of the old creation, and Head of the new. W. T. T.

"The, Day of the Lord, the Night of the World"

1 Thessalonians 5: 2-5.

Nothing is more solemn than the description given us in the above scripture, of that character of things which we find now in the world around us, and which shall usher in the "Day of the Lord," "when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." Now peace and safety is that which is secured for all who accept it from Christ; fruit of His cross; but the world who have rejected Christ and refused His peace, will accept the devil's peace, and it will be the subject of universal congratulation in the hour of speedy judgment. When the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again, righteousness was established, and peace made, therefore it is said that He made peace by the blood of His cross; and His first word when He stood in the midst of His disciples after His resurrection, was "Peace be unto you." He had in death vanquished every enemy, He only proclaimed it when He said, "Peace be unto you," beside all this, He Himself alive from the dead was before them their peace: Now this is what the world will not have at any cost, the peace and safety desired by it and looked for by it, is prosperity, ease, luxury, indifference, in a word it is a peace procured by getting rid of all thought of God. If the world could blot out God, it would; the safety it wants is immunity from all that would interfere with its downward course. What a solemn thought that it shall eat of the fruit of its own ways, it shall have peace and safety, then sudden destruction! When the Lord Jesus Christ came at first it was to bear judgment, and so doing to put away sin. When He comes again in the day of the Lord, it will be to execute judgment upon them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me press upon my reader the striking likeness between the world now, and the world of Noah's time. If we turn to Luke 17: 26, 27, we are told that all went on in Noah's day in its customary rotation, eating, drinking, and marrying until the day Noah entered the ark, and then was the night of the antediluvian age; solemn fact, no precursor was there of a coming flood, save the testimony and act of Noah, which was refused and disbelieved. The morning of the day that Noah entered the ark the sun rose, as it was ever wont to do. No cloud, surcharged with rain, cast its shadow upon the scene, and yet sudden destruction overtook the world of that day. We are told in the epistle to the Hebrews, that it was of things not seen as yet, that Noah's faith was warned about; he believed God, contrary to any evidence of senses, and resisted the reasoning of men around him. We are told in the book of Genesis that it was a mist which went up from the earth that watered it, and that God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. (Chap. 2: 5, 6.) What they had not seen they would not believe, and this is the character of the world and the people on it to-day. The testimony of God is not credited — what is not seen is not believed. Of the world's rejecting the Holy Ghost, it is said, "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not." (John 14: 17.) God has given testimony abundant in His word that His Son, the Lord Jesus, will come and execute judgment upon the despisers of His grace and rejecters of His love. Prior to this, that same blessed One will come to the air for His people; for all who have believed in Himself He will come and receive them to Himself, even as God, before the flood, took up Enoch to Himself. There are two things, my reader, either of which might happen at any moment. One is death, which would seal the doom of all who are not in Christ; the other is the Lord's coming for His people, which would equally seal the doom of all who, in this professing christian land, have, nevertheless, not believed in Christ, and who would be left behind for that terrible night, which will overtake the world, and surprise man on it as a thief. What a solemn thought, that at any moment eternal destinies might be fixed. Have you given it a thought? Let not, I beseech you, flattering words and fair speeches beguile you. Be assured of it, for God has said it, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." Sudden destruction will fall upon all who know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Children of the night and of darkness, hearken to the voice of God, turn not a deaf ear; every pulsation of your heart, every beat of the pendulum of the clock of time brings you nearer to the moment of judgment.

The gospel is the good news of God about His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, for a sinner such as you, that for you, even for such as you, God has forgiveness, peace, glory, a place with Christ where Christ is now. It is His joy to give, to receive; His delight to make you a child of day, and of light. Christ has died, has risen again, is now in glory, the author of eternal salvation to every poor soul that looks to Him. W. T. T.

"The Light from Heaven"

Straight down from the throne of glory

Shone the light that enter'd Saul;

His wild wickedness for ever

Ended in that wondrous fall.

What subdued him? was it judgment

In his worst and maddest hour?

Did earth open, as on Korah,

And the rebel worm devour?

God arrests him, but 'tis blessing,

Not destruction that is given;

Love comes to the chief of sinners,

Glory raises him to heaven.

Yes, that Jesus, Saul so hated,

Had redeem'd that very Saul;

'Twas his Saviour he was smiting,

In "that light" he saw it all.

Oh! he found that glory brighter

Than the Eastern noon-day blaze,

For it gave him blessed vision

Upon Jesu's face to gaze.

Yes, a Saviour in the glory

Did the sinner see that day,

Found a sun to light him ever,

Found "the new and living way."

Sinner, wilt thou come and read it,

Read "the glory of that light"?

'Tis the heart of God out-flowing,

Coming to thee in thy night.

Learning here how Calv'ry ended,

All that hinder'd love before,

That which shone on Saul can reach thee,

Light thy path for evermore.  —  O. R.

"Conviction and Confidence "

Leviticus 13: 38-46; 14: 1-7.

Nothing can be more wonderful than that we should be able to say to a poor sinner here on earth, in the midst of his leprosy and misery, "Well there is one on the throne of God who loves you," "there is one up there in glory whose heart is full of pity for you." Just conceive for a moment what such tidings would be to a poor, friendless, hopeless, homeless rebel, whose sins and sorrows had reached to such a height that nothing but despair was left, for him to hear that any one thinks of him, or cares for him, is good news so wonderful that he almost fears it too good to be true. A Saviour in glory who died for rebels on earth is a contrast indeed, and yet such is the testimony of God at this moment — a testimony to be repeated wherever there is a sinner, a rebel, a lost one, on the face of the whole world. In calling attention to the scriptures above quoted, my object is to point out as simply as I can the place the word of God has in convicting and assuring the soul — to press upon the conscience the all-important fact that the discovery of our misery, or of the one who has heart and power to meet us in it, are in no way consequent upon our feeling or sense, but upon the unchanging word of the living God. I have heard the question asked, "Do you feel you are a sinner?" Yet I could not say it is the first question. It would be felt, no doubt, if the testimony of God about man as a child of Adam were believed. Let my reader be assured that the testimony of God is as clear and distinct as can be. By nature man is a leper before God, without Christ, without hope, without God in the world; an unclean rebel, with a mind and will set against God. Hear His word "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues have they used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their way, and the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom. 3: 10-18.)

Nothing could be more decisive or convicting. It is the great antitype of the leper, who is convicted and shut out of the camp of Israel by the word of the priest. It was not a question of his feeling his leprosy; the question was what the priest had said, or his word, who knew the fatal plague spot. The leper in Israel, with rent clothes, his head bare, a covering upon his upper lip, crying, Unclean, unclean, goes outside the camp, that is, takes the position the priest of Israel by his word placed him in. What a solemn picture of the condition of man as a child of Adam now! God has shut every man's mouth, has pronounced man unclean, unfit for His presence; but along with this (of which no adequate picture could be given), that same blessed God assures man that there are in Himself springs of compassion and mercy, of which He has the heart to make guilty rebels, loathsome lepers, the object. This, God has announced to sinners, has demonstrated in His Son the Lord Jesus, and bestows now wherever there is the faith that casts itself on Him. How wonderful to know that I have a Saviour in glory! A Saviour who came to earth and died for me, rose again from the dead, having in death closed my history as a leper before God; and because He righteously met all the claims of the throne of God, took His seat on high in glory, from whence He lets His voice be heard and His light seen, from whence all that I need comes, and to which glory it is the purpose of His heart to bring me. It is the word of God that convicts me of my condition as seen and judged by Him in righteousness, and it is the same word that bids me take comfort, because He who shuts my mouth, if I may so say, opens His, to tell me of the grace and mercy that is in Himself for me, as well as the full provision He has made in the blood-shedding of Christ, to take me out of the state in which by nature I am at a distance from Him, and to bring me unto Himself. What a message to be put in trust with to poor man in this world, declaring to him in his leprosy and ruin, a love so wonderful, that it rests satisfied with nothing short of his complete deliverance from condemnation and death, and his full satisfaction in the place where God would have him, justified from all things, accepted in the beloved, and united by the Holy Ghost to Christ in heaven. Oh! how wonderful this is, God's own joy, accomplished in and through His own Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Once again, let me press it upon my reader, all this is on the testimony of God, borne in the word of God to man's ruin and God's love; the picture of the former being the leper in Israel placed outside the camp by the word of the priest.

I turn now to look at the second scripture, and there we shall find the same in principle. The leper being cleansed is once again to be brought back; but how? "Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water; as for the living bird he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water; and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." (Vers. 4-7.)

In the above verses which describe the cleansing of the leper, we have a striking picture of the principle on which God now justifies the ungodly; namely, on the ground of the death of Christ, by which sin is put away, and righteousness established, and the resurrection of Christ, which proclaims God's satisfaction and our justification.

The bird killed in an earthen vessel, over running water, is, in picture, Christ crucified, and the living bird let loose, Christ risen and glorified, and all this the result of that which was in God's heart respecting poor sinners on earth, helpless and hopeless in their ruin. What a comfort to be able to show all this to a poor sinner as God's testimony, that the word which silences him on his side opens the door of hope on God's side. Wonderful message, yet more wonderful messenger He who came from heaven to make it all good in His death and resurrection for us.

One point more and I close: we have seen, I trust, that it is God's testimony to man's ruin, not man's feelings or thoughts about it; and that God has likewise given testimony to all that was in His heart in the gift, death, resurrection, and glory of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. There is one other point of testimony to which I would direct attention — how did the leper know he was cleansed? On the same authority as that which convicted him of leprosy. As at first he was pronounced unclean by the priest, so now being cleansed, he is "pronounced clean." As at first, on the word of the priest, he took his place outside, so now on the word of the priest, he takes his place inside; in both cases it was the word of the priest. How important, how blessed is this! Many a soul perplexes itself from want of simply taking God at His word, which is the true source and spring of all known enjoyment, as it is written, "The God of hope fill you with all joy, and peace, in believing." And on the other hand many a soul is blinded and deceived, judging its state by its own apprehension of it or its own feelings, and not the complete ruin all are in, and the wonderful provision God has in love made in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to meet us where we are. Should any such eye fall on these pages, may it be opened to see the ruin and the Saviour; a "Saviour, and a great one," who died on the cross for sinners, even the chief, who by His death has made atonement, and has risen again from the dead and gone into heaven, the author of eternal salvation to all who look to Him. W. T. T.

"The Storm-cloud Behind"

A traveller on the great Atlantic is sure to meet with objects not seen elsewhere; it was so with one crossing that ocean who was quite unaccustomed to sea life, and whose concern, or indeed alarm, was awakened by beholding an expansive mass of angry-looking cloud, gathering together, as he thought, all its forces ere it burst upon them. As he walked the deck of the vessel, watching rather nervously this strange appearance, he was relieved in no small measure by one of the sailors, to whom such sights were familiar, and who quieted all his fears by telling him that the cloud was neither over them, nor before them, but behind them. "Sir," said the sailor, "that cloud has burst behind us."

It is just so at this present time in the history of souls: many a one needs similar intelligence, to quiet the rising fears of the heart. There is a very popular and wide-spread delusion on this subject, which it is well should be exposed. It is said by some, and thought by many, that sinners, being unable to meet the righteous claims of a Holy God, may take comfort when they are told that in mercy God is not now pressing His claim (as we would say). It is not denied that God has a righteous claim, which if not answered by man, will bring judgment upon him; but what is stated and thought by many is, that God has allowed, in compassion, His full claim to stand aside, as it were, giving sinners credit for doing their best. Now, nothing could be more false, or destructive of all peace and comfort to the soul; the best it can do is to postpone the evil day, like a man deeply sunk in debt, whose creditors are kind and patient, but who yet passes many weary days and sleepless nights, because the unmet charge stares him in the face. Such, reader, is not the good news of God proclaimed to sinners in the gospel; it is neither forbearance on God's part as to His claim upon you, nor your doing your best, to be placed, as it were, to your account; but it is, oh, wondrous good news! that God has in grace supplied an answer to His own righteous claim, and bestows that answer upon every sinner who believes in Christ. God Himself is the blessed source and spring of it all; it was He who gave His Son out of His bosom; it was He who sent "his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him;" that blessed One came down to earth that He might do the will of God: "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." While He lived and walked here, He did the will of God; when He by the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, He did the will of God; He was the only one who knew the extent of man's sin and alienation from God, and He dies on the cross to put it away; and He is the only one who knew what was in the heart of God toward poor lost sinners, and He comes down to manifest it. How blessed, the storm-cloud has burst and is behind me! Do you ask me how I know? — Well, gladly do I answer you. He on whom it did burst is now seated in glory, appears there in righteousness transcendent, showing the blood of His atonement as my title to be there: but oh, more blessed even yet! how can I speak of it! He has set God free in righteousness to act according to the love of His heart. God now brings the poor returning prodigal to His house, His home, His joy; spreads His feast there, bids him welcome there; and there for ever and for ever in the circle of His favour, in the circle of a Father's love, is the rest and peace and joy of the wanderer brought back.

Yes, in the fulness of His grace,

God put me in the children's place,

Where I may gaze upon His face —

O, Lamb of God, in Thee.

Not half His love can I express,

Yet, Lord, with joy my lips confess,

This blessed portion I possess —

O, Lamb of God, in Thee.

W. T. T.

"The Blood-sprinkled Lintel"

Exodus 12: 22, 23.

The gospel is God's own answer to the question He Himself has raised about man and his sin. None could raise the question, and none could answer the question but Himself; the answer is Christ, given by God freely in His love, Christ lifted up upon the cross as a sacrifice for sins, Christ raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, and Christ ascended into the heavens.

Now Exodus 12 speaks about a lamb, whose blood, shed and sprinkled upon the houses of the children of Israel, secured them when God passed in judgment through the land of Egypt. My reader, the Lord Jesus Christ is the great substance, of which the lamb of Exodus 12 was only the shadow. What a blessed wonderful spring the soul gets, when it has believed that the Lamb whose blood must be shed as an atonement for sin is the only begotten Son of God, provided, given, sent by God into the world for this very purpose. As it is written, "in this was manifested the love of God toward us, in that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." There is one point of great value and importance in Exodus 12; everything is done under the hand of God, He provides all, so to speak, and then assures by His word — this is very blessed to know. The security of an Israelite in that night consisted in his being in a house whose lintel was marked with the blood of the appointed lamb previously shed in death; the sense of his security, or the known enjoyment of it, consisted in his simply believing God's testimony, "when I see the blood I will pass over you." I would say a little about the security. Nothing less than that mysterious mark on the lintel would suffice, and nothing more was required; the blood shed told of atonement made; "it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Lev. 17: 11.) It is no question as to what an Israelite was, or what he felt; what God looked for as He passed through the land that night was the lintel sprinkled with the blood of the appointed lamb; wherever that was before His eyes, God was satisfied, and they were secure; "When I see the blood I will pass over you," proclaimed both one and the other. So it is now, reader; the security now consists in my having to do with Christ, who went down into death to put away sin, nothing less would meet our dreadful case than the blood-shedding of Christ, He bore the judgment in His own body on the cross, He gave up His life; in His death we can say, "Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other;" every righteous claim of God has been met by the death of Christ; all that was contrary to God has been for the believer put away for ever. How secure is the soul in such an answer!

Now, in order to bring this out more clearly, allow me to put a case. We will suppose an Israelite who has followed out in every particular the direction of God as to the lamb, and also as to the sprinkling of the blood upon the lintel; he retires into his house, and passes that terrible night in fear and anxiety. Whether he will be the next to fall under the judgment he knows not; if he dared, he would go outside the door of his house and satisfy himself by gazing on the blood, but this he cannot do, and follow out the direction of God, and so he passes a wretched night, comfortless and miserable. But I take another case of an Israelite who, equally with the former, has followed out the commands of God as to the lamb and its blood; he, having also sprinkled the lintel, retires in restful quiet, happy and assured: the thought of judgment awakens no alarm in his breast. Which of the two is safest? The latter, do you say? if so, the security does not consist alone in the blood being on the lintel. But do you not see that because in both cases the blood was there, both were equally safe, equally secure? Both were not equally happy, both were not equally certain of their security: and why? Simply because they did not equally credit the testimony or word of God. The blood outside made both equally secure, but the testimony of God, carried inside and believed, was needed to make both equally assured — when I say equally assured, I mean as far as any could be at that time. Thus, I trust, we have seen that testimony to our ruin as sinners is borne by the word of God equally with testimony to our safety, if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. W. T. T.

"In His Hand"

John 10.

Still'd each tremble, hush'd each murmur,

We, whose portion lieth here,

In His Hand, oh! holy refuge,

Where "love casteth out all fear."

What can hurt them, what can touch them?

Can the fierce wolf scatter now?

In His Hand who spoil'd the strong man,

His — to whom each knee must bow!

Better this than Israel's sheepfold

Wall'd and fenced around by law,

Pastures here, and peace and safety,

Joys that Israel, never saw.

God's own presence, sweet communion,

Better this than Canaan's land,

Need we earthly rules and barriers,

We, thus gather'd in His Hand?

In His Hand who laid His life down,

In His Hand who gave His Son;

Thus the wondrous mystery learning,

Gift and Giver both are One.

One their gracious purpose usward,

Christ but shows the heart of God,

Heart whose love was bound by justice,

Till the Son atoned with blood.

"Therefore doth His Father love Him;"

Give all glory to His Name,

For God's love can reach the sinner,

Since His justice smote the Lamb.

This the joy Christ set before Him

When He turn'd His face to go —

Willing victim to the death-scene;

Where He drain'd the cup of woe.

Spirit-taught we bow and worship

Abba Father, Saviour Lord,

In His Hand we learn to know them,

Heark'ning to the Shepherd's word.

No more stranger voices follow —

Ever-guided now by One,

In His Hand — so strong — so loving,

Till the pilgrimage be done.

Then the many-mansion'd dwelling;

Gates of pearl, and jasper wall,

Harps of gold for ever telling

How His Hand hath done it all. — O. R.

The First Word of the Risen Saviour

John 20.

The disciples had known the Lord Jesus as the One who had for them the words of eternal life. They felt they could not go away from Him. "To whom shall we go, thou hast the words of eternal life?" but now He had left them to do a work for them — to give His life a ransom for many. What a thought! That is, God had it in His counsels before the world began, to give His Son to die for the world that rejected Him. And the Son (as the pure and spotless One) not only had the will to go through it all, but He was capable as a divine Person of being made God's Lamb, to deal with the whole question of sin. There was no veil to hide the wrath of God, no veil to hide what sin was in His sight. It was all brought out in the light of God. There was no avoiding of the full cup of wrath, no avoiding of the Father's will, and His will was to put away sin. Here was the immense question of sin, before God, answered in the blessed sinless One made sin — taking this place not only for us, but for God's glory; going into it to deal with sin according to the holiness and righteousness of God, He looked at sin without a veil, put Himself before God to be made sin, and drank the full cup of wrath! He puts away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, went under death as God's Lamb to deal with it all, to bear it all, to bear it all in His own Person — wholly alone in it — that work went on between God and His anointed, for man had no share in the work of His salvation, but the wickedness that nailed Him to the cross! It was all accomplished between God and Christ alone. Once in the end of the world He appeared to put away sin, when man's sin from the garden of Eden onward had been fully and distinctly brought out — his wilfulness and law-breaking, and rejection of Christ. Man had been fully tried, and his heart fully proved to be enmity to God. And now the stability of all things, from your individual soul up to the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, rests in this, that God hath obtained an eternal redemption for us! that the whole question of sin is eternally and perfectly settled, according to the holiness and righteousness of God, and Christ is raised from the dead according to the eternal immutable righteousness on which all is based, redemption, eternal glory, and the new heaven and new earth, there is nothing like the cross in this way; as a fact in eternal history, nothing at all like it — the centre of all God's thoughts and purposes as revealed in love. And as soon as the Lord has finished that work immutable in righteousness, raised from among the dead the public witness that God had accepted His work — His first thought is of His poor disciples. They were together, the doors shut for fear of the Jews, but Jesus comes into their midst, and what is His word to them? Peace! He brings them peace — the peace that He has made by the blood of His cross. It is as if He said to them, I have been there, dying on the cross, made sin for you, I have drunk that terrible cup of wrath for you, I have accomplished eternal salvation for you, and now there is peace for you, for you, (dear reader,) I bring it to you Myself — the peace that I have made — your sins all gone; because He bore them in His own body on the tree. The work is done, and the only thing He has to do is to bring them this peace; loving His own that were in the world, He comes to announce it to them. And, oh, let His word reach your conscience, and sink down and take root there. Did He deceive them when He said that there was peace with God for them? Did He know what He had made! Did He know that He had accomplished redemption? He who had come out from under death, from under that dreadful cup, into the full joy of His Father's countenance. Oh, well He knew it. It is the very thing that He sings praises for (see Psalm 22), for an accomplished redemption, and we have to sing with Him. We see this blessed One coming in perfect love to tell them what He knows He has wrought for them, and it is as He knows it, and that is an immense comfort for us, because we may say, I am afraid my poor wretched heart has not accepted Him enough; I do not value His work enough; and I have forgotten half the sins I have done. I do not see sin as God sees it; but that is not the ground of my peace: what gives me peace is the knowledge that God knows the full value of the work of Christ, that not a sin has escaped His eye. God has estimated it all. There is nothing of the horribleness of sin not known by Him. God has seen it all, and God has put it all away, and peace is made according to God's knowledge of sin, and according to God's putting of it away, that is the ground of my peace before Him; and when Christ says peace to me now, it is as sure as if He had judged me already on the great white throne. The offended Person has found satisfaction for my whole offence. Oh, if God is satisfied, I am! In the resurrection of Christ, God has put His seal upon Christ's accomplished work; now that all that concerned my simple state is gone, and done with before God — nothing remains but the carrying out of Divine love in righteousness. I have got peace, faith believes it, believes that God cannot see a spot on me unless He denies the work of Christ. This peace is an immense thing; the very title God is pleased to take is, God of peace, for we are reconciled to God. The Lord completes the position of those who are brought into this condition before God, He breathes on them, and says, receive ye the Holy Ghost. He gives the living power of life in us in order to enjoy it, and in order that we may know that we are in Him who is gone up to His Father, and now our Father, to His God, and now our God; and mark the place this life in Christ in glory sets us in, in the world which has rejected Him: as the Father has sent Him, so He sends us with forgiveness of sins into this poor world. Now I can turn round and tell you about remission of sins — because I have got it for myself. I echo this blessed testimony to the world. I have got a Saviour; I have got a divine life in Him; I have got it, I am not 'hoping' to get it, I have it all now in that risen Christ; I have drunk of the living water; I say to you, will you come and drink; Christ could say, come to ME, but I can say, whosoever thirsteth, come, I know that there is living water there. And now, have you such a possession of Christ, that you can go and say to the world, I have got what you have not a bit of; I have got a thing from Christ in glory? If not, you have not got the peace that God gives, that Christ made, and that Christ brings. * * * * *

Christless Religion!

Matt. 7: 22, 23.

The above title would, no doubt, offend many an eye, to others it would appear quite out of place at the present time; the growing goodness of the age, the increase of religion among men is pleaded on every side as a reason for rejecting the hard thought of the world becoming more wicked every day and man in general on it more hardened and indifferent. It may appear harsh to some who read this paper to have it stated that Christ is left out of the religion, or so-called Christianity of the great bulk of professors. Christianity is a word used to signify that a man is neither a Jew, Turk, infidel, nor heretic, but without any sense of a soul really brought out of the world to God. In the popular use of the word, a man is said to be a good Christian though he has never believed on Jesus, has never known the forgiveness of his sins, has never known Christ. Then religion, too, is said to be the common portion of nearly all decent professors. They attend their place of worship on the Sabbath or Sunday, they receive the sacrament once a month, or twice a year; they give their money to spread the scriptures, or to convert the heathen, and they feel better for it all: yet are they unchanged, the very same in every respect; or, if differing from those whom they term profane persons, it is by no means to their own credit, being as "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." (Matt. 23: 27.)

What can be more solemn than the words of the Lord Jesus, as His eye travelled over the wide world of profession? "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." How dreadful this word, for the die is cast, the doom is come! Let me be faithful and straightforward. Look around you at this moment, and what do you see? A great piece of hypocrisy being played by men, religion without reality, a noisy and a showy profession, by which souls are deceived and dragged down respectably and religiously to hell. This is that religion of which some one affirms, "that it has slain its ten thousands." Shall there then be no warning word? Shall we not beseech men to pause upon the brink of so terrible a precipice? Shall we not hold forth the word of truth? Away with such thoughts.

Reader, there are two words in scripture, and if they do not describe you, be assured your Christianity is Christless, and your religion vain — "born again" are the words. Have you been? "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again," are the words of Him who also said, "the Son of man must be lifted up." "MUST BE BORN AGAIN." Not must be religious, or must be moral, or must turn over a new leaf (as is said), or must mend your ways, but "must be born again." What a cutting, searching word. It sets man in his best state or worst state aside altogether; it brings in a new life, a new nature. There is necessity here, for ye must be born again; such necessity that "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

There are two grand reasons why ye must be born again. First, because nothing less would suit God, righteous, holy as He is.

Secondly, nothing less would meet the case of man, ruined and lost, in himself irreparably bad. But do you say, where am I to get this other life, this other nature of which I hear so much in these days? The very same scripture that shuts you out in your natural state, supplies the answer to your question. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Reader, soon all unreality will have passed away; soon will this day of empty profession be over. Where shall you be found then? Where are you now? W. T. T.

There is a Saviour in Glory

God has visited this world, has manifested Himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He came down from glory on this heavenly mission of making known to man all the grace and love that was in the heart of His Father.

He laid aside His glory, and took upon Himself the form of a man — the most gracious, the most accessible of men. "Never man spake like this man," His enemies confessed. He carried with Him that which poor lost man could get nowhere else. The only man that could ever stand upon this earth and say, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What an announcement to make! He had more; He had life — eternal life for man, but man would not come unto Him that he might have this life — this everlasting life.

This blessed One was "hated without a cause." He was "the light of the world," and this did not suit man; for man "loved darkness rather than light, because his deeds were evil." Hence they did not rest until they had got rid of this Jesus, so that they might go on undisturbed in their own path of iniquity. A robber was preferable to Jesus the Son of God. Their cry was, "Away with him, crucify him." But the blessed God made this crowning act of man's hatred against Himself to be the only way of salvation; and where man made this blessed One a martyr, there God made Him to be a victim,; and the precious blood that flowed from the side of that crucified Christ gave God eternal satisfaction about sin. That precious blood was of such infinite value in God's sight that the sinner, be he who he may, that rests in the value of this blood to God, is cleansed from every stain. Thus, where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded. (Rom. 5: 20, 21.)

But, dear reader, that blessed One that died upon the tree now sits upon the throne in glory! God raised Him from the dead, and has exalted Him, having declared that at the name of Jesus "every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

My desire in presenting this paper to you is to press home upon your soul the fact that there is a Saviour in glory. Reader, do you know Him there?

Have an interview with Him you MUST — either now in grace, or presently in judgment.

The dying thief had an interview with Him when He hung upon the cross.

Saul, the enemy of Jesus, had an interview with Him when He was in heavenly glory, — the same Jesus, but in different circumstances. The thief turns to the Saviour on the cross, owns his true condition, and asks to be remembered in the coming kingdom. The Saviour's answer to his cry was, "THIS DAY shalt thou be with me in paradise." Saul, on the other hand, on his way to Damascus, endeavouring to wipe out the memory of the name of Jesus from the earth, is met by that same Jesus in heavenly glory.

What a contrast between the two! the one full of hatred against Christ, the other full of grace towards Saul. The Saviour asks him — "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?"

Saul, tell Him WHY

Saul, in the light of that glory, has fallen to the ground, and exclaims, "Who art thou, Lord?" The answer is, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." Not one word of reproof fell from the Saviour's lips. What a reception was this for Saul! His course on earth was changed. No longer the persecutor of the saints of God, but henceforth to be an ambassador for that Saviour here, and a preacher of Him as glad tidings among the nations. (Gal. 1: 16.) He announces what that Saviour is in Himself as glad tidings to those around him.

And thus to you, dear reader, do I now declare not only what that Saviour has done, how that He has finished the work of salvation, that He has paid an adequate price for the salvation of all (1 Tim. 2), and that God is satisfied with that work which He accomplished on the cross, having raised Him up from among the dead; but I also declare unto you what He is Himself. Do you want rest, peace, righteousness, life? All are found in Christ in glory.

Will you then avail yourself of this great salvation by sheltering yourself under what He has done, and resting in what He is, instead of in what you can do, or in what you are? If you would rest in the presence of a holy God, it must be by resting entirely on what that Saviour has done, and in what that Saviour is.

The self-righteous Saul knew how unsuitable he was in himself in that glory. He knew, moreover, how suitable it was to that Saviour that was in it: and thus I no longer trust in myself, but make my boast in Christ Jesus.

One solemn word with you, dear reader, and I have done. Are you an enemy or a friend of Christ? The word is, "He that is not with me is against me.

To refuse present grace is to incur future judgment, and then there will be no mercy. "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

"For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For 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 in the face of Jesus Christ." E. P. C.

Righteous in Him

Father, Thy name I bless,

Strong in Thy righteousness,

Vast is Thy love.

What hast Thou done to me?

Made me a son to Thee —

Near to Thyself to be

With Thee above.

Fountain of life Thou art —

Well-spring of love Thy heart,

Else had I lain

Steep'd in my misery,

Under death's penalty —

Wrench'd every link with Thee,

'Neath Satan's chain.

Who could such woe address?

Who could such love express?

Who but the Son?

Thou Thine own Son hast sent,

Through Him Thy love, once pent,

Now finds a righteous vent

T'wards Thine undone.

Lo! in His blessed face

Shines all Thy truth and grace

Hark! how He saith —

Father, Thy holy will

I, only I, fulfil,

Cost what it may or will,

E'en unto death.

Oh! what that will entail'd!

Depths from man's reason veil'd,

Known, Lord, to Thee,

When in the sinner's stead,

Thou didst Thy spotless head

Bow 'neath the judgment dread,

Resting on me.

Raised from that judgment sea,

Life-giving Lord, in Thee!

Righteous I stand!

In Thee, — the Righteous One

Of Thee, — the Holy One —

With the Beloved One,

At God's right hand.

The Record of God

1 John 5: 9, 11, 12.

There are few scriptures which contain more comforting testimony for anxious, troubled souls than the above; they present the very truth which can meet the poor burdened heart, writing bitter things against itself. Nothing can be more distinct than this fact, that the evidence of the soul's acceptance is outside of us altogether; nothing we can either do or feel is any ground of security or rest for our souls; what an unspeakable mercy and comfort it should be so! For, just reflect a moment; this day all might be favourable and bright around me — happy frames, sweet experiences, and the like, simply produced by our circumstances; then to-morrow, on the contrary, all is as dark as yesterday it was bright; coldness and deadness within, and all that I prized so much and valued as evidence has vanished in a night. What a state of destitution and misery am I now plunged into, in a moment too!

Reader, this is not a supposed case, it is a real and a common one; is it yours? I have heard of some one who formed his judgment of the sun by looking at it in a pool of water; now and then was the water moved and agitated, every breath of wind more or less troubled it, consequently this man thought the sun moved as often as it appeared to stand still; but as soon as he learned no longer to judge of the sun by the water on which it shone, then he discovered his mistake, and that the sun was ever the same — stedfast and fixed. Oh! how blessed for poor weak things like us to know that our security is in what God has done, and our consciousness of security, or certainty of it, in what God has said; this cannot be too often insisted on, or pressed upon souls — this alone can meet the rage and fury of Satan — this alone can silence the troubles and thoughts of the heart.

"Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself." (Luke 23: 38, 39.)

The risen Saviour knew well what perplexed the heart, troubles and thoughts; how does He meet them? By turning the mind out on Himself, from themselves.

Let us look then a little at the testimony I have spoken of, and found in the scriptures given above.

First, then, we have "God hath given to us eternal life:" what a sentence that is! It begins with the giver, "God hath given;" it closes with the gift, "Eternal life;" and this, bear in mind, God's own witness, record, testimony. What is eternal life? Nothing less than the very life of the One who died on the cross as substitute for His people, and rose again from the dead; in His death He closed their history as children, not only of wrath, but of Adam; and in resurrection He became the Head of a new race, and as such communicates His own life; "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." (John 20: 22.) So now of all who believe in Jesus, who receive the record, testimony, witness of God, it is true they have passed from death to life, they have Eternal Life — they are not in the flesh. So then under the first head or testimony we have God's record of Himself, His Son, His gift; the blessed giver God Himself — the source and spring of it all; His Son the Lord Jesus, the One in whom it is all made good, for it is in Him all that God bestows is found; and then His gift, Eternal Life.

Now the second testimony or record of God is found in verse 12, "He that hath the Son hath life." It is similar to that beautiful verse, the word of Christ Himself, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." (John 5: 24.) Now observe in the first record which has been before us, God Himself, His Son, and His gift, were all presented; here in the second place, it is God's pledged word. God Himself affirms that he that believeth hath; God has given me testimony not only to the love that was in His heart towards me, but also to the fact that in believing in Christ I have present eternal life; faith hears Christ's word, believes the Father who sent His Son, possesses Christ, and has everlasting life. Do you not see how the eye of the soul is turned out on God, and on Christ, not in on self? and do you not see that it is the heart of God, the Son of God, the gift of God, and the word of God that are all the subject of testimony? Can you not trust such testimony rather than your feelings, frames, experiences, all of which are like the surface of yonder lake, agitated and swept by every wind, even in its gentlest whispers or its wildest fury? But there is something even beyond the comfort and satisfaction of my heart, and that is that I do not make God a liar; "he that believeth not God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." We receive in this world everything for the most part on testimony; when in ordinary conversation people say they cannot believe such and such a thing, it is because the testimony is deficient in some way, generally because of the character of the persons bearing testimony; and on the contrary we find no difficulty in giving credit to testimony from one who is trustworthy and reliable. "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater."

"That which can shake the cross,

May shake the peace it gave —

Which tells me Christ has never died,

Or never left the grave.

Till then my peace is sure,

It will not, cannot yield;

Jesus I know has died and lives:

On this firm rock I build.

I change, He changes not,

My Christ can never die;

His love, not mine, the resting-place,

His truth, not mine, the tie."  —  W. T. T.

Despising and Perishing

Acts 13: 41.

Reader, have you received Christ? Have you been born again? If not, you have not life; you can never see the kingdom of God. This is a terribly solemn truth, and it behoves you to consider it. There are thousands around us who have been brought up religiously, and learned in their earliest years to lisp the name of Jesus; daily they pray to God, and read His word, but they have no life, they are dead. And what is to be the end of them? I must speak plainly here: — the end of all this is death, and judgment, and hell for ever. If you have not life in the risen Christ, it matters little what else you have, you are going down to an eternal hell as surely as God lives. These things are written not harshly, but in solemn earnest, in the hope that the Lord will use the word in warning to some who are thus deceived. God's sentence of death against sin, and the curse of the broken law rest upon you, and in Christ alone is there deliverance. The most perfect life of religiousness is of no avail here. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8: 8); and you are "in the flesh," if you have not been born of the Spirit and are now in Christ. All your knowledge and your blessings tend but to increase your responsibility, and if, like Capernaum, you are raised to heaven by privilege, you shall be thrust down to hell. Oh! that man would consider these things! Why is it that you, who are shrewd enough in other things, are such fools here? You go on year after year with a carnal Christless religiousness, and refuse to look before you and see the end. God is warning you and beseeching you; but all to no avail. He has given up His only begotten Son to die a cruel shameful death, and bear His wrath against sin in order that you might have life; and what is it all to you? Have you ever wept one unselfish tear because of it? Oh! has your heart ever glowed with love to Him? Did you ever spend a single hour over His word with the longing desire of knowing what He has said as to how you may be saved? No, truly; but you pray to Him; you read His word; you are earnest, sincere, and live a moral religious life, and hope for salvation because of it as well as through the merits of Christ, forsooth! And when one tells you that the end of all such is eternal hell, you are ready to turn round upon God and say hard things of Him, as though you deserved better. He has no pleasure in your death: — He has life for you, and peace, and joy, and heaven, and glory, — all in Christ: and He presses His blessings upon you, and entreats you to have them. But what comes of it? You will still cling to your own religiousness, as if such filthy rags could be a fit covering for you in the presence of God. Oh! one cannot be satisfied to say soft and smooth things in such a case as this. All these things in which you trust will serve only to increase your condemnation if you die as you are, or if the Lord should come and find you as you are. For every time you have named the name of Jesus, God will bring you into judgment; for every time that you have ever opened the word that tells of life and love; for every appeal He has ever made to your conscience, or your heart; for every prayer you have ever prayed; for every ray of light that has ever entered your dark soul — stroke after stroke of the eternal wrath will fall upon you for ever when you are cast into the lake of fire, the long long home of the Christless soul.

Oh! be persuaded to pause and consider these things while there is yet time. What have you for eternity? "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha," — accursed in the day of the Lord. (1 Cor. 16: 22.) And your heart tells you it is a stranger to love, a personal affection to Him, risen and glorified.

This is no part of your religion. What, then, is to be the end? A few more years, at most, of a heartless, Christless, religion; and then! then the thundercloud of wrath, that now hangs on the horizon, shall close in for ever on the blackness of darkness upon your soul. Satan, like a wily seducer, comes to you now with fair promises and false smiles; but when the willing dupe has become his victim, he will throw off the mask, and show himself to be the enemy of your soul, a liar and a murderer. God calls, but you refuse; He stretches out His hand, but you regard it not; but you set at nought all His counsel, and will none of His reproof. He beseeches you to be reconciled, but you turn your back upon Him. And when the end comes, and you are lost, damned, you will have yourself to blame; and if this be the end of a life of Christless morality and religion, what will be the end of a life of sin? Thus saith the Lord: —

"The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone — this is the second death." (Rev. 21: 8.) But why should one write such terrible things as these, if there were no glad tidings of salvation? Blessed be God, He has sent us good news about His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God is love; and His love reached even to this sin-ruined world.

Though man despised and hated Him, He loved the world. But, while sin was unatoned for, God could deal with us only to condemn; and, therefore, when the fulness of the time was come, He sent His only begotten Son into the world; and it is a saying worthy of all acceptation, that He came to save sinners; not to condemn, but to save. He took sin upon Himself, and bore the sentence of death pronounced against us. He was made a curse for us, to redeem us from the curse of the law. And now, through the cross of Christ, there is life for the dead; salvation for the lost one; there is peace with God and glory through the Lord Jesus Christ. We have redemption through His blood; not our religion, but through His blood, the precious blood of Christ. Nothing can avail in this matter but DEATH, for it is death alone that can satisfy the righteous sentence of God against sin. If, as the eye rests upon these words, the heart yearns for a place to which it has been hitherto a stranger, and longs for something to satisfy the cravings, that may indeed be quenched, but never can be satisfied by the husks of the world's religion, or its pleasures, or its sins: — turn to the tenth chapter of Romans, and, for the first time, read the words as a message to your own soul from a living loving God, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Yes, it is for you, read it again.

"We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. 5: 20, 21.)

W. T. T.

"Rejected Convictions"

The following solemn fact was some time ago related by one who could attest its truth. It is inserted here, with the earnest hope that any who read it may be warned by it not to resist the dealings of God with conscience. Man's way and wish seems to be to work upon the feelings; God's invariable way is through the conscience: —

A young person who had been a hearer of the truth from the lips of one recently brought himself to know it, was conscience smitten and arrested. She had deep convictions, she told her mother, and she, a woman of pride and fond of the world, determined as far as she could to hinder what she saw plainly enough in her child; for this purpose she set every kind of worldly trap and snare for her feet, and when the child would plead her unhappy state of soul with her mother, she made her think lightly of it, saying, religion was never intended to make people gloomy or morbid; that she must go into society, that she must enjoy herself, and the world around her. Accordingly, she did go into society; but it was only for a little, as she sickened and drew near to death. As she lay on her dying bed, she called her mother and said, "Mother, when I am dead, and in my coffin, when my coffin is put down into the grave, do not allow any tombstone to be placed over me; neither let there be any epitaph chiselled on my grave stone, but let me be simply buried. And when I am in my coffin, and covered up under the sod, and you are in this room, open that wardrobe, dear mother; and you will see my last ball dress, and when you look upon that dress, you will see the sign of your sin, and of my doom." Thus she died. Oh reader, be warned; be entreated to pause and reflect ere you say like Felix, "Go thy way for this time." Remember, TO-MORROW is the word by which Satan blinds and deceives.

W. T. T.

"Complete in Him"

Now I live in resurrection,

Death and judgment past for me;

Jesus bore it all in person,

Bare the cross, and set me free.

Once I stood in condemnation,

Waiting thus the sinner's doom;

He in death has wrought salvation,

God hath raised Him from the tomb!

Once I lay in death's dark prison,

Bound in fetters fast and strong;

He who took that place, now risen,

Shares with me His victory won.

Once I was to God a stranger,

Fill'd with enmity and fear;

He, the Father's great Revealer,

Made Him known, and brought ME near.

Now I see in Christ's acceptance

But the measure of my own;

He who lay beneath my sentence,

Seated high upon the throne.

Quicken'd, raised, and in Him seated,

I a full deliverance know:

Every foe has been defeated,

Every enemy laid low.

Now, I have a life in union

With the risen One above,

Now, I drink in sweet communion

Some rich foretaste of His love.

Love so great that none can measure,

Length, nor breadth, nor depth, nor height —

Love, which found in me its pleasure,

Which has turn'd to day my night.

Soon, O Lord, in brightest glory,

All its vastness I'll explore;

Soon I'll cast my crown before Thee,

Whilst I worship and adore.

Saved Now and for Ever

Luke 23: 39-46.

In Luke 23: 39-46 is described the manner of God's grace to a thief on the cross. It is the great instance of the grace of God to a sinner; that of Saul of Tarsus is the greatest. The popular idea that it refers to a death-bed repentance is not correct; it is to show the grace of God, and what it does for a sinner in his most extreme state. Here is a thief cast out of the world, righteously put out according to law. He had transgressed grievously — his state could not be worse — the world could not endure him any longer. This is a lesson to many in the present day. Here is a man who is so incorrigible that there is no attempt to reform him, the only remedy is to put him to death. It is remarkable, while man feels in this way of a criminal who acts badly towards his fellow man, he has not got the sense in his soul, I have sinned against God, and have incurred His righteous judgment. When man finds his fellow is incorrigible, he says there is no help for it but to get rid of him — we must put him to death. It is right; the law of God sanctions it. God, in His righteousness, inflicts the same on man — a sinner. God said to man in the garden of Eden, "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die:" that is, in my righteousness, if you act according to your own will in contradiction to my will, you must die. If you see a thief punished, you say it is just what he deserves. Why? Because he is incorrigibly bad. Now, you see how it is with God. If you set up a will contrary to His will you are incorrigible — you must die.

One knows in his heart that he is under the sentence of death — even a child is aware of that — no animal has the suspense of it but man. Animals can enjoy the earth, but the moment man is true to himself he loses his enjoyment. Learned men tell us the deepest thought is allied to melancholy. What a statement! Why? Because it has gone down to the root of things. Man has capacity for enjoyment, but a deep thought must be melancholy, because he sees his doom. People are not awakened to the fact that the life they have, as men, is under judgment. Adam did not adhere to the will of God, but set up his own will; his mind is alienated from God, and righteously he must die. And man has the sense in his soul that he must suffer judgment at the hand of God, and that he cannot meet it. What then? God comes in and meets it, and gives His Son to bear the judgment upon us. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Christ sheds His blood, the propitiation for our sins. He has taken upon Himself all the judgment that rests on me, hence he says (John 12: 24), "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Here is the thief on the cross; man is putting him out of the world, but man's judgment cannot go beyond this world. "Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." This is the distinction between what man can do, and what God can do. Here is man putting a criminal to death in righteousness, and grace bringing this sinner to heaven through the death of the Son of God. The thief dies, his legs are broken, not one bit of his temporal punishment is remitted, yet the Lord says to him, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

There are two sides to grace. They are both brought out in the same passage. (Luke 14.) Grace provides everything. "All things are ready." the doors are open — that is one side. The other is, Compel them to come in." It is God's doing; God makes all ready, and He compels. "He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters." I say, who sent the earthquake to the jailer? Was it to let out the apostle? Not merely, but to bring the jailer on his knees to learn salvation. Who sent the famine to the prodigal? Who comes with bright light to the soul of Saul of Tarsus, and flashes it in, in spite of all the force of Satan? Who was it that suddenly arrested a poor woman in the city of Nain, so that she says, Though I am a notorious sinner, Jesus is my Saviour? Where did that come from? The grace of God compelling her to come in. It is not only that all is ready, and all the doors open, and the message is sent forth, but you must come in and find out the things that are prepared. Christ, at the end of His course, effects the reversal of all the damage that Satan had done in Eden. Here is this man, a sinner not tolerated among men, deprived of his life — the dearest thing to a man. God's Son comes in and says, I bear the judgment, and he takes the man the world cannot tolerate in a new nature to the third heaven. "To-day shalt thou be with me." This is what Christ's death achieves for the sinner. When done with this scene, like the thief, you pass into a perfect, blessed state, into paradise with Christ. Now, if you do not believe that this is the grace of God to one still on earth, something must be imperfect in the way you see the righteousness brought in. If you think the way cannot be quite clear until you are dead yourself, then you do not see that you are as yet dead in the sight of God. If you are dead righteously, you cannot be regarded as alive righteously. You say, I am alive in myself. I admit it, but settle the question of God's righteousness. Was God righteous to give the thief association with His Son? Yes; because he was dead, and all was gone that had brought in the judgment. Then you do not believe that, in the eye of God, you are as dead as that man was. If you do not believe that God's righteousness is complete till you are dead, it must be imperfect as it stands. If I, a believer in Christ, am not as dead in the sight of God as ever I will be, God's righteousness is not complete. God says you are dead; you say, "I am a sinner every hour of the day." Quite true; but if you say God is not perfectly free to make you conscious of His salvation till you are in the grave, you call in question the righteousness of God. Why put it off till you are a corpse? Because you do not believe that judgment is complete till you are one. Now, God "hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin;" hence He says, "If one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again." A believer has to do with a risen One. If all the judgment is not borne, there is not righteousness; if all is borne, then there is righteousness. I am dead with Christ. The apostle says, "ye are dead." There is no question about it. The moment I look at Christ risen I know I am "a new creature" in Him, breathing the peace of His life as distinctly by the Spirit as the thief did in the third heaven.

We do not get resurrection in Luke, but we get it in Romans 4: 25. Christ was "delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God;" and hence, in chapter 8: 2, "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." I am free; it is plain to any exercised conscience. God's Son not only bears the judgment, but it is complete. The life I live in the body shall pass away, but I breathe life in Christ distinctly by the Spirit of God. If I only find acceptance when I die, then judgment is not complete till I die. I say it is complete in the cross, if not so I am not justified: "He was raised again for our justification." (See Romans 5: 1.) I get beyond Luke 23. Christ is a Man out of judgment. I had to do with a man under judgment, now I have God's Son out of judgment, and righteousness is imputed to me if I believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. I have to do with the God that raised Him, "being justified by faith." I am on new ground — resurrection ground — with Christ. There is nothing to offend God's eye there! Are you there? That is the point. Are you in the Man out of judgment? "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." You were in the man who was under judgment, now you are by faith connected with the One who went under judgment, and has risen out of it — dead with Christ, and alive in Him.

You never have perfect peace till you see every atom of you has been judged in the cross. If every atom has been judged, where is the atom to rise against you? We are on an island; everything is perfect, God has judged everything in the cross of Christ. "We glory in tribulations." I am in a scene of sorrow, but I endure. The very roughness hardens me, and brings out patience. I have to do with God, and my very difficulties become opportunities for God to show His grace and mercy to me, "knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, ['Experience' means testing], and experience hope." I hope, I do not despair because of the pressure, "it maketh not ashamed." I fall back to the foundation of everything; hope is not at the bottom, but at the top. "And the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."

"When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." That brings us back to the thief on the cross. "God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." The thief is an example; he dropped the thief-life and got another — an endless life, a perennial life — that never fails, never wearies; he got life in Christ. "To-day shalt thou be with me."

Now, will you, my reader, say "I do not want this great salvation. I will go to my domestic comforts, and turn my back on what God in His grace provided for sinners?" God sends forth the tidings of His grace, and will you say, "I refuse His offer"? J. B. S.

"It Behoved Christ to Suffer and to Rise"

Luke 24: 46.

There are two thoughts of immense moral power in these words, "one man should die . . . . that the whole nation perish not," — they bring before the heart the great truth of man's ruin and God's salvation in a striking way.

Caiaphas, the high priest (in this the unconscious mouth-piece of the Holy Ghost), gives expression to it in the above words: "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people;" and as you read those words and ponder them, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ come to your mind, "ought not Christ to suffer?" — "it behoved Christ to suffer."

Let us now examine a little together, wherein consists this "ought not" — this divine moral necessity, if I may thus reverently speak.

First. It was because of what God in His own Being is, and ever was, a righteous, holy, sin-hating God; at the same time a gracious, merciful, long-suffering God, who would spare sinners; a God of love.

In the second place, it was because of what man was, and is, a self-willed, rebellious, sin-loving creature. God had made the world, and all was very good; last of all, He made man in His own image; placed him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it, surrounded him with the tokens of God's care, and restricted him from eating the fruit of one tree, viz., the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Here in this garden, where everything was a perpetual reminder of the interest and care of his Creator, man willingly believes the lie of Satan, harbours in his breast a slander against God, and, acting under its influence, sets up his own will; and in the exercise of it appropriates to himself what God under penalty had restricted. What a picture! the creature of the handiwork of God, in opposition to the will of his Creator, has acted for himself, and has forfeited the place of blessing in which God had placed him, and the life in which he was to enjoy the blessing given him there. He has subjected himself to the penalty which God has announced, and is driven out from the presence of God — a fallen man.

We now have man, the head of God's creation, outside of Eden, in the wide waste of this world, having a nature at variance with God, and with only a forfeited life between him and the judgment, which ends in being cast into the lake of fire! What a scene! What a desolation!

What now is to be done? On whose side would you say the first movement towards reconciliation should take place ? Of course on man's; because it was he who brought about this distance from God. It was man, therefore, that was bound in every way to repair the breach, which the following of his own will had introduced, between him and his Creator. Instead of this, from God Himself in His wondrous rich grace, super-abounding grace from God, the offended One, the first movement comes! He discloses that He desires not that the distance should continue; and as man would not, and still further cannot repair it, the blessed God undertakes to do so, and hence it becomes necessary that the divine requirements should be met, and the penalty which man had incurred should be borne. Hence the blessed God gave His Son, who was perfect and spotless, to be chargeable with His people's guilt; and He, the Lord Jesus Christ, bore the judgment, endured the penalty in grace, gave up His own life in order that the love of God, who gave Him to die, might travel out worldwide to all

Now we can understand the "ought not Christ to suffer, and enter into his glory?" The expediency that one man should die. What a penalty, and with what a price was it not paid! God's dear Son laying down His life for us: and more, that He might read out to us the heart of the living God! W. T. T.

"Caught Away, or Left Behind"

1 Thessalonians 4; 2 Thessalonians 2.

These are the words by which God is pleased to describe the condition of all who shall be alive when the Lord comes; for there will be a people positively alive on earth, some of whom shall be caught up or rapt away to meet the Lord in the air, and some of whom shall be left behind, to be deceived and destroyed, to believe a lie because they would not receive the love of the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness: words fail to describe the blessedness of the one or the terrible nature of the other.

In the 4th chapter of 1 Thessalonians we are told the order of the first, namely, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His own. This might happen at any moment, at most a little while, and "He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Reader, I challenge your heart, are you ready? Can you say in truthfulness and honesty of soul, "Come, Lord Jesus"? I feel this is a searching matter for a Christian, and it ought to be; but if one, whose title is clear to say it, hesitates before using such words, with what a chill ought they to fall on the ears of the one who is not ready, and has no title whatever. When the Lord comes and takes away His own, the rest are left behind. What a thought that! To survive all that is worth living for is terrible indeed. To be an inhabitant of the world when Satan is allowed to put forth his man in unrestrained power will be the lot of all in Christendom who are found outside of Christ when He comes for His own. Listen to what is said of Satan's man, "whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." Reader, should Christ come now, would that be your lot, your portion? Listen to what is said of the end of such: — "That they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." The blessed contrast is in those who have believed the gospel, the good news of God about His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and who, in consequence, are entitled to look for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, His coming, and our gathering together unto Him. It is said of the Thessalonian saints, that they "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven." Reader, have you?

W. T. T.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was Slain"

Lamb of God! we bow before Thee.

Calv'ry's tale creation awed;

Well may Thy redeem'd adore Thee,

While we sound this note abroad —

Calv'ry's Victim

Vindicates the throne of God!

Saviour God! the altar's craving

Thou hast satisfied with blood!

Now in heaven fresh incense waving

Sweetly sounds this note abroad —

Calv'ry's Victim

Fills with joy the heart of God!

Man of sorrows! God of glory!

Wondrous path Thy foot hath trod;

Cross and crown rehearse the story,

Joyous sounds this note abroad —

Calv'ry's Victim

Now adorns the throne of God!

The Wreck and the Island

Man in himself is born to die. He comes forth in bloom and freshness like a flower, to droop and wither away under the very influences which at first he successfully resists.

Man in his history is like a ship at sea, at first riding triumphantly over the waters in which he at last (be the voyage long or short) sinks and disappears! "Death hath passed on all men, for all have sinned." (Rom. 5: 12.) "It is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. 9: 27), and however brightly or usefully man may pursue his course here, mastering the power under which eventually he will succumb; yet the time comes, when he must bow to the power of death. Man in his brightest day is but the ship in trim, with all her sails set; but it must become a wreck sooner or later; and the greater or grander the ship, the greater the wreck. The end of man must be wreck, for he is a sinner, and death is the wages of sin. Death is the judgment on man.

God so loved the world, that He sent His Son, who was not a man until He came here. He enters on this scene, born of woman, in order to bear the judgment resting on man. He went under the sea of death and judgment, — the very sea in which man is sinking, and rising out of it in the power of His own life, He is now the Island, for every one who believes in Him to land on. Believing in Him I leave the wreck, or the ship which is doomed to be a wreck, for the Island, and then, in a new region, I enjoy peace, and receive life in the Holy Ghost from the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not believe in the Island, you continue on the wreck; but if you do — if you believe in Christ, who has risen out of death and judgment — you will abandon the man who is under judgment, and, like the thief on the cross (Luke 23: 41), you will say, and I indeed justly (I, the man — the wreck), I receive in condemnation the due reward . . . . but this man (Christ) hath done nothing amiss. I leave the wreck for the Island.

"This man" is the one for me for evermore, my life and eternal portion. J. B. S.

Fragment

"There is nothing like the cross. It is the meeting of the perfect sin of man with the perfect love of God: sin risen up to its highest point of evil, and gone, put away, and lost in its own worst act. God is above man even in the height of his sin — not in allowing it, but in putting it away by Christ dying for it in love. The soldier's insulting spear, the witness if not the instrument of death, was answered by the blood and water which expiated and purified from the blow which brought it out." J. N. D.

"A Feast of Fat Things"

Luke 14: 15-24.

In verses 7-12 of this chapter the Lord exposes man; whether it was the invited guest, or the inviting host, they were alike marked by a feature common to both, namely, self-seeking. This has been the character of man from the very first, and it will characterise man as such to the very end. Is it not a comfort to your soul to turn away from such a picture to the blessed contrast which these words afford! "when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:" is not that a short and simple statement of what the blessed God has done in the gospel of His Son, the Lord Jesus? The gospel or good news of God always makes God prominent; those two words in verse 13 "make" and "call," declare to us what He, and He alone could do — they also drew forth from some one present the expression, "blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God," which words gave an opportunity to the Lord, in a parable, to set forth what was in the heart of God.

First. — The supper which God made was an expression of His heart — of Himself; in all the freeness of His love He makes it, and in all the largeness of His heart it is a great supper. If I think of what it cost the blessed God to spread this feast, who can say how vast it was? If I think of the supper itself, who can measure its greatness? Have you, my reader, ever thought of this? the blessed God purposed in His heart, and in righteousness performed it — unasked, unsought, He Himself would spread the feast; and that He may do it in a way worthy of Himself, He gives up His only begotten Son to come down and here to taste death and judgment, the whole righteous indignation of God against sin, in order that God might have His way of love. The barriers which man's sin had set up between himself and God, God undertakes to remove at cost to Himself, in order that He may bring poor lost man (in a new condition and in a new life) into the full circle of His favour, of His love. Can anything be more wonderful, can anything equal it? His Son, the Lord Jesus, thus given and sent forth, comes, and in this world where God had shown His interest in man, but where man displayed his disregard of God and dishonoured Him, He, that blessed One, glorified God, as I have said, goes in grace under the waves of death and judgment, and establishes God's righteousness in order that He may declare God's love.

Secondly. — We have the estimate which man forms of all this — the manner in which he treats this unmatched grace of God. Man has no heart for it; the things of earth are chosen in preference to the supper of God. What a picture of man! is it a picture of you, my reader? All that is here has its place and interest, but what the blessed God has provided, and at cost, man has no desire for it. And here do you not see how that things here have the tendency to turn the heart away from Christ? It is not that things are wrong in themselves; all that are here pleaded as having a prior claim on man are not unlawful but lawful things — but their tendency is to make man refuse God's supper. (See Deut. 8: 7-20.)

Lastly. — The love which spread the feast will also bring in the guests, will compel them to come in; many and varied are the ways by which this is effected, but what the heart of God purposes, the hand of God accomplishes, His right hand of power is the servant of His love. It may be an earthquake, as with the jailer at Philippi; or light from heaven above the brightness of the sun flashed into the heart, as with the persecutor on his mission of death; yet they both come from the same blessed source, from Him who awakens fear in the heart, and then takes it out of it; from Him who gives the sense of need, in order that He may bring the soul into a region where need is unknown; from Him who will have His house filled with a company who shall be eternally debtors  to the grace which not only provided such a feast for them, the full circle of the joys of God, the fatted calf, but which also sought them out in the highways and hedges, poor and maimed, and halt and blind. Oh, blessed grace that would take no refusal, but compelled them to come in.

Not half His love can I express,

Yet Lord with joy my lips confess —

This blessed portion I possess,

O Lamb of God, in Thee.

Thy precious name it is I bear,

In Thee I am to God brought near,

And all the Father's love I share,

O Lamb of God, in Thee.  —  W. T. T.

Perfected for Ever

Hebrews 10: 14.

In the 9th chapter (the previous one) is set forth, unfolded, the manner in which sins are put away, by the one offering of Jesus Christ; whereas in this chapter, the subject is, how this is applied to the conscience, so purging it, that no dread of God's judging because of sins any longer remains — so full, perfect, and sufficient is Christ's offering, that by Him all who believe are not only justified from all things, but are entitled to be within the holiest, and to know it. Could anything be more wonderful or excellent? Within the veil, where of old only one man, of one tribe, of one nation, on one day of the year could enter; there, too, not by sufferance, but in right and title, and suited for such a place, having a conscience so purged that it is fit for the presence of God. I may just observe in passing, that the Hebrews shows the twofold position of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. As regards heaven, he is, as in this chapter, within the holiest now; as regards this world, his place is outside the camp, as in chapter 13. On this latter I do not now enlarge, it does not come within my present purpose.

Let us look a little at the foundation of this great salvation. — First, as we have it in verse 10, "By the which, will we are sanctified." God willed not, and had no pleasure in the death of a sinner, nor had He pleasure in the sacrifices offered by the law, which could never make the worshipper perfect. In these repeated sacrifices there was a remembrance of sin every year, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure [which are offered by the law], then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God" — thus we are let into the secrets that passed between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world. It was the will of God, and the Son sets Himself to do that will: "a body hast thou prepared me." Oh, how different from the natural conceptions of God! how eclipsed, even the very best thoughts about His character and love! He willed it, and what His heart conceived, the Son of His love will undertake to accomplish. Will you, my reader, say what are your thoughts about God? Who ever could have stooped so low, in a love that removed all that hindered its expression out of the way, at the cost of all that was dear to itself? Such then was His will, which is the great source and spring of this wonderful display of grace. Second, we have the Person and work by which it has been accomplished. The Person, [the Lord Jesus, the Eternal Son of God; He it was who took a body prepared for Him by God, and in it glorified His Father, as well as established a righteous ground upon which God can be "just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Listen to His own words, "therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." He was the one who shed His blood, the righteousness of God demanded the blood of a victim perfect and excellent. Sin could be put away by nothing less, and for the purging of the conscience there was wanted nothing more. He it was who by the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God — (as He alone could) — and now that very same righteousness of God raises Him up from the dead, from the very death wherein He glorified God, and sets Him in glory, and likewise rends the veil from the top to the bottom! Could anything be more wonderful! "This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God . . . . for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." This one offering accomplished what the blood of bulls and of goats, shed from the beginning of the world, could never do; this one offering needed no repetition, so there remaineth no more offering for sin.

Lastly, we have the way by which it is known and enjoyed in those words, "whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us . . . . their sins and iniquities I will remember no more." Reader, have you the knowledge and enjoyment of this? could there be anything equal to the blessed certainty in the soul, founded on God's will, Christ's offering, and the Holy Ghost's testimony? The Holy Ghost could not have come down until Jesus was glorified; but Christ being glorified out of the very judgment by which He for ever put away sin — the Holy Ghost comes down. Wherever I look, I see infinite power, and infinite love — the love that gave Christ, and brought Him down to the grave, and the power that raised Him up and set Him at the right hand of glory. W. T. T.

"Life or Judgment"

John 5: 21-27.

The Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in these scriptures as the One who gives life and judgment. He occupies that position in respect to man as such, that every child of Adam must receive from Him one or other. The fullest and most blessed testimony had been given to the fact that in Him was life, and the condemnation of men consisted in this, that they would not come to Him that they might have life. That He is despised and refused, is even now the condemnation where the name of Christ is named. Man was in death, but judgment was not yet executed. It is the same now. But whenever a person has listened to Christ's voice, and owned the Father in sending Him, he hath everlasting life; he is passed from death unto life. Here is the escape; and here begins all the exercises of holy affections towards God. A child cannot love its parents before it is born, but it does love long before it can express it. There is life and love before there is intellectual explanation. Here is the difference between law and gospel. Law sets a man to do before he gets life, whilst christian holiness and affections flow from the fact of having life. We get life first, and then begin to walk. Christ is the life-giver to His people: first to soul, and then to body. The Son comes forth from the Father, dies, and then communicates His life. That into which life so communicated brings us is immense, namely, all the Father's purposes in the Son. But the link to the soul is as simple as possible. What is the effect? Why, that Christ becomes everything. There is a distinction between judgment and life. Now, Christ gives life. When He comes as a judge, He does not give life; He comes then for judgment. There is no confusion or mingling of the two. If judgment comes in before grace has given life, no man can stand it. (See Ps. 143: 2.) Christ now gives life in grace, then He will exercise judgment. Man might have continued in paradise, but he did not, he gave ear to Satan, exalted himself as God, followed his own lust and was disobedient, and consequently he first flies away from God, and then is judicially driven away. Man, whilst in enjoyment of blessing, trusts Satan. The suggestion of the devil was, "ye shall be as gods," and God said, "the man is become as one of us." Satan can tell the truth if it subserve sin. If we have the truth, nothing can touch us; but Satan can tell a great deal of truth if he can deceive by it. Here Satan did not tell the consequences of their eating. The first Adam listened, and he came by the ways of Satan to know good and evil; but it was by disobedience, and he continued not with God. Thus lust worked, disobedience followed, and consequently exclusion from God's presence.

Until Christ actually came, sin and Satan's power over man's heart is revealed throughout the word; for being a sinner he was driven out of paradise; but instead of becoming better by this judgment, Cain kills his brother. Then comes the flood: the world, save eight persons, is destroyed; yet afterwards they are as bad as ever. Noah gets intoxicated, and Ham dishonours his father. After this, idolatry enters. In the same way afterwards, the whole history of the children of Israel as a nation is stamped with this truth, that the principle of the heart was wrong; nay more, the nearer a man is to God externally the worse he is, unless there is a godly principle — that is, if the soul has not living fellowship with God. And how awfully can conscience deceive itself! The chief priests took the silver pieces and said, it is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood (Matt. 27: 6), but there was no scruple about giving the money which was to buy it. They were exact about external ceremonial points, but callous as to moral pravity.

But grace has risen over the whole state of man; however bad man may have been proved to be, the Son of man comes down in grace. But here we find the final proof of the evil principle which governs his heart put to the test by the ways of God towards him. His testimony is rejected: "ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." What is the consequence? "another shall come in his own name; him ye will receive." Here is a new form of evil. Man becomes an adversary. Man shall set himself up, and shall be received because he comes in his own name. It is the same principle as in the beginning of the world, only it is after Christ has appeared, so as to be without excuse or hope. Then man exalted himself to be as God to act after his own will, but he was really the tool of Satan. And the same thing will happen again, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.

Previous to this open manifestation, Satan introduces himself by a form of godliness. He does not show himself all at once. He would introduce all that would lead away from the simplicity of reliance upon the death of Christ and so ensnare.

How are we to detect all this? First, the believer must be set in heaven, not in body but in spirit, in the presence of God Himself. It was not so with the Jew. God was, so to speak, not then revealed in His full estimate of good and evil; but now the Holiest of all is open. The veil is rent. "The true light now shineth." There is nothing between us and God. Nothing will do that cannot stand in the light of His holiness. There were many things before which God did not approve, but which he permitted (see Mark 10: 5), but when Christ died, the full light of God was revealed. In Him divine goodness made its brightest exhibition in the world, displaying itself in all grace. The death of Christ was the expression of man's deliberate hatred to God. The full evil of the world and the full grace of God both came out at the cross; here God's perfect love was shown. The case of man before God since the death and resurrection of Christ, is, that if man stand before God at all, he must stand in the full light of His holiness. It shone out in the absolute putting away of sin, and that by the worst act of man's sin. Trusting to the perfect work of Christ, the more the searching eye of God rests upon me, the more does He discover the perfect value of the blood of Christ. The clearer the light, the more it is to show that not a spot is on me. He sees the efficacy of the blood of His own provided Lamb — His own Son — in putting sin away. The same light that detects it, manifests its being utterly put away, yea, has burst forth and shone in the putting of it away. J. N. D.

A Saviour in Glory

What wondrous tale of love and grace,

Faith readeth in the Saviour's face

Enthroned in glory now!

Things hidden from the curious ear

That hung upon His words down here,

Shine there upon His brow.

Yea, blessed One, we see Thee there,

The Victor's crown is resting where

Once press'd the crown of thorn;

Centre and Sun of heaven art Thou,

Who once beneath its wrath did bow,

God's wrath, and human scorn.

'Tis joy to know Thy travail done

Rememb'ring all Thy blood hath won

In righteousness divine,

Thy happy saints look up and praise,

Words fail us fitting song to raise,

For such a love as Thine.

But we can dwell within the bright

Unhinder'd cloudless glory light,

That shineth down from God,

And call to fellow-sinners round

To taste the blessing we have found —

Fruit of that toil and blood.

Oh! 'tis a wondrous blessed tale

That breaks upon earth's trouble wail,

Points rebel souls to heaven:

Tells them the King upon His throne

Loves them — can have them for His own

In righteousness forgiven.

Then tell the wonder through the earth

In homes of sorrow, halls of mirth,

A Saviour in the glory —

Yea, sound it in the deaden'd ears

Of travellers through this vale of tears,

That men may hear the story.

"Who is on Our Side — Who?"

Romans 8: 31-39.

In the ward of a city hospital lay a young man, whose emaciated form and pallidly-worn face spoke of days and months of suffering. Yet there was a peaceful, quiet, calm expression in the features of this child of pain. As the hour of release drew near — for death was evidently at hand — the question was put, What about your peace? Without the slightest hesitation, the answer came from the lips that were soon to be hushed in the silence of death, "Oh, sir, I have got peace; sure God is for me." It often struck me since how significant was such testimony from one who did not seem to have the least joy — indeed, he often said that perpetual suffering left him bereft of everything but his peace. It is a grand point, dear reader, to have the feet on such ground. "God is for me" — and, indeed, where redemption is fully underneath the soul, what other conclusion can we arrive at? It is the grand conclusion of the doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans. "If [or since] God be for us, who can be against us?" What do I see in God's giving His Son? I see God for me. What do I see in God's forsaking Christ? (Why hast Thou forsaken Me?) I see God for me. What do I hear in that cry, "My God, my God"? I hear the words — God is for me; and how plainly I see it and hear it in Him, who went down into the judgment, endured the whole of divine wrath against sin, rose again, the Head of a new creation, and announces that peace which He had made in His cross, in those words, "Peace be unto you." It is a wonderful rest to the heart to find out after all our natural misgivings, after all Satan's lies, God is for us; it is a tower of strength which is invincible; it is a fortress which never yet was taken. "God for us." Reader, do you hesitate about it? Do you question it? Listen to how God Himself pleads the truth of it with you: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all" — it is a simple, undeniable, convincing fact. "He spared not his own Son." Do you remember the scene of Genesis 22, where the faith of Abraham is tested, and rises to the claims and demands of God? Do you remember how every word expressing the demand of God upon him, must have penetrated to the quick the soul of the Father? "Take now thy son," not only so, but "thine only son Isaac," and not only so, "but whom thou lovest." As if God had said, I ask you to break the tenderest link, the dearest tie and bond you have, destroy your connection with the promise (in Isaac shall thy seed be called). And do you remember what the testimony of God from heaven was concerning the faith that rose triumphant above everything to God Himself? "Now I know," says God, "thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." And, reader, has not that same God put like words into your mouth? For standing on the resurrection side of the cross, with death, judgment, and hell behind you, gazing by faith on Him who once hung bearing the judgment on that cross, on Him who there, by His death, not only established divine righteousness, but also the ground of relationship with His Father, now our Father — I say do not these words spring up from the moved depths of your soul: now I know God is for me, seeing He has not withheld His Son, His only Son, from me? W. T. T.

The Lord Jesus in Moses, the Prophets, and all the Scriptures

Luke 24: 27.

How blessed to have Himself thus brought before the soul, and that, too, by Himself! What a scene the above must have been, the Lord Jesus showing Himself in Moses, all the prophets, and the scriptures! Is not the Holy Ghost here for this very purpose now? Come, then, aside for a little from the vain strife and contentions of this hour, and see if He will not recall scattered thoughts and confused minds from all else, and present an object that is worthy — oh, how worthy! — of our entire occupation, adoration, and praise. The Lord help us while we search the scriptures for "the things concerning himself."

It is impossible not to observe the prominence which that one word Himself has all through scripture: for instance, if I think of the cross, and all connected with it; of the love of God, the righteousness of God, or of that which necessitated the death of the Son of God; if a fallen guilty rebel like man was ever to be reconciled and saved, how do I find it brought before me? Is it not the presentation of that blessed One Himself, whose love carried Him into death, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death? and so it is that we read such words as "who gave himself for our sins." (Gal. 1: 4.)

"Gave himself for me." (Gal. 2: 20.)

"Who gave himself a ransom for all." (1 Tim. 2: 6.)

"When he had by himself purged our sins." (Heb. 1: 3.)

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree . . . . by whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2: 24.) Do you not observe how Himself is the centre of it all? Oh, how blessedly special and particular the Spirit of God is! — it is not the benefit, but the blessed Benefactor Himself; it is "His own self," "His own body," "His stripes!" What language most suits such as you and me in the presence of Himself so presented? Is it not "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing?"

Again: If I think of the resurrection, and all connected therewith and proclaimed thereby, the perfection of the atoning work of Himself, and the proclaimed vindication of righteousness established in the cross of Himself, how do I find it brought before me? It is the Person still and not the fact. "He is not here, for he is risen." (Matt. 28: 6.)

"The Lord is risen indeed." (Luke 24: 34.)

"Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again." (Rom. 8: 34.)

"Now is Christ risen from the dead." (1 Cor. 15: 20.) "Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God." (1 Peter 1: 21.) Such is the way Himself risen from the dead is presented in the word of God; but look how the Lord Jesus announces this wondrous fact to His disciples. To them His death had been as the blighting of every hope and the scattering of every prospect; if in His death their hopes had died, they buried them in His grave, never, as they thought, to rise again; and when tidings of His being risen reached them, carried by the women who visited the sepulchre very early in the morning, the first day of the week, it seemed to the disciples as idle tales, and they believed them not; consequently when He Himself, the risen One, appears, fear and terror seize their hearts: resurrection they may have treated as an idle tale, but now the One who is the resurrection is before them. What a subject! Oh, the grace, the tenderness of the Lord Jesus! How does He reassure their hearts? How does He restore confidence? "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself." It is Himself again; "He showed them his hands and his feet," and joy takes the place of fear and dismay. Is that all? Is it only joy? "They worshipped him with great joy." (Luke 24: 52.) But now observe, further, He has gone away from earth — "He is not here;" what a blank! Alas, that it is not more felt and realised! We are here in a hostile scene, amid the descendants of those who crucified as well as themselves rejecters of Himself: has He left us orphans? Do we not know that if faith follows Him into the heavens, and beholds Him highly exalted there, faith also follows the Holy Ghost sent forth from the heavens, to connect us here with Himself there in glory? Do I call those who are united by the Holy Ghost to Christ in glory, orphans? Do I call them for whom Himself is now preparing a place in the heavens, orphans? And is that orphanage whose prospect is this: "I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also? "But do you not observe that it is Himself that is all? "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." (2 Cor. 9: 15.) W. T. T.

The Lord hath Triumphed Gloriously

On resurrection ground I stand,

Where death and judgment roll between

My soul and that dark dismal land,

Where once my life and hopes had been;

Those floods which fill'd me with alarm,

My every foe doth now disarm.

The Lord hath triumph'd gloriously;

The horse and rider, where are they?

Engulf'd beneath a surging sea,

Which rolling back bars up the way;

No foe can reach me in this place,

Nor yet can I my steps retrace.

A Man of war, Jehovah is,

And He hath triumph'd gloriously;

His strength is mine, my foes are His,

Who then, my soul, can harm thee?

Thus shelter'd by the sprinkled blood,

On eagle's wings I'm brought to God.

Redeem'd by blood, redeem'd by power,

Farewell to Egypt's dark abode;

I press me onward to that hour

When, face to face, I'll see my God;

And then my theme shall ever be,

"The Lord hath triumph'd gloriously."

"God was in Christ"

2 Corinthians 5.

There are two great aspects of the gospel in this chapter, first, That to which we are called, and for which we are made fit; second, The testimony God has brought out of sin in us, and Christ's work meeting it. It is good to apprehend what the calling of God is, in order to know what is needed to be in it. There is no reconciliation of the old thing as such, but complete reconciliation in the new man. The judgment of man is pronounced, "now is the judgment of this world." God's dealings with man in the flesh are over, the flesh is set aside for ever. In the new state of things brought in by Christ in resurrection, "all things are of God." As to the body we are not in it yet, therefore it is good to be "absent from the body and present with the Lord." The moment we get hold of our calling "to his kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 2: 12), we are brought into the presence of God, He is also enabling the soul to apprehend the glory. It sees that a work entirely of God must be done in order that man may enter glory. Could you put yourself into Christ's glory? "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God." The presence of God revealed to the soul, gives true thorough conviction of sin. It does not mind what man thinks, because it knows what God thinks. Sin is a shameful thing, but the presence of God produces thoughts that are beyond shame. The moment the soul is before God, it hates, judges sin, cannot think of hiding it, would rather be in truth before God" there is truth in the inward parts; "shame before man leads to the concealment of sin. God's true light manifests everything, but when the heart is set right, it takes God's side against sin — there is forgiveness; all is right when looking at what we are in the presence of God. We are called to "God's kingdom and glory" to be conformed to the image of His Son. We have a life; divine glory belongs to that life. It is God that justifies. He says that is right in my eyes, God Himself pronounces. That is what I want; this full blessed justification connects itself with glory: "Whom he justified them he also glorified." "We wait for the hope of righteousness." (Gal. 5: 5.) This is what God is calling us into in Christ. That which is announced in the gospel is Christ as man is in divine glory. It is "the gospel of the glory of Christ." That has been done which has put man into the glory of God. This new thing is man, the centre of all the glory of God. It will be accomplished of course in Christ by-and-by, "that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth" — or as it is expressed in Revelation, "the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." It is to this glory of Christ we are called. It shines in upon the soul. Are you fit for this glory? If not, what are you fit for? You can't stay here on earth for ever. Where are you going? If not into the light it must be into the darkness, that is opposite to it. There is no medium. We have this in the parable of the king's son — Jesus had spoken of seeking fruit before; now He is speaking of grace that seeks nothing, it is a feast prepared. Those bidden are from the highways and hedges, and no matter what they were before, but they must have the wedding garment. The prodigal must have the best robe to enter the house — he must be suited to the house. Have you, my reader, got that? We see what the calling is; can you say, "I have got what is fit for the glory I am going into"?

You may be getting it, the Lord leading you into it, but without it what are you fit for? you must either be outside or with the wedding garment inside. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." Did He not suit Himself to all to win their hearts? He came with the invitation to turn back to God; but no — they would not: for His love He got hatred — terrible witness of man's entire ruin — he is dead: alive indeed for himself and for his fellow-men, but there is no movement of his heart toward God. "He came to his own and his own received him not." Yet in Christ there is perfect love — no reproach. Paul saw the terribleness of the judgment and set about to persuade men. The love of Christ is still pressing upon men the truth that we are dead: the link between man and God is broken and cannot be formed again. Does the cross say, "Christ had set the world right"? "One died for all," unspeakable love, "then were all dead." Has your soul been brought to the conviction, "that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing"?

Could you say you would not have put Christ to death? Could you say, "He would not have died for me, He might have helped me, purified me"? If not, then you must say, "I am dead, lost, I have no link in heart with God!" The old creation is a judged condemned thing — you as children of Adam belong to it; the question is, whether you get out of it? Man has emancipated himself from God; what infidelity does, is, justify and proclaim the fact: set up and cultivate man's will. Cain began this world without God. He went and built a city and called it by his son's name. They had instruments of music artificers there — all to make the world a pleasant place without God; and that is what man is doing still. He says it is with the faculties God has given — true: but what is the moral state of man's heart? Is he not away from God? Jesus came "to seek and to save that which was lost." I do not ask whether you recognise yourself as wicked, but whether you see yourself to be lost — dead? By nature we reject Christ, all our thoughts cluster round self. We prefer pleasure — everything in the world, our own will — to Christ. This is the condition of all naturally, was the condition of every one of us, but the One who was not dead, who was acceptable to God, the only One who could be, who was made sin for us. He stood in our place. He, the Holy Blessed One, was made sin. The quickening power of God shows us sin, but we see the whole thing closed on the cross. I see what flesh is, it crucified Christ — but I am not in it any longer, I belong to the new creation; I am in Christ, who is my righteousness, and gives me the title to enter in. We find the calling into God's kingdom and glory. We see the veil rent, and Christ is within as man, and in getting there, He has put away all that we were in the flesh. We have to contend with the flesh daily as an enemy, but as to our standing before God it is ended. In Christ we have entered into the new place: "you hath he reconciled." (Col. 1: 21.) There is not a thing left between me and God. We are brought into the glory of God. We wait for it indeed as to our bodies, and He has given us the earnest of the Spirit. We have the reconciliation — reconciliation to what? to God. He did it according to what God is, and we must judge sin according to what God is. When do we know it? now by faith; but we cannot receive it, till we have judged darkness to be darkness. God says, "where is My Son?" The world must plead guilty of His death; it saw no beauty in Christ, and now prefers pleasure, dress, money, science, anything to Him. I may have to learn a great deal, to go through much conflict, but if I belong to Christ, I am reconciled to God. "The love of Christ constraineth us" — is the ground of all our walk. You may have been living to yourself; it may have been very decently, none of what the world calls great sins, but there are plenty of decent enemies of God, and will reputation stand in the judgment? A Christian cannot live to himself in purpose, but are you living to yourself in practice ? You may say you are occupied in innocent things, but nothing can be innocent away from God. Have you judged yourself as belonging to a world that has rejected Christ? We have to leave it in detail — the flesh continually showing itself in unexpected ways. But God has condemned sin in the flesh. He forgives sins, but the state He has condemned, not forgiven. Have you known Him, made sin and yourself the righteousness of God in Him? Can you say, I am reconciled to God, brought back to Him? Can you say, I am glad to know all about my sin, "search me O Lord, and try my heart?" J. N. D.

"The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"

Acts 7: 55-60.

These verses bring the cross pointedly before the soul. Many have read them and have never seen it; many read them still and do not see it. There are two new facts found here, which the cross and the cross alone can explain. The glory of God and the inability of man on earth even to look on it are old facts; a man in the glory of God, there too as alive out of death, the death by which He glorified God and made atonement for sin, and a man on earth having in consequence a title and a capacity to look at it steadfastly, are the new things found here. If we turn for a little to Isaiah 6 there the glory of God carried terror and conviction and self-judgment into the breast of a real prophet of God, verse 5. "Woe is me for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." As if he said, prophet and people are exposed before Him, and I have no standing ground; and because of what he is, a provision is made as in verses 6, 7 . . . . Again the same with Ezekiel, as he tells us in chapter 1 of his prophecy, and after describing it says, in verse 28 — "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake." There is no sense of a title whatever, he falls down on his face, he cannot stand, there is no place for him to stand on, therefore his falling on his face only expresses his moral standing or condition. I turn to Daniel and I find the same with him, "a man greatly beloved" as he was, yet when he saw, he tells us, "there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words; and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground. And behold an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees, and upon the palms of my hands." (Chap. 10: 7-9.)

Is not this all very striking? Each of these servants of God, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, in themselves declaring their unfitness, as well as their sense of it, when in the presence of the glory of God; and let me draw especial attention to this one point, with each and all of them, it is not a question for an instant of what they had done, but of what they were, and this as told out to themselves by the glory of God.

Now, in striking contrast with all this, I find in Acts 7 that Stephen, not overtaken or surprised by the glory of God, so that he falls on his face, and says, "woe is me," but full of the Holy Ghost, he himself looks up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; there is no fear or terror, either with regard to what he sees in heaven, or to what is going on round about him on earth! What a wonderful sight, a poor weak lonely man as he is, able to look steadfastly at the glory of God, and able patiently to endure the murderous hatred of men. Will you, my reader, say wherein consists Stephen's power as compared with the inability of the prophets of old? One word will answer the question, namely, the CROSS — that Jesus, whom Stephen saw in the glory of God, had on the cross borne all the wrath of God against sin, and had so fully and perfectly glorified God, that God had glorified Him; Himself had said so, "If God be glorified in him, God shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." (John 13: 32.) And scripture now bears testimony to the fact, namely, "raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father." (Rom. 6: 4.) . . . . "God who raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory." (1 Peter 1: 21.) Stephen sees in the glory of God then, his Saviour; He, that same Blessed One, who had been on the cross bearing the judgment, and in that hour had been forsaken of God, is now seen by Stephen in the glory of God; the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, was that by which Stephen had a righteous title to look at, what could but repel previous to the death of Christ; and it was from Jesus glorified, that blessed Spirit came down, who now turned Stephen's eye up. Such then is the divine fulness of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who once was there crucified by man now lives in power, glorified out of the place He took as the substitute of His people, and they have in virtue of His death a righteous title, and through the Holy Ghost a power to look up steadfastly into heaven.

"The Person of the Christ,

Enfolding every grace;

Once slain, but now alive again,

In heaven demands our praise."

"Oh fix our earnest gaze,

So wholly, Lord, on Thee;

That with Thy beauty occupied,

We elsewhere none may see." — W. T. T.

"The Conscience and the Heart"

John 4.

How the Lord shows in John 4, that conscience is the inlet to intelligence in divine things! and thus the heart becomes engaged. Rejected and driven out from Judea, He sat weary on the well of Sychar. A woman lonely (it was not the hour when women go forth to draw water) and weary with sin, evidently a strong and ardent nature that had sought happiness with eager pursuit, and sunk through it into sin, and had not found rest to her spirit (how many such there are in the world!) dragged on a life of toil, and in the midst of it, thought sometimes on Gerizim and Jerusalem, and knew there was a Messiah to come. There might be happiness and rest somewhere; she had none. Toil and weariness she had, and the last, evidently in spirit as well as body. Jesus had toil and weariness too, but through love, not through sin, save the sin of others, and this could not weary love, and He knew where rest was — He was it. The Son of God, the judge of all, had, humanly speaking, put Himself in a position where He was debtor to this woman for a drink of cold water. But He soon draws her out; He speaks of the gift of God, of a well of water springing up into everlasting life. All was dark in the Samaritan woman's mind. She moved in the circle of her own weariness; thus she felt the fruit of her sin and toil after happiness, and with all the moving within that predominated and filled her mind; for in fact, what had she else? What does the Lord do? "Go call thy husband and come hither." "I have no husband." "Thou hast well said," replied the Lord, "I have no husband; thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that speakest thou truly."

Now, a ray of light breaks in, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." The word of God by the Lord had divine authority in her heart, because it has reached her conscience. She has found a man who has told her all that ever she did. Who knew that? The prophet's words had divine authority. Yet she does not yet get to wells of water. The divine com munications made to her were quite unintelligible; but much was done. He who knew all her life, all her sin, had been sitting in grace by her, willing to be helped by her. Grace was there as well as truth. She had found the Christ, and leaves her water-pot and her care with it, and becomes a messenger of that which is good news for all. Gerizim and Jerusalem are all alike, and alike nothing. The Father is seeking worshippers in spirit and in truth. — (Extracted.)

"The Jailer Liberated"

"And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, do thyself no harm; for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Acts 16.)

"The Glory of that Light"

I was journeying in the noon-tide,

When His light shone o'er my road;

And I saw Him in that glory —

Saw Him, Jesus, Son of God.

All around in noon-day splendour,

Earthly scenes lay fair and bright;

But my eyes no longer see them,

For the glory of that light.

Others in the summer sunshine,

Wearily may journey on;

I have seen a light from heaven,

Past the brightness of the sun.

Light that knows no cloud, no waning —

Light wherein I see His face;

All His love's uncounted treasures —

All the riches of His grace.

All the wonders of His glory,

Deeper wonders of His love;

How for me He won, He keepeth,

That high place in heaven above.

Not a glimpse the veil uplifted —

But within the veil to dwell,

Gazing on His face for ever,

Hearing words unspeakable.

Marvel not that Christ in glory,

All my inmost heart hath won;

Not a star to cheer my darkness,

But a light beyond the sun.

All below lies dark and shadow'd,

Nothing there to claim my heart,

Save the lonely track of sorrow,

Where of old He walk'd apart.

I have seen the face of Jesus,

Tell me not of aught beside;

I have heard the voice of Jesus,

All my soul is satisfied.

In the radiance of the glory

First, I saw His blessed face —

And for ever shall that glory

Be my home, my dwelling place.

Sinners! it was not to angels

All this wondrous love was given,

But to one who scorn'd, despised Him;

Scorn'd and hated Christ in heaven,

From the lowest depths of evil,

To the throne in heaven above;

Thus in me He told the measure

Of His free, unbounded love.

(Voice to the Faithful, Vol. 3.)

The Prodigal's Reception

In Luke 15: 11-24, the blessed Son, here on earth, is telling out the nature of the Father's love. It is a parable of the Father's feelings about a prodigal son. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only knew the extent of our ruin, and He only knew the love that is in the heart of God. These two things were known to Him alone. There is no use in a person going to pay a debt unless he knows the amount of it. This blessed One came to bear our sins, to put Himself under the whole judgment that was on us, and to declare the love of God. Nothing can be more wonderful than this. The Son of God comes into this world, knowing the whole extent of our offence against God, and suffers for it. He only knows the heart of God, and He declares it to us. I may see that I have offended a person, but I must be in that person's mind in order to know how he estimates and feels the offence. Christ knows this, and suffered for it. A sinner could not know what Christ endured, because he never knew the countenance of God. The One who best knew that countenance could tell of the terrible agony it was to have it hidden.

Man's sin began with distrust of God. Satan came into the garden of Eden. And there in that wonderful group of divine mercies the doubt of God's love was engendered in the heart of man. Satan suggested to Eve that the reason God would not allow her to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was because it would advance her position. He poisoned her mind with the thought that man could do better for himself than God would do, and thus Satan gave man an evil idea of God. Then Christ comes to declare God, to vindicate Him whom Satan has maligned. What delight it was to Christ to tell out the heart of God to a returning prodigal here on earth, to a thief on the cross, to a Saul of Tarsus, to bring the saved one into the sphere of the Father's delight! Christ was beside the thief upon the cross, to disclose to him the heart which Satan had maligned.

In this parable (Luke 15) it is the Father's way of receiving back the prodigal. Who unfolds it? His own Son, the only One who could. The prodigal is not a person who has fallen from grace. It was not grace he squandered. Not one single thing of what he squandered was restored to him. What he gets is all new. His first thought is that there is bread enough and to spare in his father's house. He is thinking of WHAT IS IN GOD for him, and that is faith. It is the beginning of all blessing. Thus we see the point of departure is the point of recovery. In the garden of Eden the point of man's departure was distrust of God. To count on God is faith, and that is the point of recovery. If I think a friend who has power will not use his power on my behalf, I think worse of that friend than if I know he has no power to do anything for me. The point of man's recovery is to believe in God's nature — that He is love.

Dear reader, have you still Satan's opinion of God? It is terrible to think that by nature we as sinners are lost, because we hold to Satan's opinion of God. What a fearful thing to be going about the world with Satan's thought of God! Now, to have the best opinion of God is what His own blessed Son teaches me, and to receive it is faith. Faith is — that I reckon, not on what is in me, but on what is in God. The moment you turn to Christ you see that there is love in God. When the prodigal was yet a great way off his father saw him, and had compassion on him, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The vagrant son is surprised; yes, at every step is a surprise, so great, so unexpected, the love that met him. The Father first greets him with a kiss — the figure of that which was accomplished when Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, was saluted by Jesus from the glory. The prodigal never thought he would be kissed. No more did Saul of Tarsus think a light above the brightness of the sun would shine upon him, and Jesus appear to him. I give God credit for His love; I have faith and He surprises me. The moment you trust Him He surprises you. He tells you you have touched a reality that is beyond all measure. The prodigal comes back from necessity, but the Father, in His love, runs to meet him. The kiss is the intimation of the love of God. It is an immense thing to know what God is. God is love. Two things Christ came to do — the one to suffer for our sins, the other to tell out the Father's joy in being able to receive into His own sphere the poor returning wanderer. Oh what delight to learn it! I must let love have its way. The greatest favour you can render love is that you answer to it; the greatest pain is not to value it. Confidence builds on the feelings that I know exist in another; presumption is acting from my own feelings; nothing gratifies the heart that truly loves me more than confiding in it. Confidence is greater than devotion. It is a greater thing to know that Christ gave Himself for me than that I would give all for Him. Nothing love likes so well as to get credit for its existence. Therefore God commends His love towards us, "in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

The defect in souls is the making their necessity the measure of God's grace. "But when yet he was a great way off his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." When kissed, he exclaims "I am not worthy," and then a fresh expression of love comes out to meet that distress. Again he is surprised, and now completely silenced. The Father says, "bring forth the best robe and put it on him." He is not to carry relics of the far country into the Father's dwelling-place. "Bring forth the BEST robe." Invest him with new and beautiful garments. Declare him in every way fit to come into the Father's house! He must enter in all the consciousness of his welcome, and of his meetness, too. The robe is brought to him from within the house. It confers on him a new condition; we now put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man. Many a one says, "I am a poor unworthy creature." Have you the best robe on? If you have you are in a new condition, you can say, "I am a magnificent creature, one of the very highest order; an order above angels, so that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren." You are "a man in Christ." Is that a poor, miserable creature? "Oh," you say, "we are all sinners." True, the old man is all sin, hence it is the new man that I have to think of, and of the Father who has made us meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Then we read "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." All the counsels of God open out to me. "Filled with all the fulness of God." What a wonderful condition!

"Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet." He is not to be like Moses, who was told to take off his shoes in the presence of God. No, the prodigal is to have shoes put on; he is to be thoroughly at home in his Father's sphere, and he enters it in the condition suitable to the position. All feelings of unfitness are corrected — love is never satisfied until it does its utmost for its object. If I want to do anything for one I love, I do the best I can — that is the way divine love acts.

There are three things that the prodigal receives —

1, The kiss, a known communication of the father's love.

2, The investing — robe, and ring, and shoes, the new condition suited to enjoy the love of the Father and His things, without which you could not feel yourself at home.

3, The fatted calf — the thing reserved. "Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."

The greater the depth to which God goes down in mercy, the greater the height to which His grace will rise. If God has cleared the ground, He occupies it. The fatted calf does not set forth the sacrifice of Christ. The wanderer has been already received; the best robe is already on him. The fatted calf is the sphere of delight in which God places the saved one. He is brought back, not only kissed, but in a new condition; a new creature now brought into the circle of God's festivities. The figure made use of is that of a great entertainment; the fatted calf is something reserved until a special occasion should arise. The sinner saved by grace is brought into the fullest expression of what God is in His love. "Eye hath not seen it," Isaiah says, "but God hath revealed it unto us by his Spirit." It is the love of the Father made known to the soul while here. The secret of God is made known to the one saved by grace. The wanderer is brought to know what before had been hidden in God. Survey it! May we set our hearts on it. May the world see in us a living representation of what is described in this scripture. It is the joy of the saint that arouses the sinner here on earth. Nothing has such weight with others as seeing that "I have a joy beyond anything they know." "They began to be merry!" That is the last we hear of this scene. It is rejoicing with God; delight in the greatest thing He had to give. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." What a delight to the Lord Jesus Christ, to come forth to me here on earth and tell out what is in a Father's heart for me — a returning prodigal! J. B. S.

"He Died for Me"

A gentleman, while travelling lately in the Southern States of America, came to a place where there was a newly-made grave. Bending over it was a man planting flowers, which as he set them in a new-turned soil, he watered with his tears. After observing him for a time, and noticing his deep sorrow, the traveller said, "I suppose you are mourning over the grave of a wife?" "No," replied the man, "I have not lost my wife." "Perhaps," said the traveller, "your tears water the tomb of a much loved child?" "No," repeated the mourner, "I have lost neither wife nor child." "May I ask then," said the traveller, "whose death it is that causes you so much sorrow?"

"I plant these flowers, and shed these tears for one who died for me," said the mourner. "I was called to serve as a soldier in the late war. I had a wife and children, who would be left uncared for if I fell. My friend came forward; he said, 'I have no wife and children — I will go instead of you.' He did so, and was wounded on the battle-field. Hearing that he was lying in hospital in a dangerous state, I came to see him, but came only in time to find him in his grave. He lies buried here. He has gone down into the tomb for me, and I plant these flowers and water them with my tears in remembrance of him."

The mourner afterwards had a tombstone set up on the grave, and upon it was carved the simple but touching sentence —

"He Died for Me" — (Extracted.)

I suppose there are few who would not be affected by this touching story, but, reader, how few there are who have been touched by that which is far more wonderful, more touching: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;" but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, laid down His life for His enemies; "if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son," &c. He died for us to make us His friends. Can you say, reader, you are one whom He has won for Himself; can you say He died for me? and not only died for me, but lives at God's right hand for evermore for me; and can you say, in Him, I have died out of the state or condition in which, as a child of Adam, I was born, and I now live in Him the risen one, and am one with Him the glorified one? W. T. T.

"Received"

This is Thy love, my God!

Joy never-ending I, in Thee begin!

Thou sawest me, afar from Thine abode!

Thou hadst compassion! Thou hast brought me in!

It was one great surprise

Along the way, beneath that noonday sun

Since first I falter'd forth "I will arise!"

And groan'd: "I am not fit to be a son."

Rapt to my Father's heart —

I felt His kiss, ere I could speak my shame:

Love, acting out its own amazing part —

Me, in my guilt, my ruin, overcame.

Thou didst provide the Robe!

Didst tell Thy servants to bring forth the best,

The ring, the shoes, Thy gift upon the road,

Prepared me, home-returning, for Thy Rest.

Oh, it is holy ground!

Nought that defiles can ever touch me more.

Thy lost one, once the prodigal, is FOUND.

My distrust, the Famine time, is o'er.

Now is the Banquet spread;

The fatted calf, reserved for me, is kill'd;

I — perishing erewhile for want of bread,

Sit at Thy Feast: my cup by Thee o'erfill'd.

Thy Festival I share!

Where guests, at home in all Thine own delight,

With symphonies, with choral dance, declare

THEE in Thy grace, Thy glory — LOVE and LIGHT!

"Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first-begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth — unto him that loves us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen." — Rev. 1: 5, 6. W.T.T.

Jordan: or Death Abolished

The passage of Jordan was the fulfilment of the purpose of God announced to Moses (Ex. 3) — that He had come down to deliver His people out of Egypt, and to bring them to a good land, and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey.

It is a great thing to tell a person who is in sorrow because of conscious distance from God, God "gave his Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" — and that His purpose towards us is that this should be known distinctly now while we are on earth. Many put it off to a future day, but scripture sets forth to us that the favour of God is to be known now, and known best where it is most needed. "God commendeth his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It is not a question of your purpose, but of God's purpose, and Christ has come to carry out that purpose. He says, "Lo I come to do thy will," and He announces to us the delight of the Father's heart in the reception of a returning prodigal. The prodigal may say, "It is too great," and so it is; but Christ's work must not be measured by the need of the sinner, but by the purpose of God.

Look at the poor captives in Egypt. The living God addresses Moses — (type of Christ) — and says, "I know their sorrows." I know how they suffer in their iron bondage, and I am come to deliver them. Let the soul think of that, and ask, — Is that God's thought about me? Does God know my sorrow? Is that His purpose towards me? And who has carried out His purpose? God's Son has carried it out. The last barrier is gone, Jordan is crossed — death is passed, not merely as to my future safety, but an open way is made for me through death, and the soul is brought through grace into the knowledge of the place of rest which God has secured for us in Christ — "a land flowing with milk and honey." Canaan was a figure of the place in which we are now set in Christ.

The Israelites passed the Red Sea, and saw there the death of their enemies. But Jordan had still to be crossed. Jordan is a figure of our dying with Christ. Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness, because they would not go up and possess the land, and, instead of getting in as Abram and Caleb did, without crossing Jordan, they were to pass through the deepest part of it; but there is a way made for them through it. Now, what this type sets forth to me is, that a way through death is accomplished for me according to the mind of God, and which sets me on heavenly ground. The law was weak through the flesh, but, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Christ has died for me, and opened a way out of the ruin of myself.

Jordan was the last barrier in the way of the blessing God would bring His people to, and in Joshua 3 we read, "When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go, for ye have not passed this way heretofore," and "as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, the water which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap and the priests that bare the ark of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan." There is a clear and perfect way for the people through the waters, and Joshua calls them to come and survey what has been done. The thing presented to faith is, that the work is accomplished. Christ the true Ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth has gone down to death for us. Before leaving the world He says, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life." Christ has made the way thoroughly open, and if you do not enjoy it, it is because you are not looking at Him. "To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." It is a simple thing, when the soul looks at Him, it is taken up with Him. Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus; the thief on the cross is occupied with Him; the woman in the Pharisee's house came to Him; Saul of Tarsus is overwhelmed with the glory and brightness of a light above the sun, and the only relief to his heart is, that he finds Jesus is in the glory.

If I want to learn what is accomplished, I learn it by seeing the Accomplisher.

It is not that the way will open when you come to it. If a soul does not see that it is open, he does not see how God has dealt with him, and he fears to approach death; he is standing, as the hymn says, "shivering on the brink, and fears to launch away;" but if his eye is on the Ark, he sees the way open, and it is known as definitely to him now on earth, as it was to Saul of Tarsus, or to Stephen. There is not a single barrier on God's side between me and the throne of God. My own self stands in the way, if I have not died with Christ, and am free from judgment; but scripture says I am dead with Him; if not, I could not get to this place of rest! If you say the way is not open till you die, you do not believe that it is open now; you think something has not been accomplished by Christ's death — you do not regard Him as the perfect accomplisher. Perhaps you say, "I am not afraid of judgment, but I fear death — the breaking up of the body." Then you do not see the way through death. Stephen sees the way clear up to glory. Did Stephen make the way? "No, Jesus made it; and if so, death is no king of terrors for him; he can say, if they kill me, I go straight to glory; if I die, the way is open;" and he suffers the most bitter death that ever man was exposed to, without a murmur; on the contrary, he prays for those who inflict the suffering.

The gospel is not merely to deliver us from Egypt; the gospel is the good tidings that God brings us to His own ground — to Himself, where we can rest in the enjoyment of His eternal love, and are set up in the power of Christ, to sustain us here on earth.

You will never really get rest to your soul till you see the wondrous purpose in the heart of God toward you — that out of His own love He sent His Son; He found a Person who was perfectly adequate to carry out every item of that purpose. When you see this you magnify the One who has removed every barrier; He becomes the distinct commanding object of the heart, and you can say with one of old, "My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

The Lord alone can make the soul comprehend the goodness of His grace, but as the eye turns to Him, it sees by faith all He has accomplished. J. B. S.

A Word to Anxious Ones

Romans 15: 13.

This paper is addressed to any who are exercised as to their state before God, but who have not settled peace, and the abiding consciousness that their sins are for ever put away. Beloved reader, if not as yet happy in Christ, be now intreated to rest on His finished work, otherwise you practically deny that His precious blood was shed for you, and thus you dishonour Him.

We seek to point you to a RISEN CHRIST. Why risen? This is most important. Read carefully Romans 6: 3 and 11. Christ was made "sin" for us. (2 Cor. 5: 21.) Having thus, as a sin-bearer, been "smitten of God" (Isaiah 53: 4), and forsaken on the cross (Mark 15: 34), He was buried. Sin was thus put away out of God's sight. But having no sin in Him (Heb. 4: 15) the grave could not hold Him, and He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. (Rom. 6: 4.) See also 1 Corinthians 6: 14.

He who was thus made "sin" and "a curse" was raised again (having perfectly glorified God) for our justification. (Rom. 4: 25.) And by Him all that believe are justified from all things. (Acts 13: 39.)

The fact of the Lord having been raised again is a proof that God's claims of justice have been met, and thus he can righteously express to us all His love! (Luke 12: 50.)

Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. (1 Cor. 1: 30.) Thus, it is not what the sinner is, but what Christ is for him, and the believer, being in Christ, is spotless before God. (Col. 2: 10.) He is our life. (Col. 3: 3, 4.) From this the reader will see that it is of the utmost importance to have right views regarding what is meant by a "risen Saviour."

People often look for the witness of the Holy Ghost in them whilst they have not believed the witness of the Holy Ghost to them. (See 1 John 5: 9-13, and Heb. 10: 15.) Satan would have us occupied with our hearts of unbelief, looking at our failures and feelings, thus depriving us of peace. Instead of being thus occupied with our wretched evil natures, we should be occupied with Him who is our life.

The reader is entreated to look out — not in. Thus are we enabled to live unto Him who died for us and rose again. (2 Cor. 5: 15.) One look of faith at a risen Saviour, and the sinner passes from death unto life. (John 5: 24.) Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Heb. 11: 6.) Dear reader, do not doubt God's love. Has He not proved it? Did He not give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth should not perish, but have everlasting life? (John 3: 16; see also John 3: 36.) Oh! why so much doubt and distrust of God's love, grace, and mercy? Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child he shall not enter therein. (Mark 10: 15.) Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6: 37.) Again, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely." (Rev. 22: 17.) Again, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11: 28.)

Anxious, troubled one, COME! Now is the day of grace. (2 Cor. 6: 1, 2.) To-day, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. (Heb. 3: 7, 8.) "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. 2: 3.) The night is far spent. (See also Peter 3: 9.) "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4: 14.) And yet again, "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7: 38.) How frequently the Lord says in the gospel: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!" "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they SHALL NEVER PERISH." (John 10: 27, 28.)

The reader is earnestly requested to read all the texts referred to: those given wholly as well as those given partially. (John 5: 40.)

"Peace with God"

I feel that God has given me, since I returned from R— the time before last, a great lift in the deeper understanding and enjoyment in the Spirit of His grace. Chiefly through seeing the fearful dishonour of not making Christ all my salvation, so as to joy in Him at all times as Saviour; for if I am not doing so, I am casting discredit on His blood, and denying its value before God, as far as in me lies. This is a most subtle evil; and one that nothing but the mighty power of God can detect and make present to the soul, so that it should not have one rag to cover it, except filthy ones; and not one good thought of even the whole past life, to commend it before God; but naked, be compelled to receive all in Christ as a gift; to receive the kingdom of God as a little child. Our dear A— did nothing to get this place. No more can we. "Ah! but —" But what? "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." (Luke 18: 17.) What is grace? It is the GIFT of God. "But —" Well, but what? Doesn't it suit you? If not, you have not been brought to know yourself a vile sinner, and nothing but a sinner, who, if ever you are to be in glory, must be there by the pure mercy and sovereign grace of God; not one particle of your own, going before, going along with, or coming after — all grace, and all Christ. "That I may be found in him." Precious righteousness, the righteousness of God! for we are "made the righteousness of God in him." In HIM. But it is divine righteousness that I am made in Him — nothing of the creature in it — none of its imperfections, as well as none of its sin. Ah! What God am I to be with throughout all eternity? What am I with now, if not the "Holy, holy, holy Lord God," who cannot look upon sin at all? I must be absolutely without sin, if I am to be with Him. Is that what it is to be saved — to be brought to God! Yes. If I am yet in my sins, I am not with Him. For He could not look on me in my sins. It would be everlasting perdition to me if He did. He could not look on Christ when He was bearing my sins — when He made Him to be sin for me. How then could He look on me in my sins? My dearest A — , this matter must be settled, once for all, and thoroughly, in the presence of God, and by God, and then we shall have peace — everlasting peace with God; a peace which no subsequent exercises of soul will touch; but on which, in truth, they will all be founded.

I have no proper christian experience or exercise of heart until I know that I am saved by GOD, in Christ; saved, so that I never never can be lost. God Himself my Saviour. It is here Christ comes in, just here —

"As food the hungry soul receives,

As choice perfumes delight the smell,

So, mercy from the cross revives

Man sinking in the jaws of hell."

Ah! it is sinners sinking in the jaws of hell that know the preciousness of Christ and His perfect work. It is sinners, who are but sinners in the presence of holiness — for God does not lower His holiness in His dealings with me a sinner — the thought would be blasphemous. He cannot cease to be what He is. But, O, blessed for ever be His name, if He is holy, unchangeably holy, He is love; love found a way of letting holiness have free course against my sins, and yet of sparing me, the sinner. Now here again it is that Christ comes in. He devoted himself to death for my sins, that holiness might have free course and be glorified; and that I, wretched one, who committed those sins, and who, for one moment, could not have stood before the wrath of God, if it fell on me, might be the ransomed trophy of His love — the blood-bought witness of His obedience unto death. Now I see perfect holiness dealing with my sins in judgment and death in the blessed One who took them on Himself in grace. I see the judgment of God against me falling on the Lamb of God. I see Him drinking the whole cup; alone with God, for ever settling this question of sin, and leaving not one thing as to sin and its judgment ever to be settled by me! How is sin settled? BY DEATH. Am I to settle sin with God, so? Well, if not, it is settled long ago — for ever settled by God, in Christ.

And now note another point. Not merely did Jesus devote Himself to death for this end, because none other could do it, but this was the grace and love of God to us. It was to do the will of God that Jesus came thus to die: "God so LOVED the world! Oh, that blessed, blessed text! Not half believed by one Christian in a thousand. All is of God. It is He who thought of saving us; He, from whose wrath we were to be saved; He who knows what everlasting perdition is. And oh! what unutterable anguish the soul that dies in its sins must endure! He it is who thinks of saving me — us — the world. Yes, the world — though men are afraid to say it — the world from perishing.

But what will become of His truth, His threatenings against sin, His majesty and righteousness, if He shelters such altogether sinners from the due reward of their deeds? Ah! here again Christ comes in. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," — "to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself" — "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here then I see righteousness and all God's judgment against sin magnified in a way it never could have been if the sinner had for ever suffered. But oh! I see love — I see God — for "God is love." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10.) Now I see how God can be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Rom. 3: 26.)

"I will Trust"

Jesus, I will trust Thee, — trust Thee with my soul,

Guilty, lost, and helpless, Thou canst make me whole;

There is none in heaven, or on earth, like Thee:

Thou hast died for sinners, therefore, Lord, for me.

Jesus, I may trust Thee, — Name, of matchless worth,

Spoken by the angels at Thy wondrous birth;

Written — and for ever — on Thy cross of shame

Sinners, read and worship, trusting in that Name.

Jesus, I must trust Thee, — pondering Thy way,

Full of love and mercy, all Thine earthly days;

Sinners gather'd round Thee, lepers sought Thy face, —

None too vile or loathsome for a Saviour's grace.

Jesus, I do trust Thee, — trust without a doubt —

Whosoever cometh, Thou wilt not cast out;

Faithful is Thy promise, precious is Thy blood,

These, my soul's salvation, Thou, my Saviour, God.

The Good Samaritan

Luke 10: 20-35.

In this parable we have delineated, in the simplest way and most exact manner, how Christ is a neighbour to a needy one on earth. There is nothing about heaven in it. There is the salvation which entitles me to heaven; but it is not there that we shall want a neighbour, but here, in this scene of distress. The question is put to the Lord, "Who is my neighbour?" and His answer implies that it is the one who needs Him; and He points out the condition of the one whom He helps, and the character of the help which He gives; not merely what the law requires, but according to the goodness and greatness of God, He unfolds the wondrous relief which He brings to the most needy one on earth, and shows that the very same power that will carry such an one to heaven is that which bears him along the road. He transfers him into a new condition, and places him for ever under His own care; that is, Christ's SALVATION.

"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."

This is a picture of man's state. He may not be aware of it; so much the worse. This poor man was not dead: he had enough of life left to make him feel his sufferings and his powerlessness, and so powerless was he that he could not refuse the favour offered. The help comes to man, but he resists it. He is not so consciously powerless as to remain passive, because of weakness. Souls are not saved by Christ, because they are resisting Him in some way. Christ is neighbour to the one who wants Him. Zacchaeus wanted Him; he desired to see Him; and he was met beyond his desire. "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." If you admit your helplessness — make no secret of it — then comes the blessing. "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (Ps. 32: 5.)

The Lord here represents Himself by a Samaritan — one on whom the Jews had no claim. We had no claim on Christ; but He has come, and takes the place of loving His neighbour as Himself. He does not confine Himself to the law, but He goes further. He serves the needy one, not for the one or many occasions only, but ALWAYS — not merely according to the law, which was God's standard for man, but according to His own standard — "the will of God."

Here is a helpless one with nothing to commend him. He has no power even to resist. "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine." That is the manner of the Lord's love to the needy one. He saw what man was in himself, and it brought Him to the cross, as we know. He came to minister life and comfort to the needy on earth, pouring oil and wine into our death wounds, recovering us from our lost estate. Restored life, or new life, is thus expressed by the figure "oil and wine." The needy one is cured where he suffered. We find our wounds are cured here, where we suffer from them.

Do you ever want a neighbour? Whom do you go to in your trouble? If you believed that God's Son was in this world, would you ever turn to any but to Him? He came where the poor man was: the priest and the Levite passed by; but He sees and enters into the whole character of the evil on suffering man. He fulfilled all the counsel of God, and He alone was the one to remove the evil. He comes to meet you in your distress, not stretching out His hand and sending favours from a distance, but entering into all the circumstances, having intimate acquaintances with the necessity of the one who needs the help. Do you value a neighbour? Have you found one? He has come to help us, not after a human fashion only, but to manifest the love of God, which, once it has to do with us, will never leave us. We must always be the objects of it — "for ever." Will you pass on and say, I do not want to know Him?

Every one has a death-wound — a suffering of some kind — a sense of what a bitter world it is. All the neighbour was bound to do by the law was to help out of trouble. But this wonderful neighbour says, I bring you to my side and to my state, having first saved you from your own. "He set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him." You first get His power and then His care. Of course this is all figurative; but it shows how the Lord cares for us in a world of difficulty and trial. No one doubts that Christ's power carries the believer to Heaven, but do you expect Him to take you off your own feet, and transfer you to the power which is in Himself? He turns us from darkness to light, not when we get to Heaven, but here on earth where a neighbour acts in the very place where we are. He does not put you on your own feet, as He did when down here, as we read in the Gospels, with those who were lame and palsied. Now He transfers you to another condition. The same character of power that wrought in Christ is given the needy one. Scripture is definite as to this. (See Eph. 1: 19, 20.) You are on new ground — set on his own beast. He gives us power to rise out of the condition in which He finds us. Whose power is it? It is not mine; the wounds are mine. Not only are the wounds healed — not merely is there a sense of relief from what would terrify and distress, but there is the consciousness of having His power — the mighty power that wrought in Christ and raised Him from the dead. Does it not attract and interest you to know that Christ came down to where you were; that He is near to you, as your neighbour, to pour oil and wine into your death-wounds, and to give you a power which you had not before — His own power — setting you on His "own beast"?

Christ magnified the law, did the will of God, and fulfilled His love. Now, He says, the power that wrought in Myself is the very power I give you. We are quickened together with Christ." (Eph. 2: 5.) Is it meant that we should know nothing of it down here? No; "it worketh in us." (Eph. 3: 20.) His power brings you to "the inn," (the place where He will take care of you,) not to a home; heaven is our home. "And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee."

Now, I have His care. You find the nature and manner of that care all through His life on earth. "While I was with them in the world I kept them in Thy name." It was not riches He gave them. They were so poor they had to shell ears of corn in their hands for food; yet, when He asked, "When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, lacked ye anything?" they said, "Nothing."

An inn is for a stranger, a traveller. People do not like this; they like to have a home, a rest, in this world. All would like to have their wounds cured; but they do not care to be set on "his own beast," to be on the new ground with Christ. It is there that He will take care of you, and that your soul will have the sense of what it is to be brought to a place where Christ is chargeable for you all the journey through. The charge is His, and He never relinquishes it. He would have us know that we are always in His charge — not dependent on any other person. Look at the state in which the needy one was found, and the state in which Christ sets him. Does it not draw the heart to Christ? He has come to open out to us the heart of God, — to be the exponent of it. Do not be afraid to trust Him in the path of trouble and distress. He will show you that it is not power only that He will exercise on your behalf — not only a strong hand stretched forth to save you, but the care of a loving heart, to nurture and to cherish you all the way. Is there a heart that knows anything of the sorrow of the world who will say, "I will not look to Him, I will resist Him," or who does not long to say, "I am going through this world as an inn, only seeking a night's lodging, finding I am still without a home, yet having the unspeakable solace of being cared for by Christ, my Saviour, while a stranger and a traveller in this weary world"? J. B. S.

The Dumb to Speak; or, the Mouth Closed and Opened

Romans 3: 10.

The gospel sets before a sinner what God is, having shown out what man is. The cross, which has displayed God in His own nature, has also established the guilt of man. It declares that man has no righteousness for God, nor ever can have in himself; but that God has provided for man, though outside of him altogether, a righteousness worthy of Himself. Man is so bad that it is impossible to make him any better, and God has declared man to be such, having tried and proved him, from the garden of Eden up to the cross. God has made trial of man from the very first. God knew what was in him, but God would have it shown out, openly manifested; and it is very solemn what came out at the close of the probation of man, as it is called. It is a dreadful picture, but true. He broke the law, slew the prophets, murdered Christ, and resisted the Holy Ghost! and all this, because it was in his heart — in his nature, as we say. Man has been proved guilty, and hence the words, "there is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good; no, not one." What follows is a description of the kind of fruit which this bad tree has produced; but here I desire to point out how that the bad fruit is only natural to the bad tree, for many are willing to confess that they have been guilty of bad, wicked actions, who will not confess that they themselves are bad, lost. Have you, my reader, bowed to this fact — that you are by nature lost, that you deserve to be sent to hell for ever? Can you say, God would be righteous in condemning me; I have nothing to say; He has closed my mouth? Were I to open it, it would be to justify Him, and condemn myself. So far we have looked at the guilt and ruin of man in his own nature, as established, proved by God, and his mouth closed. Let us look a little at how God acted from Himself for His own glory and the benefit and blessing of the one so lost. First He gave His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the delight of His heart, that His love might shine forth, and that in Him all might be made good, according to Himself. He, the just, died for the unjust. He glorified God in His life and in His death. By Him "all that believe are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." To Him give all the prophets witness, that whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins, and Him hath God set forth to be a propitiation or mercy-seat, through faith in His blood, to declare at this time God's righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

You will observe that the prophets spoke of all this as about to come; the gospel declares it is come. There is no room left for boasting, for man has had no part in it; all is of God, in and by Jesus Christ, and that is the reason why it is said, "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." On our side the mouth is closed, but on God's side it is opened; but to make mention of Him, the blessed One who gave Himself for us, what a contrast! In Romans 3 the heart is the seat of all wickedness, and the mouth utters it, "full of cursing and bitterness," while here in Romans 10 it is the heart's acknowledgment of God and of Christ, and the mouth's confession of it. He, the blessed Son of God, died for sin, was raised again from the dead by the glory of the Father, and is in glory; and now whosoever receives Him receives life and righteousness and glory. Reader, have you believed Him, received Him, confessed Him? W. T. T.

A Path through Grace to Glory

"The glorious gospel of the blessed God."

God so loved the world, that HE gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in HIM should not perish, but have everlasting life.

To you is the word of this salvation sent.

The Gospel of your salvation.

The Gospel of God; . . . . the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood; . . . redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

It is the BLOOD that maketh an atonement. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin.

Life which is in the blood.

He gave his life a ransom for many.

God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He that hath the Son hath life.

He that believeth on ME hath everlasting life.

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

BEHOLD what manner of love!

God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world (that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love), having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph. 1: 6.) Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them that are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.

The Old Creation and the New

At a little meeting near S—, a beautiful answer was given by one who, that night, had believed the record that God gave of His Son. When asked if she had peace with God, she said, "Yes." It was so, indeed. "Jesus died to take me out of the old creation and put me into the new." And what did such an answer mean? Can you see any connection between deliverance out of the old creation, etc., and peace with God? My fellow-sinner, if you belong to the old creation — if you are still as you always were — as you were born into this world, a child of Adam, you are at war with God. Speak not of peace; no terms can be made with you: you are on the enemy's ground. Nay, you are even now under the judgment of God, which must shortly overwhelm you.

For the Lord Jesus Christ, God's well-beloved Son, endured that judgment on the cross; and from the hour of His death, the whole scene to which you belong, which is your home, has lain under the judgment of God. God is not trying you to see if you will improve — as if any good can be got out of you. It is too late to think of improvement. Previous to the cross God gave man plenty of opportunity for improvement. But all in vain. There is an end to that now. And in the death of the Lord Jesus, God has for ever closed up in judgment the history of the first Adam and his race. Do you think that if you had one more chance, you would make better use of it than your fathers did? Poor dupe of Satan! Is your understanding so darkened by the mists of the bottomless pit that you would plead for an opportunity of fitting yourself for God, when at this very moment you are despising the blood of His Son? Yes, you are doing what Cain did in an earlier day — refusing to bow to God's sentence on you, and offering Him the fruit of a nature He has judged.

But there is a new creation. I see Him in whose death the history of the first was closed, rising from the dead on the third day, and communicating that life with which He rose to others. Ah! this then is a life beyond death, beyond judgment, — a life that can be touched by neither. It does not belong to the children of Adam. It has no connection with the old creation. It is life in the Son of God. Sin does not attach to it, nor penalty for sin. Sin had suffered its judgment, had been put away before you or I could share this life. Behold, I set before you this day life or death, blessing or cursing; death and cursing if you abide in the old creation — life and blessing in the new creation. For "this is the record that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son: — He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Now you can understand how, being delivered from the old creation, you have peace with God. The old creation lies under His wrath. The new creation is life in His Son. The old creation is Satan's dominion. There is no salvation out of the new. But "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new." Oh, I beseech you, consider where you are. To which do you belong? Now God is preaching deliverance — soon, if you despise His message, you shall be for ever shut up to Satan, Oh, reject not the love that led Him to give His Son for you, in the hopelessness of your condition. Bow to His judgment upon all that you are, and accept life in His Son.

The Syrophenician

Matt. 15: 10-28.

In this beautiful scripture the Lord unfolds to us, in a striking way, what is in the heart of man, in contrast with what is in His own heart. There is nothing but badness in the one, and nothing but goodness in the other.

Men in general, like the Pharisees here, are occupied about what is outside: the washing of hands before eating bread, the washing of cups, the traditions of the elders, have the first place in their thoughts. With what amazing power must these words of the Lord Jesus have fallen on their ears: — "Hear and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." What a picture of a man's heart! the seat of all wickedness and folly, the cage of every unclean bird! a filthy, polluted swamp, out of which issue the streams of sorrow and death. My reader, this is your heart! Have you owned it, bowed to it, submitted yourself to the judgment of God so expressed? so much so that to you it is a comfort past description to turn away from yourself to Him — that blessed One, whose heart, full of goodness, is towards you, and whose word to you is, "I cannot trust you; you may trust me"? Have you so turned to Him? It is not a little remarkable that, immediately after exposing the heart of man, the Lord left the place of boasted privilege for the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, which were outside the region of earthly blessing, and the people in covenant relationship with God; and here, in the defiled place, as it were, He manifests the heart of God as fully as previously in the place of outward privilege he exposed the heart of man. The boasted goodness of the land of Israel could not change the heart of man, and the known wretchedness and contempt connected with Tyre and Sidon could not take away from what was in the heart of God. A woman of Canaan, belonging to a cursed race, a descendant of Ham, in her distress cries after Him: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David! my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." He who was tenderness itself answers her not a word! What can it be; is there no pity in Him?

His disciples, in the selfishness of their nature, say to Him, "Send her away;" that is, "give her what she wants;" "she crieth after us;" she is a trouble to us; or, it is distressing to hear her. He who alone was the Servant of the various needs of men was also Jehovah's Servant; and as she without right claims from him as Son of David, he replies, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

She will not give Him up though He is silent to her; and again she comes, worshipping Him, and saying, "Lord help me!" What will He say to this? As Jehovah's Servant, He will not only own the rights of Jehovah, but will have all do likewise; hence He replies, "It is not meet to take the children's bread (i.e., what belongs to Israel) and to cast it to dogs" (i.e., to Gentiles). What will she say to this? Is she content to be blessed as a dog, as an unclean, outside one? She replies, "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." She is satisfied to be a dog! she is satisfied to receive a crumb! He had it in His heart to bless her according to His heart; His best is what was in His heart for her. Gently and graciously, yet truly, did He lead her on step by step, first, off from false ground that she had taken in the wildness of her distress (for as Son of David she had no claim upon Him), and then on the full acknowledgment that even a dog in the house of such a Master was not forgotten; so that to be such to Him, and to receive from such an One as Him a crumb, was heaven on earth!

Beloved reader, what do you think of Him who, in this blessed way of His own love, attracted her, instructed her, blessed her, according to all that was in His own heart — "led her forth by the right way"?

Have you been drawn to Him and blessed by Him; have you turned to Him in your distress and misery; and have you now that full confidence in Him that He has done, and will do, His best for you?

"We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." W. T. T.

A Voice from the Deep

On the 6th of January, 1866, a ship left Plymouth with as good a prospect before her as any that ever sailed from that port. On the 10th of that same month, or about that time, the "London," with the exception of the few who escaped, was engulfed in the depths of the ocean. The following letter, written on board shortly before the vessel sank, and sent to a relative, has a voice of its own. It was brought on shore by one of the survivors in the boat: —

STEAMSHIP "LONDON,"

January 10, 1866.

My dear brother, — Before your eyes will look on this, your brother Frederick and I will be engulfed in the depths of the sea. We left Plymouth on the 6th. The weather was then stormy, but not such as to render any fear of danger. However, as we proceeded, the gale increased; and while I am penning these few lines the awful rocking of the vessel is such, that it is with the utmost difficulty I can hold my pen. I cannot describe to you the state of agitation which is written on every countenance; some awaiting with the utmost composure their fate; others so alarmed at the prospect of death that their shrieks are truly heartrending. But, amidst it all, I am resigned to my fate. Blessed be God, I am resting on the Rock. I know in whom I have believed. Christ is precious to me. I do not know whether by any means you will receive this. Oh that I could see all those with whom I have been acquainted! I mourn now over my own indifference towards their spiritual welfare; and now, with death staring me in the face, I feel I could do anything, if by any means I might save some. Tell S. not to neglect the salvation of her soul. Tell J. to give his heart to the Saviour at once. I want to meet all in heaven.

And now, my dear brother, farewell. Many have been the happy meetings we have had together on earth; our next meeting will be, I trust, where not a wave of trouble shall roll over us. I cannot say any more. God bless you, and keep you. — Your affectionate brother,

George T—.

And now, reader, where are you going? to what company do you belong? In the "London" many went down; one at least (God grant there were more) went up. Not long since you may have read a paper called "The Wreck and the Island." On which are you standing? The wreck is yourself, in your own nature, like the "London," going down; the island is the Lord Jesus Christ risen from the dead, in whom is righteousness, eternal life and glory. Where are you? W. T. T.

"Touch this Rock;" or the Heart made Light as a Feather

Nothing to be seen in nature, not even the difference of light and darkness, or of life and death, presents a contrast so striking, so wonderful, as that which is seen when, in certain cases of deep exercise of soul and gropings after God, He commands "the light to shine out of darkness," giving "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Very vividly and very blessedly has this been exhibited before my soul in the recent conversion of two old men. The first of the two is the case of a man who in his younger days had been a soldier, but being a good penman had in his latter years been employed as a clerk. He had frequently been to the preaching, and when visited would sometimes seem impressed under the word; but he became "hardened through the deceitfulness of sin," and ceased to come to hear the glad tidings. Failing health and severe sciatica obliged him to go to the infirmary, where I visited him. When I asked him about his soul, I was unspeakably thankful to find that his conscience was in exercise, and he was under great dread of being lost. There could be no doubt he was really in earnest now — God had stirred up the very depths of his soul. "I am praying," said he, "night and day; scarcely a minute that I am awake that I am not crying to the Lord for mercy." I at once asked him in what special way he expected mercy to be shown him, pressing upon him that God had manifested His mercy in the gift of His Son, and by virtue of the work of the cross in the gift of everlasting life through Him to every one that believeth; and showing him that salvation consisted not in crying for mercy, but in believing the good news of God's love as revealed in Christ, who by His precious work had set God free to impart blessing to every needy soul; and so far from our having to wear out our strength in entreaties to Him, it is He who with open arms is beseeching poor sinners to be reconciled to God! He drank all this into a heart the Lord had opened. How true is it the entrance of Thy word giveth light! His reply was, "Oh! I see now — instead of begging Him for mercy, I ought to be thanking Him for all He has done, for the work is finished." "Exactly," said I, "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation"! And so the load was removed for ever, and another ransomed soul set free to begin to worship "the Lamb that was slain;" the worship that then, for the first time, broke forth faintly from the sufferer's lips in the wards of that hospital, will help to swell the mighty volume of praise that shall reverberate in heaven through all eternity. Shortly after this he was removed from the infirmary, and lies on his humble bed not far from where I write, racked with pain night and day; but oh! so happy; oh! so bright; his heart filled with praise; his frequent exclamation, "Oh! blessed Saviour; oh! precious Lamb." He longs now to go to Him; not a doubt, not a fear obtains. "There's not a cloud above, not a spot within!"

The other case is that of dear P—. He had been a hard-working but rough, noisy fellow, employed at gasworks. Induced by my dear wife to come to a cottage preaching near his house, he was evidently struck by the word, and without much solicitation came very frequently afterwards, becoming more and more interested — but nothing beyond. He was still "afar off." This continued for some months, when God was pleased during the severe weather of this winter to lay His hand upon him in sickness, and when the writer visited him he found the big, strong man lying on his bed with a distressing cough. On this and several subsequent occasions, during a period of some weeks, he assented to all that was said, was glad to be visited, thankful to be read to or prayed for, and professed to be a convicted sinner, anxious for salvation. Yet nothing seemed to help him; his soul made no progress; his conscience got no relief; his heart no rest. It was the stagnation of death and the darkness of the grave — no life, no light! On one occasion after this I spoke severely to him, saying I believed he was trifling with God, dealing lightly with His mercy and His grace, hardening himself against a Saviour's love, and grieving a heart that was well nigh weeping over him for sorrow at his continued resistance to divine activity in goodness. He said nothing, and I left him with intentional abruptness. On another occasion, subsequently, I thought I had at length found some clue to the impediment to blessing, viz., that he was waiting for some special action of the Holy Spirit. This I met in a way similar to that related in the previous case, and I assured him that if an angel from heaven announced to him God's grace in Christ, it would add not a particle of weight to the authority of the divine declaration that "whosoever believeth hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." Still no result visible. But shortly after this He did it, to whose name be all the praise eternally. P.'s wife had gone for medicine, and he, being somewhat better, was up, and reading his Bible and praying alternately. Getting on his legs after prayer, he stood as it were transfixed, saying out aloud, "This will never do, to get up and be just what I was;" and again he cried to God as he stood, "Lord, help me; Lord, have mercy; touch this rock, Lord, touch this rock!" smiting his breast. Again he went on his knees. "I can't tell," said he, "what I said then, but He heard me, and I shouted out aloud; for my load was gone, and I got up a new man; and now, blessed be His name, my heart is as light as a feather!" And while he told this simple tale of God's great deliverance, the tears coursed down his swarthy cheek, and he cried and praised alternately! What hath God wrought? Such a change as God only can effect — a mightier contrast than light and darkness, death and life; for it is the contrast between sin and holiness, between hell and heaven, between Satan and God! Dear reader, ponder these cases of God's salvation, and through His mercy may they be the means of illustrating to your soul — if you know Him not as a Saviour-God how instantly ready He is to give deliverance, and joy, and peace in believing when we take Him at His word; and He only it is who can touch the rock of man's hard and heavy heart, and make it light as a feather.

Too Late

Many have so often refused the gospel, so put off the soul's salvation to some future time, that when they have been, as it were, surprised into the reality of death, they have exclaimed, in deep and bitter remorse of conscience, "I have sold my soul for a straw:" or, "Too late! too late!" Others have been so sensible of their being eternally lost, that they have spoken of their going to the bottomless pit almost with the last breath. Reader, beware of procrastination! "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The following account of one who put off this momentous matter until he had to exclaim, in bitter anguish, "Too late!" is only, I am pained to say, one of a long list that might be given.

"D— was a young man of twenty-five years. When I saw him first he was just recovering from fever, and seemed very anxious about his soul. He realised, in some measure, his deliverance from an early grave, and now his mind was exercised about eternal things. I endeavoured to set before him God's simple way of salvation. He said, 'Oh, if I am spared, how differently I would live.' I tried to show him that that was a device of Satan; that it was his duty now to trust the Lord Jesus.

"He recovered, and as strength returned his anxiety disappeared, and he now only seemed to rest in the vain hope of 'turning over a new leaf.' To my surprise, on entering the ward one day, I found him again ill. He was very much alarmed, and I again spoke to him. My visits were earnestly sought, and as cheerfully paid, hoping that now he would be brought, not to rest on 'turning over a new leaf,' but, resting only on Jesus, become at once a new creature. He was brought very low, but once more restored, and after a few weeks was again walking about convalescent, hoping to be dismissed in a few days from the building where his life had been in so much jeopardy. He had as yet not embraced the free message of the gospel, but waited for the convenient season.

"I had just entered the hospital one afternoon, when the nurse of the ward where D— was a patient came to me. I followed her to his bedside. There he lay; every limb trembled, his eye wandered wildly, his lip quivered. I spoke to him of the compassion of Jesus — His work for the lost, His willingness to save. He listened for a few minutes; but as if my words could no longer be borne, he gave me such a look that I cannot soon forget it. Oh! the despair and terror that seemed mingled in that gaze, and his voice almost filled the ward with the cry, IT'S TOO LATE! IT'S TOO LATE!' And before the sun went down the lifeless form of the procrastinator was carried away."

Dear reader! now think of God's word, that "He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now, then, turn to God; believe His word about Jesus, and rejoice that you have everlasting life.

"All Things are Ready — Come!"

Safe, myself, within the Ark,

How my spirit yearns o'er thee,

Tossing in thy fragile bark,

Out in life's tempestuous sea.

Safely I in Christ abide,

Raised above the floods of sin;

While the door is open wide,

Oh! that thou wouldst enter in.

Rev. 22: 17; John 6: 37.

Safe, myself, within the fold,

Yet my spirit cannot rest

While thee wand'ring I behold,

Still, alas! unsaved, unblest.

Oh! that thou wouldst take the place

Of "the lost" — this Jesus craves;

For "the lost," in pitying grace,

Still the Shepherd seeks and saves,

Luke 19: 10, 41, 42.

Once I also went astray,

Loved the world and sin too well,

Madly follow'd my own way,

And a tale of woe could tell.

Grace it was that rescued me —

Drew me to the Father's home,

Grace is pleading now with thee,

Oh, that thou wouldst also come!

Eph. 2: 18; Luke 14: 22, 23.

What a welcome would be thine,

What a Father's kiss of love!

His a deeper joy than mine,

Shared by angel hosts above.

Oh! the bliss can ne'er be told,

We must enter in to see,

In the home, the ark, the fold,

All is ready — WHAT OF THEE?

Luke 15; Mark 5: 18-20.

"Fast Asleep"

Jonah 1: 2

The remarkable history of Jonah is a picture of Israel's history — that people are at present at the bottom of the sea, as it were; but there will be, in the coming day, a restoration of the nation.

But the prophet is more than a type of the Jew; he is a perfect picture of man in his natural state; and it is in this light I would call attention to it.

"Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."

Here, then, we have him, as a fallen child of Adam, setting up his will against God. Selfwill marks him at the very start; in the pride of his heart too, like Adam, he will take his own way to accomplish his own ends; and instead of going to Nineveh, where God had sent him in the exercise of a ministry in which all the power of God would sustain him, he rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, like Adam again, who hid himself from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden after he had set up his will.

Sin is the having an independent will which is ever opposed to God's will, and this leads to distance from God. Adam went out from God's presence; Cain and Jonah likewise. This is the unvarying path that flesh walks in — it cannot abide the light of God's presence, and God cannot suffer the exercise of this will. The prophet having thus acted in self will, and fled from the presence of the Lord, in the independence of the flesh paying his fare to Tarshish, presents a sorrowful picture of the condition of many a sinner at this present time. Death and ruin all around him, and none to help, in a ship well-nigh broken up by the violence of the waves, while the very heathen call on their god, he alone of all others "lay" "fast asleep." Oh, what a picture! Alas! no uncommon one at this moment. My reader, a picture of yourself, if as yet you have never been awakened to your true state before God. "Lay" "fast asleep" are the simple but expressive words by which the Holy Ghost describes this most solemn condition; it is not only selfwilled and independent, but when the awful consequence is upon him, and death stares him in the face, he alone is indifferent. Here, then, is the condition of the professing multitudes around us. In the midst of religious observances of all kinds, and religious appliances of every shape — open churches, fast days, and sacraments, synods and religious societies — the vast mass lie in the boasted cradle of privilege, and the devil rocks them fast asleep. "What meanest thou, O sleeper?" is the only suited language when pondering such a state of things. Awakened at last, in the mercy of God, to a sense of his perishing condition, the prophet passes the sentence of death upon himself — "Take me up, and cast me into the sea." And Jonah is soon wrapped among the weeds of the sea, down in the bottoms of the mountains, the waters compassing him about, the depth closed around his head. Now, there are two points of immense beauty here: —

First, Who was it thought of Jonah in his self-willed independence and indifference? Oh! the wondrous grace of our Saviour God, who in His own persevering love pursues in awakening tenderness the failing prophet, or a poor sinner now! Yes, reader, the very same God who shook to its foundations the prison of Philippi, to awaken the jailer, now blows his mighty storm upon the ocean to awaken the sleeping Jonah, and, it may be, in His grace, may use these poor lines to awaken you.

Secondly, Who was it provided for Jonah a salvation worthy of Himself? Who but God? Now, mark it well, the prophet passes sentence of death on himself; nothing less would suit; it must be death, and it must be accepted. "Take me up, and cast me into the sea:" and so when death had its victim the sea ceased from its raging. But is that all? What of Jonah? If left to the consequences of the death he has accepted, he must perish; but here is exactly where the blessed God comes in, and that in a way worthy of Himself. He does not remit the sentence; to do so would be to clear the guilty; but He does bring salvation, and this is grace — a salvation, too, which, while it maintains all the righteous character of God, and vindicates Him to the uttermost, most blessedly delivers the sinner from all the consequences of his rebellion against God. And so we read, "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah!" In the life of another, which can go down into the element where Jonah could not live, the prophet is saved. Beautiful type of the salvation of Him who in grace took our judgment and endured it! He who alone could bear it went into death — passed through its dark raging flood for us. And so Jonah's sin is all that is left in the bottom of the sea, and left there for ever. Thus, in this scripture, we have a striking picture of man's rebellion and God's salvation. On man's side, as in the case of Jonah, nothing but selfwill, independence, indifference, death; on God's side, a compassion that can move the very elements to awaken the sleeper to a sense of his danger, and a grace which provides a salvation, so complete, so perfect, so full, that while He is demonstrated to be just there is also deliverance for the sinner; the sin is judged, and the perishing one is saved. W. T. T.

"Rest . . . . Rest"

Matthew 11: 28-30.

There is something very remarkable in the place we find those well-known verses, and there is a great contrast between what the blessed Lord proposes to the soul in them and His own circumstances at that moment. Indeed, it is this, I feel certain, that clothes them with the beauty that surrounds them. The Lord called around Himself His twelve disciples, and instructed them in view of all that lay before them in their path. This occupies chapter 10. As soon as He had finished, He Himself departed to teach and preach; for He was, while on earth, not only the faithful servant of Jehovah, but the unwearied servant of men, ministering to all the needy around Him.

John the Baptist, Christ's messenger, who was in prison, heard of His works; and, forgetting that it was not the day of Christ's power as yet, but the day of His grace, he allows a doubt to cross his heart. Can this be the Messiah of Israel after all? "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" The Lord, in sending His answer, refers John to the works, which were those which only the Messiah could do; but it must have been a grief to the heart of Christ to find the confidence of His forerunner and messenger thus shaken.

Next, the state of the nation of Israel, His own people, passed before His heart and grieved Him. He compares them to "children sitting in the market, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, 'We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.'" Israel would not have the ministry of either John the Baptist or Christ — they cast the one into prison, and in the end they crucified Christ. John the Baptist came and preached law, and they refused him; Christ came and preached grace, and they cast Him out. What a picture of the heart of man!

Then there were places on earth which witnessed Christ's mighty works — places where His glory shone out in a remarkable way — Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum. His thoughts turn with sadness to such, as He announces the woe which rests on abused and despised privilege; the heaven-exalted Capernaum should become the hell-doomed city. Reader, I entreat you to ponder such deeply solemn words as these, uttered by the sorrowing Saviour, in regard to slighted opportunities and despised long-suffering. Never was there a period like this in the history of Christ as a man on earth, when His labour seemed so in vain — doubted by John, refused by Israel, despised in the scenes of His mightiest works. Yet at this moment it is He rises in the perfection of a man whose meat it was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and He says, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." And then it is, having let us, as it were, into the divine secret, He comes out with words which have fallen as healing balm upon many a troubled heart "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will rest you." It is now no longer a question of responsibility to accept or receive; it is free sovereign grace that acts from itself and for itself, finding the weary and burdened that it may rest them. Oh, how blessed all this is! Say, my reader, does it meet you? He who spoke those words knew what man was, what the world was, what the most privileged were. He knew that in a scene in which God was not, where His name had been dishonoured and His grace refused, there was weariness and there were burdens enough, but rest there was none. He Himself stands here as the only One in whom there is a place for the sole of the foot to rest on; and, looking out over all time since, and poor breaking hearts in it, He says, "Come to me." The invitation is world-wide; those to whom it is addressed are found everywhere, "Ye that labour and are heavy laden." He knew what that was, and He alone could meet it. Reader, does it not suit you? You cannot deny it — however you may despise or refuse, you cannot say it does not suit you. I would here seek to meet one who says, "Well, what you say is very true; but I am greatly troubled by another little word of Christ which often comes up before me, namely, 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me;' and I begin to think within myself, am I given of the Father to Christ? and so my burdens and labour of soul are increased." Reader, is this your state? If so, the way out of your difficulty is simple, and the end of your sorrow of heart near at hand; for do you not see that there is no condition or qualification — it is simply, "Come unto me," and going to Jesus is the proof of the Father's giving and drawing. It is to Himself I go, for He says, "Come." He does not say how He will give me rest. He presents Himself, and the rest for my poor sin-stricken soul and sin-burdened conscience is in connection with Himself and the revelation of the Father. He never said "come" until He Himself had come first from heaven to earth, that He might be in this sense "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Reader, are you seeking rest? "Come unto me, and I will rest you."

The second rest is a further and needed thing too. It is connected with submission, with taking Christ's yoke upon us — it is rest after rest. But my business is at present with the first rest; it must be known first. Dear reader, most earnestly do I desire it for you. If you have never had it, you are, like Noah's dove, out of the ark, in a scene of judgment, without a spot for the sole of your foot to rest on. Safety, rest, peace and plenty were inside the ark; destruction, death, restlessness, and sorrow outside.

He who, when on earth, stood and said, "Come unto me," has since passed through death and the grave, and ascended up on high. In His death, He put away sin; in His resurrection, He proclaimed peace; from glory, where He is, He speaks. He is the same; death has not changed Him; glory has not changed Him. Rest is what you want, reader; it is in Him, and He says, "Come." May the beauty and attractiveness of Himself so surround you, so fill your heart, that, forgetting your feelings, sins, and sorrows, you may rise and go to Jesus, who is "a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat" — the only island of rest in the midst of an ocean of perpetual trouble. W. T. T.

"The Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God"

I was asked the other day to call and see an old pensioner, who, I was told, was dying, and apparently unsaved. He was able to speak but little on account of his cough, but he seemed very intelligently to enter into what I said to him. The Lord enabled me to tell him the gospel very simply and fully; and in doing so, I made use of the following illustration: —

"Suppose," I said, "a soldier was sentenced to be flogged for breach of discipline, and the colonel's son came to his father and used his influence to get the sentence cancelled, wouldn't you understand it if, although there were no reason why the culprit should not be punished, the colonel let him go entirely free for his son's sake? Now," I went on to say, "is not that like the gospel? There is no reason in the sinner why God should not condemn him, but He forgives him for the sake of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."

"Yes," said the old man, "I see it — that's just it."

That is just it — just the only gospel most people know of, a gospel wanting in all that is indeed good news to an awakened conscience. It would be more like it, as I explained to the sick old man (and perhaps the illustration may pass here, far-fetched and imperfect though it be), it would be more like the gospel if the colonel's son, at his father's request, bared his own back to receive the lashes, and thus secured the soldier's pardon.

"The glorious gospel of the blessed God" — and it well deserves the name — is, that God found us in our sins, and righteously condemned us for them; found us estranged from Him, and enmity against Him; and yet, when there was no eye but His own to pity, and no other arm to save, He gave up His only-begotten Son, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person; and He came down into the midst of our trials, and was Himself the Man of sorrows. He was a reproach of men, and despised of the people, the song of the drunkard; and through all this He manifested what God was to the sinner. He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed, for God was with Him.

But in all this, though it makes glad the heart, the conscience seeks in vain a resting-place. Turn your thoughts to the cross of Calvary, and behold there the righteous ground of the sinner's pardon, and the unchanging ground of his peace. Stand by faith before that cross, and though all seem dark to the soul, hearken to that bitter cry that pierces thus the darkness, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Oh, what is this! the "despised and rejected of men," at last forsaken by His God! Yes, forsaken, because of the sin He bore — the sin of the sinner whom He came to save. The Holy One of God, He who knew no sin, made sin for us! (Deut. 21: 23; marg. 2 Cor. 5: 21.) Oh, weary hearts, troubled consciences, here is a calm and secure resting-place, and you need no dove's wings to bring you hither! This same Jesus is risen from the dead, and has sat down on high, having "by himself purged our sins;" and He is there the proof that they are purged. Look off, then, right off to Him, and in spite of cold heart, dead affections, want of feelings, want of everything you think you ought to have, say it out calmly, fearlessly, with the eye resting upon the risen Christ, "who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." (1 Peter 2: 24.) And why not add, — "by whose stripes I am healed"!

"He is Our Peace"

In Thy death my soul reposes,

Holy, spotless Lamb of God;

Sweet the truth that death discloses,

Pardon through Thy precious blood.

Here by faith I see Thee bearing

All my sin, and curse, and woe;

All my breach with God repairing —

Washing me as white as snow.

Freed from wrath and condemnation,

Set with Thee in heaven above;

In Thee I have full salvation,

Life, and peace, and endless love.

O my Saviour! I would praise Thee,

Bend and worship at Thy feet;

Every grace and every beauty

In Thy blessed Person meet.

I shall see Thee in Thy glory,

When the race, the war is past;

Tell in light the blissful story

Of Thy grace from first to last.

Mighty One! the Resurrection!

In Thee glorying, in Thee blest,

Soon Thy saints shall shout Thy praises

In a scene of endless rest.

Oh, I long to hear Thee saying,

"Come up hither, rise to Me;

Leave thy bondage, leave thy sorrow;

I have call'd thee — thou art free."

Yes, beloved Lord and Saviour,

We shall meet Thee in the sky —

Share Thy bliss, Thy joys for ever,

In the home prepared on high.

Now we wait for Thine appearing —

Wait in hope, in peace, in trust;

Thou wilt come to perfect blessing,

Thou, the Holy, True, and Just.

"Salvation, Liberty, Food and Safety"

John 10.

This beautiful scripture brings before us, first, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; next, His actings in grace. It is a great thing to know who He is, and what He is, who laid down His life for the sheep, and has put them for security in His hand. This, then, is what we learn in the commencement of John 10; Christ simply declares Himself here to be the true Messiah of Israel, the One who should come. He it was who entered by the door into the sheepfold; that is, He came by divine appointment and sanction to be the Shepherd of Israel, who were the people of God's pasture, and the sheep of His hand. He did not climb up some other way, as all the false ones did; they were at best but thieves and robbers, claiming unlawfully that to which they had no right. Not so Christ. He came in by the door, submitting to every rule and ordinance appointed by the owner of the flock — the Jehovah of Israel. Beloved reader, how blessed to think of Him, the eternal Son of God as He was, yet He comes down and humbles Himself to be a man, and as a man submits Himself perfectly! But Israel would not have Him; they slighted, despised, and rejected Him. So He leaves. He goes outside the fold of Israel, the enclosure which was peculiar to it. This is what is meant by "He goeth before them" — as rejected and despised of His own people. He Himself goes first, and then He puts forth His own sheep, and they follow Him, for they know His voice. This was exactly the case of the blind man in the 9th chapter, who was cast out, and had been found by Jesus. What a blessed Shepherd by whom we are led and fed! How good to be under His care outside all man's religion, and the whole array of those ordinances which belonged to Israel!

Having thus set Himself forth in this way — His person the only ground of connection with God — He then opens out most blessedly what it is that replaces the old Jewish thing, Himself the foundation and accomplisher of it.

First — There is salvation. "By Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved." He now presents Himself as the door. He, and He alone is the door; to enter in by that door was to be saved. He had laid down His life, costly and precious as it was. His blood was shed. It was His own voluntary act to shed His blood, lay down His life; no one had taken it from Him. As to necessity, there was none on His side, save indeed that blessed love of His, which would remove every barrier to its full expression.

Again, think of Him in contrast with a hireling. The hour of danger or of difficulty would find the latter thinking of himself, Him, the Shepherd of His sheep. If He then interposes, if He lays down His life, sheds His blood, the first thing that meets us at the door is salvation. "By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved."

Again, there is also liberty. " He shall go in and out." Slavery and bondage is the birthright of every child of Adam. He is born into the world a slave. The moment he has to do with Christ, he is met with salvation and liberty — he is liberated, he is free, and there is also food — "shall find pasture." Oh, for ability to describe the richness of the food! Saved, liberated, brought into a region where want is unknown — "I shall not want." Not only this, but filled, satisfied; and hence it is "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." And observe, it is, "if any man enter in." It is not only now the children of Abraham, the nation of Israel; the door of grace in Himself is wide open to all. Will you say, my reader, if you know what it is to be blessed in this way under this gracious Shepherd Lord? Have you had to do with Him? It must be He; for it is "by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved." Oh, what a contrast to all our purely natural thoughts of God and His Christ! What a contrast to all that was to be found in the law or ordinances! Neither the one nor the other could carry the first need to a poor outcast of either Jew or Gentile. The law required, not saved — the law brought in death, not life — but, "by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved;" and "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," is grace in its fulness.

Once more: we have here also eternal security. The life which Christ gives is eternal everlasting; but not this only, for of His sheep He says, "they shall never perish." But, then, where will He put them to secure them against enemies from without? He makes them as strong outside as inside. No weakness within could endanger, for it was "eternal life," He gave, and no enemy outside could harm them, for He has the sheep in His hand. The hand that was nailed to the cross is the secure shelter and rest for all the sheep. Oh, what contrasts are awakened in the soul as we read that word, "My hand" — "My Father's hand!" Not the walls and barriers, the laws and ordinances of Israel of old, the fold; but His hand, His Father's hand. The thought of their security is linked with the eternal power of God, for the sheep are in His Father's hand. "I and my Father are one." Could anything be more wonderful than the infinite grace, boundless love, and almighty power which are all in Christ, in His own Person exclusively, and yet wide enough, most surely; for it is, "by me if any man enter in;" and Christ is here all, and in contrast with all. It is no longer the ancient sheepfold of Israel, with its walls and ordinances, but the Person of the Christ, the Good Shepherd, the living Lord, who died; and it is Himself in contrast with the thief, the robber, and the hireling — they seeking to enrich themselves, or to escape danger, at the expense of the sheep, He, in that blessed, peculiar love of His, giving His life for the sheep. It is no longer Judaism, but salvation, liberty, food, and eternal security; it is no longer the darkness of death, but the light of life. Oh, reader, have you had personally to do with Christ? Have you by Him, the door, entered in? Have you turned away from yourself, your sins, and your sorrows, as well as your goodness, and gone to Jesus? Has He not made good a claim on your heart?

The Lord, by His Spirit, set Him in all the attractiveness of His grace so before you, that you may by Him enter in, and so know the richness and fulness of that salvation, liberty, food, and security which are in Him and by Him.

"When blood from a victim must flow,

This Shepherd, by pity, was led

To stand between us and the foe,

And willingly died in our stead.

Our song, then, for ever shall be

Of the Shepherd who gave Himself thus;

No subject's so glorious as He,

No theme so affecting to us."

W. T. T.

"I Shall Lie Down Happy To-night!"

One day, while visiting the poor women in the workhouse of a large town, I was more disheartened than ever by the amazing ignorance and lack of interest shown by the poor creatures in the things which concern salvation. They lay there in the different stages of their various diseases, some in great pain, others in comparative ease, but almost all utterly careless of a future state. True, there were now and then bright spots in this dreary scene, and a little conversation with one of God's children (of whom a few are to be found even here) was most cheering and refreshing. But the greater number of those to whom I spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His glorious work for poor sinners, either turned the conversation to other topics — sufferings, troubles, or private affairs — or else, by their replies, showed they did not in the least understand what I was saying; or, by answering as they supposed I wished, thought to get rid of me the sooner. Feeling very much troubled by all this, I came to the bedside of one whom I knew to be a true believer in the Lord Jesus. She had lately had a stroke of paralysis, and though in some measure recovering, her speech was almost unintelligible. However, I understood that she would like me to read to her, which I did, taking part of the 9th and 10th chapters of Hebrews. We afterwards had a little conversation together, and then I left her, much refreshed and strengthened for my work.

There lay a poor woman in the opposite bed, to whom I had never before spoken, but that day I went up to her, and asked her if she had found peace, or on what foundation she was building for salvation. She told me she was trying to do her best, and be a good woman; that she was ninety years old, and her mother had lived to be a hundred, and that she had never done any one any harm, and she thanked the Lord for having given her such a long life. "But," said I, "do you know what God said when He looked down out of heaven upon every one? He said, There is none that doeth good; no, not one.' And, you know, He saw the good ones, as we call them, as well as the bad; and yet He said there was not one good." "Oh, no," said the old woman, "I know there are none good; I wouldn't trust in anybody." "Well, but, my friend," I said, "you are trusting to yourself to be good, though God says there are none good." She repeated once more that she would not trust any one; that she had done no harm, and had always tried to be a good woman; and all this in a sort of querulous, complaining voice. We had some further conversation, in which I endeavoured to show her how useless works were towards the attainment of everlasting life; and at last I left her, more hopeless than ever, and strongly inclined to give up visiting at the workhouse, thinking it could not be the work intended for me. I laid the matter before the Lord, and asked Him to send me, if He would have me go, and the next week I went again. When the old woman recognised me, she began saying, "I have been thinking about what you told me, and I read the little book; and, oh, I'm ninety years old; do come and talk to me." These were the words, as nearly as I can remember. There was not a word this time about her attempts to make herself better, but the utmost agony at the thought of her great age, and consequent nearness to death, for which she felt herself unprepared. I therefore spoke to her of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, and repeated to her several times the well-known lines —

"Nothing, either great or small — nothing, sinner, no;

Jesus did it — did it all — long, long ago."

The last two lines I said over many times as distinctly as possible, for the old woman was very deaf. I told her how the work had been all done for her more than eighteen hundred years ago; how the Lord Jesus Christ had "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," and that through this Man is preached the forgiveness of sins, etc. I spoke to her very earnestly in this way for some time — the poor creature sitting up in her bed silently listening, with a look of great interest. At last she lay back on her pillow, saying, in a tone of complete satisfaction and rest, "I shall lie down happy to-night!" Shortly after this I left her, feeling very much happier on her account, but scarcely daring to think she had already found rest in the Lord. On visiting her the next week, I inquired if she was still happy. She replied, "I have been happy ever since you told me." I asked, "What makes you happy; is it because you know all your sins are forgiven?" She said, "That's it; I've been happy ever since you told me." And then she began thanking and blessing me for having spoken to her, adding, in a childlike, simple manner, "and I don't think I should mind if I were to die now." I told her it was God who had sent her the message, and she must thank Him; and that now, indeed, she could bless Him for the long life He had given her, but more especially for having discovered Himself to her as a "just God and a Saviour." The last time I saw her, before leaving the town, she was still happy, praising and blessing the Lord for having called her "out of darkness into his marvellous light."

Crucifixion and Mortification

"Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." What rest there is in this! It is the perfection of God, and of His work, which is the very essence of the gospel, and which gives such solidity to the heart of the believer in Christ.

"By one offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified." "Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." He came, indeed, to do the will of God: "by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." It is a perfect atonement, for it avails for the "sin of the world." It is a finished work, for it can never, nor need ever, be repeated.

Christ crucified for sinners is the foundation of the gospel message; it is also the foundation of the sinner's peace. His work is indeed the very work of God. One mind and purpose were in the Father and the Son in counsel; one heart in the carrying out the work of redemption; and it is "for ever." "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." The heart that trusts Christ's finished work, trusts that which, for time and for eternity, has met its deepest need.

But not only does the cross represent the death of Christ for the sinner when he believes, it also necessarily represents the penalty due to the sinner himself. If death and judgment be the sinner's due, whether that penalty be borne by himself, or by his substitute, it is still his penalty that is paid, and, as the penalty is death, it is virtually his death. Christ died not for His own (for He was without sin), but for the sins of others. In believing, then, we acknowledge that death is the "due reward of our deeds," the "wages of our sin," and we see the blessed Lord in love dying that very death for us upon the cross. When faith grasps this fuller view of substitution — of the atoning work of Christ — it can say, indeed, with Paul, "Our old man was crucified with him" (Rom. 6: 6); and, again, "I am crucified with Christ." (Gal. 2: 20.) His cross thus becomes mine, His death mine. By faith I identify myself with Him there, and rest in the certainty that the judgment of God which passed upon Him there has for ever passed away from me. "I am crucified with Christ." Can this act be repeated? Never. Christ can never be crucified again. "In that he died, he died unto sin once." The work of atonement has once and for ever been accomplished by Him, and God has once and for ever "laid on him the iniquities of us all." "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree."

Thus we find that the word of God contemplates the believer's crucifixion with Christ as a completed and never to be repeated act. He died once, and we were then, and there, and for ever identified with Him; and so it is said, "I am crucified with Christ." "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh." "By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." "Our old man was crucified with him." Deeply important it is for the peace and establishment of our souls to grasp these conclusive statements of God's word. The believer is never told to crucify himself or his flesh; it is always accounted to have been accomplished. "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever."

But we may be asked, Are not the flesh and its workings to be subdued, and is there not a continual and necessary conflict to be maintained? Yes, most assuredly, is the reply; and for this very reason, that we can already say, we are "crucified with Christ." Because, by faith, we reckon ourselves dead with Him, and so, "dead unto sin," we are called on to "mortify our members which are upon earth," but not to crucify them.

In the sight of God, and in our account by faith, we are crucified with Christ — never without Him. His crucifixion was ours. If we endured for ourselves what He on the cross endured for us, it would be eternal condemnation to us. But as to the "members which are upon the earth," they are not said to be crucified. The old mortal body and its members, prone to evil, are yet present, and they have to be subdued. "Mortification," is the process by which they are to be controlled. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8: 13.) "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." To mortify is to put to death. We cannot put to death what is already dead. Mortification, then, is a perpetual killing, if one may so say, of the members and of their deeds.

The believer can say, Because my old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I might not serve sin, because God, in His infinite grace, has reckoned the death of Christ to my account, and I am in His sight as one who has died to sin — has died with Christ; because of this precious and peace-giving truth, I will with gladness and determination mortify every motion of sin in these members of my body which are yet upon the earth. By the power of the Spirit who dwells in me through God's grace, and who enables me to judge between flesh and Spirit, between good and evil, between the precious and the vile, I will bring the cross of Christ (whereon He died for me) to bear upon everything with which I come in contact, and on all the motives and desires of my heart and of my mind, and "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," will treat as worthy only of death all the workings of the flesh in my members, whether in thought, or word, or deed.

May God grant, then, to our readers to grasp the difference between "crucifixion" — Christ's finished work for us, the blessed and peace-giving truth of identification with Him on the cross, who hath loved us, and given Himself for us — and "mortification," the daily and hourly subduing, by the only divinely-appointed or possible means, of the workings of sin in the members. For, beloved friends, by death, and death alone, can the old man escape judgment, and this is by crucifixion. By death alone can sin in the members be overcome and subdued, and this is by mortification.

"Knowing this, that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace." (Rom. 6: 9-14.)

H. C. G. B.

Simeon; or, the Reception of Christ

Luke 2: 25-38.

There are two things which are very distinct in connection with the reception of Christ. In the gospel a Person is set before us. Paul says, "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me." And there are two distinct things connected with this: one is, a renunciation of the state you are in; the other, an unfolding of that to which you have come. Simeon (Luke 2) is an instance of this. He turns his back on everything in connection with the hopes of man. When he has the Saviour in his arms, he says, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." It is an immense thing for the soul to understand what the reception of Christ means. Paul's word to the jailer is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." A Person is brought in. The more truly I have received Christ, the more I must abandon that which is antagonistic to Christ. It is not merely to say, "I believe," and to go on as usual — that is impossible. What I really receive must characterise me. It so characterised Simeon, that he can completely surrender everything of man's hopes and fears, and say, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

What a wondrous thing it is that God has sent His Son to bear the judgment that rested upon us! Instead of holding to that man on whom the judgment lay, I receive the One who bore the judgment, and delivered me out of it.

When the Israelites were coming out of Egypt, the blood of the lamb was put outside the door. That tells what the history of grace is. But are they to go on as usual in Egypt? No; they are brought clean out of Egypt. They first put the blood of the lamb outside, to meet the eyes of the Judge, and with it came the death of the Egyptian firstborn. Death was destroying the grasp of thraldom! But the people of God at the same time are eating the lamb, and in the strength of it they are driven out of Egypt; but they never are out of fear until they are across the Red Sea, and they see the Egyptians dead on the shore. In Christ I am clean away from the thing from which He has saved me, and the more I realise this, the more I shall value it. A person who never had bad health does not value health as does the one who has recovered. He who has got new and good health is delivered from the bad health, and he is careful of his health, because he knows what it is to lose it. A person who believes in Christ must break with the first-born of Egypt, that is, the sinful man who is under judgment. The Israelites knew what Egypt was, and never were happy until they were all clean out of reach of the Egyptians. The further they got away the better, for they do not reach up to the purpose of God for them until they are across Jordan. When they come to Jordan (Joshua 3) they see the ark in it, and they pass clean over. Do you shrink from death? If you do, it is because you are looking at it instead of at the ark. Death was nothing to Simeon. He takes the child in his arms, and says, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." I have the Saviour in my arms. I am clean done with everything.

God gave His Son. He was a man here on earth, and in death He bore the judgment that lay on man, to remove it from the believer, and to transfer him from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of the Son of His love, "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Are you blind, or have you been blind? If a blind man were assured that he could recover his sight, he would submit to any sacrifice to secure it, and, after he had recovered it, surely he would shrink from everything that would injure his sight again? The glory of that light made Paul blind. The light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, shone into his soul; and could Saul receive this light, and continue as he was before? Surely not! As light is distinct and separate from darkness, so is a soul that receives Christ morally separate from all that is not of Christ.

Do you think it melancholy — was it melancholy for Simeon to close his eyes on this scene when Jesus was in his arms? Was it melancholy for Paul to turn from this scene when he saw the glory of that light? Or for Stephen, when he saw the glory of God and Jesus? You may say that is an advanced state; but Saul of Tarsus was not advanced when he began his course thus.

How differently the heart would be affected by the Lord's grace towards us, if the soul had the consciousness that not only is there a work done for me, but the Person who did the work occupies my heart. As the apostle puts it, "it pleased God to reveal his Son in me." It was not melancholy to Paul. On the contrary, he says, "I live Christ." It is not merely the effect of a thing done, but "Christ liveth in me," and that in the very scene where I am. It was not that Saul was improved, but a new plant, a Plant of Renown, was in him, and he has this One, and no other, before him. Oh! does not your heart tell you if you had this One — if, like Simeon, you so possessed Christ — what a place and what a portion it would be! It is impossible to receive Christ, and to go on in the world. In receiving Him the whole thing is changed — there is a new plant, a new Person in you. Christ is formed in you. It may be small at first. The largest oak was once very small. But if you accept Christ, you cannot go on as you were before. He diverts you from everything that you are as a natural man. The thief on the cross gave up himself when he turned to the Man who had done nothing amiss. Self is the great thing to give up, the sum of everything. He dropped himself, and took up Christ. Christ was the one absolutely before his soul. You cannot enjoy the thing from which you have been delivered, and hold to the One who has delivered you. Impossible! Simeon is told that he shall not see death until he has seen the Lord's Christ; and the effect of grace in his soul leads him to say, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." He is done with all connected with this scene, and his eyes are filled with the glory of the Saviour. "Christ in him the hope of glory." "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God."

It is not a sad thing. The light of the glory of Christ is above the brightness of the sun. Had you that light shining into your heart, you would find that the brightness of the sun in nature was surpassed and eclipsed! If you have received the light which is above the brightness of the sun, you are not to be pitied because other lights are gone out. He only is to be pitied who has not got it, and has only the sparks of his own kindling. J. B. S.

She Fell Asleep

The following derives all its interest from the remarkable leading of God's Spirit in bringing the writer and subject of this paper together a very few days before the Lord took her home to Himself. She was a child of sorrow and suffering indeed, the mother of a family, all of whom had fallen under death's hand, leaving herself and her partner a solitary couple. The weight of her sorrow pressed her down, and disease of a trying nature began to develop itself. Living now next door to her, and seeing the frequent visits of the medical attendant, and occasionally the clergyman of the parish, I felt a deep interest, and a yearning anxiety, which they only know who have had it, as to her true state and condition. Did she know a Saviour's love? — was she looking to Him? — was the prospect before her dark or bright? — were often weighed questions in my mind; and many a time did I speak to the Lord about her, and found my only solace and comfort there; for I should say this pressure on my spirit about one of whom I had known nothing personally, and whom I had never seen, was new to me; for I am not an evangelist, in the true sense of the word, though I greatly desire to have a deeper interest in, and concern for, souls.

Thus matters went on for weeks, until at last, on my return home one afternoon, I heard she was much worse, and that death was evidently very near. After looking to the Lord, I sat down and wrote a very few lines to her husband, asking for her, expressing my deep sympathy for him, and also the earnest hope that she knew the Saviour, whose blood cleanseth from all sin; adding, that I myself, as a poor needy one, had known what it was to trust Him. I had occasion to make a call a little way from the house, and on my return, found that she had meanwhile sent a message to me, requesting me to call and see her. I hastened to her bedside, and, as I took her hand, she said with great earnestness, "Oh, I have been longing for some weeks to see you, and now I feel so thankful the Lord has sent you to help me on my way." As it was advanced in the evening, and she was very weak, I did not remain long with her. When leaving, she requested me to see her again next morning. I did so, and again the same evening, and so on, almost each day until she fell asleep. From the first evening I saw her, I found out that she was a soul awakened to a sense of her need of Christ and His sufficiency for the deepest need. I have since found out that the gracious Lord wrought this in her in various ways, mostly, perhaps, through sorrow and family bereavement, of which she had no small share. I was in nowise instrumental in this; but I had the joy of seeing in her the power of God's delivering grace and the blessedness of His word, in quieting her natural fear of death. One little circumstance of this kind I may record: she expressed to me, on one occasion, her fear in prospect of death; not, she said most decidedly, as to her acceptance in any way, but she had a shrinking from death and the suffering of it. The nature of her disease, too, was very likely to lead to such suffering. I read her part of Joshua 3, calling her attention to the fact, that when the children of Israel were crossing Jordan, it was on the ark, not on the waters of the river, their eyes and thoughts were to be fixed. "When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it." As soon as I had finished, she said with great earnestness, "That ark is Christ." I said, "Thank God, it is so." She never lost sight of that, and it comforted her many a time afterwards. The last time I saw her she had all her family around her bedside. It was the last time they saw her. She herself wished and arranged it so. Her simple acknowledgment of perfect confidence in Christ, and rest in Him, was very sweet. And then she asked for the hymn —

"How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

In a believer's ear;

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,

And drives away his fear."

And the earnest way in which she sang it, weak though she was, and exhausted, was very touching. This was my last visit to her. I called, as usual, next day, but she was unable to see me; and that evening, without the struggle she at first dreaded, peacefully and calmly she fell asleep, so quietly, so gently, that "they thought her dying when she slept, and sleeping when she died."

Reader, do you know that Saviour who shed His blood? What is all the world to you, if you have not Christ? Where are you going to spend your eternity? Reader, Christ is coming; are you ready? Or death is at hand; are you ready? "He that hath the Son hath life." Have you? W. T. T.

Christ Our Peace; or the Only Foundation

And now, believing in the name of the Son of God, and simply resting on the faithful word, you can say, "My sins are forgiven. I have eternal life. I am saved." Praise the Lord! Even now there is joy over you in the presence of the angels. And no wonder! Saved from such a hell! Saved for such a glory! Not only forgiven, but made righteous, justified from all things

God your Father! Christ yours! and the Comforter to dwell within you! For, having believed in Christ, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of full redemption, when the Lord Jesus will come back again to take us to Himself, to be ever with Him and like Him, to see Him as He is, to behold His glory. Lift up your heart to Him in praise!

But remember the ground of all this. Our one resting-place is Christ — not our joy, or love, or inward feelings. Nothing connected with self can be a ground of peace with God. Jesus Christ Himself is our peace. And it is not frames or feelings that bring us the knowledge of peace — no, nor even the fruits of the Holy Spirit in us; but the testimony of the Holy Spirit to Christ. Sin was the cause of the enmity between us and God; the blood of Christ has put away sin, and so made peace. But it is easy to say, "Christ is my peace — I rest only on the word" — when the heart is filled with love, and joy, and praise. How will it be if your heart grow cold, and your joy have ebbed, and all seem dead within? Oh! beware of the wiles by which Satan will then try to make you doubt God. Will you listen to the Tempter, and begin to say within yourself, "I thought I was a Christian, I felt such peace, and love, and joy; I had such delight in the word and in prayer; but now I fear it was all a delusion. I was deceiving myself." Or will you then boldly stand by the word of God, and give the lie to every sinful doubt? Oh! forget not that Christ, and not self, is the ground of peace. Self may change, but Christ never; feelings may fluctuate, but the faithful Word is still the same.

Our "old man," that is, the nature we have received from Adam by natural descent, is "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" and think not that it has been changed in your conversion. It will remain with you unchanged, lusting against the spirit, and contrary to the spirit, till you lay down the body in death, or until the Lord come. (Eph. 4: 22; Gal. 5: 17.) But God tells you that He has searched to its depths the filthy source of all your sins, and knowing all, He has loved you and saved you. You, however, are ignorant of the extent of your sinfulness; and, as day by day you make fresh discoveries of it, Satan will try to stumble you.

God points you to the cross as the ground of peace with regard to all; for there, not only has condemnation passed upon your sins, but God has dealt in judgment with yourself as a child of Adam, and all your responsibilities have been met, and every claim against you satisfied in death. God has gone into the whole question of the sin of your very nature, the polluted source of every transgression, and He has once and for ever settled it.

Be sure that Satan will struggle hard to gain this point against you; but cling to the truth of God — "Christ for me, my peace." And if he fail to raise within you a fear of condemnation, he will try a yet more subtle device, and point to your sin as a proof that you are not fit for heaven, not holy enough to meet God; and thus set you to spin out for yourself a kind of spurious holiness, without either power to enable you to be holy, or blessing in the attempt.

When such temptations and assaults of Satan come upon you, remember the one solid, unchanging ground of confidence, "He is our peace" — "having made peace by the blood of his cross." What shall we say then to these things? "If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8: 31-39.)

The Touch of Faith

Mark 5: 24-34.

Oh, who is that among the throng,

Who so calmly walks alone,

Love resting in His face?

'Tis Christ the Lord, God's blessed Son,

Responding to the call of one

Who needs His healing grace.

One, too, there is amid that crowd,

Beneath the weight of suffering bow'd,

Unknown to all beside.

For twelve long years she bore her pain,

Spent all she had, could nothing gain,

Till Jesus she descried.

But when she sees Him drawing near,

How bounds her heart with hope and cheer,

Resolved the crowd to brave!

To touch that bless'd One's garment's hem

She knows is to "be whole;" — and then —

The touch of faith she gave.

Immediately her pains depart,

What joy, what comfort fills her heart!

She would not have it known!

She little thought that feeble touch

Had cheer'd her Saviour's heart as much

As it had heal'd her own.

He felt the virtue flowing o'er

That He was trusted, which was more

Than aught she e'er could do.

And can He let the heal'd one go

Without a word or look to show

That He had loved her too?

He will not heed the callous press,

He longs to hear her lips confess

The secret of her soul.

To tell Him is to get release,

His gracious answer, — "Go in peace,

Thy faith hath made thee whole."

Lord Jesus! Thou art still the same

As when that lowly woman came

To have her pain removed.

Since Thou ascendedst to Thy throne,

How many a heart, unseen, unknown,

Thy healing power has proved!

Yes! now the streams of virtue flow

Unhinder'd, for our sin and woe —

Has all been borne by Thee.

God's glory in Thy face doth shine

While righteousness and grace combine

To set the suff'rer free.

The feeblest look of faith on Thee

Secures salvation full and free,

And gives Thee joy and cheer,

As much in glory bright above,

As in Thy walk of lowly love,

The "Man of Sorrows" here.

"Is it Peace?"

2 Kings 9: 17.

One of the most important questions that could possibly engage the attention of a man stands at the head of this paper, and yet it would seem that in proportion to its importance is the indifference with which fallen man treats it.

Not so the world, with regard to its interests, or kingdoms and nations, respecting their welfare; wise and far-seeing with reference to time, man is a fool, and plays the fool, in the things of God and of eternity. Peace is the great desire of nations, to maintain it on honourable terms with surrounding neighbours is the great desire of every well-ordered State; and to live in peace with his neighbours and friends is the mark of a great and good man. How often and anxiously breathed was the word "peace" lately! How desired and longed for, both by conquerors and conquered! And when at last it came, how was it not flashed along the telegraph wire from country to country, and from continent to continent! What interest and anxiety, long on the watch, did it not find in every land! Alas, how different if I speak about "peace with God!" — a peace which Christ made by the blood of His cross; a peace which nothing can break; a peace, without which man is miserable in life, and hopeless in death. Reader, "is it peace" with you? If not, give me your attention for a little.

First. Let me tell you what peace is not. A truce is not peace; it may be very well so long as it lasts, but it is not intended to be permanent or lasting. It is, at best, but a temporary abstaining from hostilities by the mutual consent of two contending powers, and as soon as the prescribed limit is passed, war and bloodshed break out as terrible and destructive as ever.

Again. Gaining victories is not peace; it is, on the contrary, a proof that hostilities are going on, though one may be victorious in them. What, then, is peace, if it be not a truce, or gaining the day, as we say?

Peace is the complete and final overthrow of every hostile foe, so that there is no enemy to show. We shall take two illustrations; the first you will find in Exodus 15, where the children of Israel celebrate the triumphs of Jehovah over all their enemies. "I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation." . . . . "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone." The 30th verse of chapter 14 tells you the spring of this note of praise, namely, "Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore."

There was no enemy to lift up his head; all their enemies, the glory and flower of Egypt, had gone down like "lead in the mighty waters." They are a liberated people; they have seen the salvation of the Lord; consequently they can celebrate its triumphs. But observe the point of importance. There was no enemy to lift up his head, and for this simple reason, there were none left; the mighty waters of the Red Sea, through which Israel passed in safety, returned and flowed over the glory of Egypt. "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them."

Let us now look at a more magnificent victory and triumph; you will find the account of it in John 20. The Lord Jesus Christ is the victor, and sin, death and hell the vanquished. It is a wonderful sight. He is standing above all that He has risen out of, in the magnificence of His triumph! He had been under death and judgment, though not for Himself. The whole array of hostile enemies had put forth their might against Him, and He, blessed One, in the matchless grace of His own nature, had given Himself to meet it all; and He did meet it, and that perfectly, in His cross, glorifying God so perfectly, that the glory of the Father "raised him up from the dead, and glorified him, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies;" in His cross putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, as well as through death; destroying him that had the power of death. In John 20, then, He is seen standing in the fulness of His triumph, dispensing the spoils of victory, and His first word to the assembled disciples is, "Peace." It announced the overthrow of all their hostile foes, and proclaimed the fulness of His victory; but He goes further, for He not only announces peace, but likewise communicates life. He breathed on them, and saith unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Further, if we chose to pursue it, we should find that from Him the victorious risen, ascended One, the Comforter, was sent down to dwell in all who believe in Him. Will you say, reader, what are your thoughts of such a triumph? Are you a partaker of it ? Can you say, as you look up from the empty grave of Jesus to the occupied throne of the Father, "being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ" ? Not only this, but the consciousness of present favour, the hope of the glory of God filling the heart, while you joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what a wonderful thing, not only peace of conscience, but peace with God as God is! Reader, "Is it peace?" If not, "acquaint, now thyself with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee." For "He is our peace," having "made peace by the blood of his cross."

Reader, are you indifferent, thoughtless, careless? Listen! "When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . . and they shall not escape." The Lord in His mercy grant you so to know Him, that your heart shall be full, yea, even to overflowing! W. T. T.

"Without Hope"

Ephesians 2: 12.

These are very solemn words. "Having no hope, and without God in the world," is the language used by the Spirit of God when He would describe the condition and position of Gentiles in the flesh, dead in trespasses and sins; and the contrast is equally striking: "In Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off; are made nigh by the blood of Christ." On the one side it is "no hope," and "without God;" on the other side it is "in Christ Jesus" — "made nigh by the blood of Christ."

Not many days since, I was asked to visit a young lad who was supposed to be dying. As soon as I reached his bedside, I found him, in every sense of the word, in a terrible state. He had been, along with his father and other members of his family, working in a mill hard by where he lived, and was keeping his bed just a week the day I saw him. Disease had made dreadful havoc of his body during those six days; a living corpse is the only language suited to describe him. I could see very well, as I sat beside him, that every moment was precious, as he was fast sinking; and I spoke to him earnestly about the Lord Jesus and His finished work, and his own need of such a Saviour. He could not speak much, but to this he said nothing; he only looked about the room with a kind of wild, vacant stare, which truly told a tale for itself. I then spoke to him more personally about his soul, and the prospect before him, when he answered me in the words which stand at the head of this paper. "No hope, no hope!" he said; further, that he had not thought of the Lord all his short life (for he was only eighteen years old), and he did not believe that Christ was then willing to receive him. I endeavoured, from scripture, to set Christ before him in His true character, as well as the sufficiency and fulness of redemption; but, apparently, as far at least as I could judge, to no purpose. With his family, most of whom were present, I knelt by his bedside. My only comfort in such a case was in looking up to the One who is on high. I left him, knowing well I should never see him again, for he was rapidly becoming comatose, the precursor of death; and at six o'clock that evening he breathed his last. What may have taken place in his soul, the Lord alone knows, but he left behind him nothing on which one ray of hope could shine. Reader, where are you? "Without Christ," or "in Christ Jesus," which is it? Remember, the time may not be far distant for you; and if you die in your sins, you are lost for ever. May the Lord, by His Spirit, make use of this solemn, simple circumstance to awaken any careless and Christless one whose eye rests upon it W. T. T.

The Glory of the Cross

Whether we think of God's glory, or Christ's glory, or the practical effect on our hearts, it is Christ's cross, as being a real sacrifice for sin, that is really efficacious. It glorifies God, infinitely honours Christ, and perfectly blesses man, telling him he is the object of God's infinite love, and yet maintaining righteousness in His heart. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and, as to His Person, supremely glorious in dignity. This, indeed, enabled Him to do such a work; but never, as to His work and service, was He so glorious as He was upon the cross. I speak to you feebly, beloved reader, but is it not the truth, words, as Paul says, of truth and soberness? And this thing was not done in a corner. And now mark, too, the blessed efficacy of it for me, a poor sinner. There stood sin, death, judgment, just wrath, in my way. My conscience told me it was so, and God's word plainly declares it. Satan's power bound it down, so to speak, upon my soul, while his temptations encouraged me to go on in what led to it. God's law even did but make the matter worse for me, if I pretended to meddle with it, for its holiness condemned my transgressions. And now, for him that believes, all is taken out of the way. Sin gone, death gone, as the terrible thing I awaited — Christ has gone into it. Judgment — Christ has borne it. Wrath — there is none for me; I am assured of perfect love. Christ, in making me partake of the efficacy of His death, has set me, beyond all these things, in the light, as God is in the light — having loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood, and made me a king and priest to God and His Father. In rising, He has shown me this new place into which He has brought me; though, as yet, of course, I have it only by faith, and participation in that life in the power of which He has risen. Yes, dear reader, the believer is saved — he has eternal life — he is justified; he waits, no doubt, to be glorified, but he knows Him who has obtained it all for him, and that He is able to keep that which he has committed unto Him until that day.

"No, No"

John 6: 37.

It is related of the great Bishop Butler that in his closing hours his uneasiness and restlessness manifested itself, and he gave utterance to what passed through his mind, thus: "Though I have tried to avoid sin, and to please God to the utmost of my power, yet, from being conscious of my constant weakness, I am afraid to die." "My lord," said his chaplain, "you forget that Jesus Christ is a Saviour." "True," replied the bishop; "but how shall I know that He is a Saviour for me?" The chaplain replied, "It is written, 'him that cometh to me I will in no wise (ou me) cast out.'" "True," said the bishop, "and I have read that scripture a thousand times, but I never felt its full value till this moment. Stop there, for now I die happy."

I am more than ever struck with the way in which scripture gives prominence to the Person of Christ, as the testimony of the gospel; a Christ who is in the glory of God, having by His death first settled the question of sin. A Christ who is in the glory of God, as the proof that God is completely glorified in the putting away the sins of all who believe in Jesus, and in whose face shines the glory of God, is the Saviour for a poor sinner to-day and for ever. Just think a moment what an immense thing it is to be able to point a sinner to a Saviour in glory; a Saviour who was on the cross, over whose soul all the waves and billows of judgment rolled; who passed through death's dark raging flood, a Saviour who was dead, but who is now "the living One;" a Saviour who now occupies the throne of the Father, soon to be on His own throne.

It was a Saviour that Philip preached; a Saviour the jailer at Philippi received; a Saviour the poor thief on the cross vindicated and trusted in; a Saviour Lord; a Saviour he went to be with that very day in paradise. It was a Saviour in glory who was revealed in the heart of Saul of Tarsus, while he was wasting and persecuting the saints. I have a heart to be satisfied, as well as a conscience to be met. The Saviour whose blood alone can perfectly purge my conscience, can alone meet and satisfy my heart. Such a Saviour says, "Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." W. T. T.

Sowing and Reaping

Proverbs 1: 24-26.

What makes this passage so very solemn is, that it is the close, the finish, as we say. This is very serious indeed. The Book of Proverbs refers to the government of God upon the earth; and therefore the judgment here, though of God, and final, does not go beyond judgment in this world. It is man in this world, dealt with in his responsibility.

1st. The call, or voice of God, now comes from the place where Christ is witness to the perfection and completion of His work. Let me say the present call of God is based on the perfection of Christ's finished work. The One who put away sin is now on the heavenly side of the grave. He died unto sin once, now He liveth unto God. Besides, the presence of the Holy Ghost here on earth is a testimony to the completeness and sufficiency of the cross. But, besides all this, the call of God is sent forth in many channels. Did He not speak to you by your recent sorrow? Has that late suffering of yours nothing of God's voice in it? Is there not in your very conscience, at this moment, a voice that tells you that if you were now to die you would be lost for ever? Be assured, reader, God has not left Himself without abundant witness to the patient, long-suffering character of His grace.

2nd. We have here also man's refusal: "I have called, AND YE REFUSED." How solemn this is! Refused is the word the blessed God uses to describe the way in which man treats His call. This refusal does not always take the same shape or form, but refusal it is: sometimes, in so many words, it is an open avowal of dislike to the subject at all costs; very often it is a kind of indifferentism; and most frequently it is a procrastination, which promises to itself a more convenient season — a season, let me add, which in most cases never comes; but let the character be what it may, it all ranks in God's eyes as refusal. "I have called, and ye refused." Reader, if you are still out of Christ, there is a little hell within you at this moment, even as the ebbs and pulsations of the sea within the harbour walls are but an indication, a reminder of the dread roll of the ocean a thousand miles outside. Reader, think of these words; you in your turn calling, but the call is too late. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and you are not saved. No more insensibility now! no more procrastination now! No gospel no peace, no hope! One voice rolls its long sadness over ages of ages for ever: "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices."

This, as I have stated, is the doom of those who hearken not to wisdom. There was no love, or submission to the truth: their ease and prosperity and carelessness will be their destruction. As regards those who walk in a different road, in wisdom's ways, how striking the contrast! — "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." (Chap. 3: 13-17.) W. T. T.

"The Closed Door "

Late! late! too late!

Ye cannot enter in.

The door is shut, in vain ye wait,

The Bridegroom's gone within.

The hour of mercy now is o'er;

Judgment hath closed the open door;

Judgment from Him whose grace before

Ye spurn'd from love of sin!

Late! late! too late!

Ye cannot enter now.

The music wakes within the gate,

The garlands crown the brow.

The heavenly strains that reach your ear,

Their very sweetness makes most drear;

Filling your hearts with boding fear,

Ye cannot enter now!

Late! late! too late!

Why came ye not before?

Did He not long with patience wait,

And open keep the door?

Did He not many a message send?

Did He not woo you as a friend?

Why did ye not His voice attend?

The day of grace is o'er!

Late! late! too late!

Ye cannot enter now.

Barr'd, and for ever, is the gate —

Mercy averts her blow.

The voice that call'd you to repent

Hath sworn, and He will not relent;

Your day of mercy all is spent,

Ye cannot enter now!

God Speaking from Heaven

Hebrews 12: 18-29.

The apostle contrasts Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, and warns them what the present testimony is. It is a mistake we very often make that we are so many responsible persons going on to judgment, and there must give an account of ourselves. That is true of us, but that is very far from all. There has been a dealing of God with man, and He is now dealing with them for the last time; that makes it the more solemn.

It is not now a question of good and evil in us. What the Lord presents to our souls now is, that that question is all settled; there is none righteous, no, not one; that is the way He is dealing now. If His grace is refused, judgment is pronounced upon their state; that is what I mean by settled. Now, He comes either in judgment or in warning, and if that is slighted there is condemnation. The contrast between the two Mounts is exceedingly striking. People do not believe they are in this state of condemnation. There the law is exceedingly useful in awakening — if they judge of good and evil they cannot judge of what is beyond themselves. Man's judgment is no higher than the evil he has done. A man brought up in dirt sees nothing in dirt; so with the natural mind, it judges according to its own state. God brings in His estimate of what man ought to be. That is what the law is — as a hammer, it breaks the rock in pieces. Therefore, Moses said, "I do exceedingly fear and quake." "Felix trembled," not that he was saved, but the word of God awakened his conscience, because conscience is there. God has dealt probably with every heart here. The word breaks us up, and shows us we are not what God wants; but that is not the will being converted. The flesh abuses everything. God gave the law to convict of sin; man takes it to work out righteousness. But God is not leaving you to the day of judgment; He is dealing with you now, and this is the day of grace.

When the word of God comes home to man — what man really ought to be — who could answer Him one of a thousand? Wherever the word reaches the conscience you see that it is a present dealing; not put off to the day of judgment, because it reaches it now. He knows perfectly well he is not it. You know you have not loved God with all your heart to-day; you have not loved your neighbour as yourself one day in your life. My conscience tells me the law is right — I may kick against it.

You must not have any thought of your own righteousness in the day of judgment, because you have not got any.

The young man in Matthew 19: 16 did not say, "What shall I do to be saved?" but "that I may have eternal life." The Lord's answer is, not if you want to be saved, but if you want to live, "This do and live." The young man said, "This I have done, and what lack I yet?" "Sell all, and come follow me." This tested him, for his heart was set on his possessions; he went away from grace. So, in John 8: 9, one by one they went away from grace, because they dreaded the eye that could detect them. That is what people do still — they cannot bear conviction. It is getting away from God, because the heart and conscience cannot bear that which comes out in the presence of God. What a terrible thing that is, if your only hope of comfort is to keep away from God — to keep out of His sight!

Verse 22. — We are come, not to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion. Zion is a word of immense import, if we have read it spiritually. Zion was not simply mercy and patience. The ark was the only possible means of intercourse with God that Israel had, and they had sent it away; so have we — so to speak — looking at our natural state. The importance of Zion was, that Israel had been already tested and failed. Eli was a godly old man, but did not keep his sons in order, and when he found the ark was taken, that it was all over, he falls back and dies.

You have to be brought to the conviction that it is all over. Then God comes in, not merely in mercy and patience — that He had all through — but God comes in when all the responsibility is closed by the total failure of man, and takes the ark out of the hands of the Philistines, and places it on Mount Zion, by David, as by Christ, now David's seed.

Verses 22, 23. — The whole scene of millennial glory on earth and in heaven is exceedingly interesting, but I do not speak of that now.

Verse 25. — How does Christ speak from heaven? Is it, there is a day of judgment, and you must prepare yourself for it? He comes and speaks to man, and deals with man on the ground of His being a Man in heaven. If He speaks from heaven, He speaks not merely of mercy, but of grace, on the ground of an accomplished work. He appeals to our hearts upon the ground of what He is and has done. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, because He has nothing more to do as to making out a righteousness for us. As to the question of righteousness, that work that He has finished is the righteousness that brings us into glory, who, through grace, have believed in Him. I get these two things, the place that Christ speaks from, and the work that brings the people in. He does not reproach you. He comes and tells you, Do you think I do not know what sin is? I bore it. He knows what the consequence is as none other can know it. "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." Are you learning God in the presence of grace? The hearts of the sons of men are wholly set in them to do evil. Man's history is a terrible one. Because Christ humbled Himself in grace, man profited by the occasion, in order that He should be despised and rejected of men. And is there not a rejection of Him now? Do not some of you reject Him — do not people know that they are sinners, and go on sinning? That is despising Him. But where the heart has been brought down, what do I find? Suppose I am coming to God by Him, why, He tells me, I am in heaven, because your sins are put away. And what can God say if Christ, who bore my sins, is in the presence of God? the thing before me is not judgment, but Christ. If I come to God as a judge, why, Christ is there. He cannot but own that they are all put away — Christ appearing in the presence of God as a personal witness that the sins have been put away.

The judgment day would be according to my works, but the present day is according to the efficacy of Christ's work; so we see what a great thing it is for Him to speak to us from heaven. It is an appeal that ought to put to shame and confusion every one that does not bow to it. "By him all that believe are justified from all things." That is the only faith God will have. Christ is so perfectly glorified that He says, I will not have any other. If I own Christ, I am nothing, that is the thing that is wanted. Do you want to have a little share of your own pretension in the presence of a dying Saviour? If you could get in a bit of your own righteousness, it would be like the dead flies, causing the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour.

Thank God, that voice, if it is in the soul, is eternal life; it is God's way of communicating life.

Now, have you all taken this ground that God has taken with you, telling you, you are all lost — still telling it in grace? Beloved friends, it is not waiting for the day of judgment, when judgment will be executed. He is speaking to you from the right hand of the Majesty on high, where He sat down when He had by Himself purged our sins. Are you going to refuse Him that speaks? I know our hearts drag us down, and the things around us are contrary to us, but it is Christ who has come and presented Himself before our eyes. Remember how He speaks; and are you going to refuse to hear Him, like the deaf adder? Are you going to take God in judgment, when you have despised Him in grace?

The Lord give us to see the truth, and taste the unspeakable love of Him who gave Himself for us! Will He not with Him freely give us all things? He who has come in grace will come in judgment. J. N. D.

"The Master of the House Risen Up, and the Door Shut"

Luke 13: 25.

These solemn words of the Lord Jesus were part of His reply to one who said unto Him, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" As was usual with the blessed Lord, He answers the man, not his question. It was just such a question as a man might engage his thoughts with, solemn though it be, without any personal exercise whatever; a question which many a man would gladly discuss, and eagerly argue, without any special reference to himself in the matter. Hence, no doubt, the blessed Lord made it a most personal, searching, individual matter. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." He gives three powerful reasons for this word —

1st. The gate, road, or way, is at present open, and it is strait, that is, narrow, the real entrance being faith in Christ, and conversion to God. The striving to enter in does not imply an energy in return for which entrance is granted as a reward, but it is a man's casting himself upon the grace of God in Christ; a man cannot bring anything of himself in by such a gate; all that belongs to that must be left outside for ever.

2nd. The Lord says, "For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." This means clearly that many would seek to get in some other way beside the strait gate, either by good works, or ordinances, or something of man which brings dishonour upon Christ and His work. Is it not largely so at the present time? Are there not multitudes who wildly fancy that they can make good a claim upon God? Reader, do you belong to that class? Listen to the solemn word of Christ, "Shall not be able." Oh, how it bars and shuts up every avenue on that side, closing the door for ever against all that would not only destroy the sinner's hope, but cast a slur upon the alone sufficiency and work of the Lord Jesus Christ!

3rd. Another and most solemn reason is, that the door which is now open, and for every poor sinner who has a heart for Christ, will not always be open. "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath, shut to the door," leaves no question as to that. At the present time Christ is seated and expecting. He is now an exalted Prince and Saviour. "I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." So long as His present session in the heavens continues, He where He is in the glory of God, and the Holy Ghost on the earth sent forth from Him where He is, bear testimony to the completeness, fulness, and perfection of that redemption which is in Christ Jesus. In virtue of Christ's death there is salvation, present and eternal, for all who believe. "By him all that believe are justified from all things." But — and, reader, mark it well — as soon as He leaves His present position, when He rises up as it were, the door is closed for ever. Were such to take place at this moment, where would you be? Do these words describe you? "Ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity."

Reader, that moment is speeding its way, He who now sits on the right hand of God will soon rise up. If you should be found without at that moment, how solemn, how dreadful, to knock when the door is closed for ever against you, and to carry into an eternity of misery the memory of a slighted Saviour and a despised salvation! W. T. T.

The Light and the Blood

That God is light is a truth more universally recognised, in some sense, than perhaps any other truth of God. We do not mean that it is known, or intelligently confessed, as God's truth, but we mean that every man's conscience is aware of it, and every man's ways evidence the conviction he has within. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." It is because of this that the wicked hate Him, and natural religion seeks to conciliate Him. A natural man cannot think about God without also thinking about his own sins. Of this we are convinced, that though men may speak of, and in measure recognise God in goodness, in power, in mercy, yet this thought must intrude, if even it be not uppermost, that if God be all this, yet sin is in them, and they are sinners. The extent of this sense of sinfulness varies greatly from the careless recognition of the fact, to the deep consciousness of it as wrought in a soul by the Spirit of God. But we repeat, no one in his natural condition, no one apart from Christ, known and trusted in by faith, can think of God calmly and quietly for many moments, without also the thought of sin, or sins, arising in the mind.

"God is light;" but this great and solemn fact, which makes the sinner's heart and conscience quail, is the foundation of the deepest blessing to the believer's heart and mind.

But light manifests, for "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." As in natural, so in spiritual things, in the dark nothing is rightly discerned. In a dark room there is no difference between a chair and a table, between a black man and a white. The difference exists, but it is not seen. So in the spiritual darkness of nature, "the natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God." Good and evil, the things of God and the things of the world, all are blended and confused. The evil is there, but apart from the grace of God it is not judged. Bring the light of the sun into the dark room, and everything is discovered. Bring the light of God's truth into the soul, and everything is spiritually discerned, for God is light.

It is a terrible moment when the light of God first shines into a sinner's heart, and shows him what he is, and upon the sinner's ways, and shows him what they truly are in God's sight. "In him is no darkness at all." In His light all is light, and darkness is reproved. Man himself is seen and known through and through — not as he has been accustomed to regard himself in self-complacency, or as his fellows may have regarded him, in ignorance, it may be, of the workings of his wicked heart, even as of their own.

And who could abide that light, its intense, all-searching power, but for the provision which grace has made in the blood? The blood of Christ is God's provision for, and it is also the peace and the plea of the sinner's conscience when brought into the light of God. Blessed and perfect, because divine provision, through faith, in which the sinner is justified, and the conscience is at rest.

The light manifests the sin, the darkness of the sinner. The blood puts away the sin, and sets the sinner at peace in the light.

The light even of God Himself can manifest nothing which the precious blood cannot put away, for the "blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin." "The life is in the blood," and "it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul."

How perfect the harmony thus existing in all the provisions of divine grace! "God is light," and would have men to be in the light in communion with Himself.

It was not God who hid Himself from Adam, but Adam from God. So now He hides not Himself from sinners, but poor sinful man, fearful of the light, and ignorant of the blood, withdraws himself from God.

Beloved reader, if the light has not yet shined in your heart, "to give you the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we beseech you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God." For "God hath made Christ to be sin for us, [he] who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Shrink not from the light; let its beams pour into your heart and conscience, for that word of light which tells you of God's holiness, and of your own sin, tells you also of the blood of the Lamb without blemish and without spot — the blood of that blessed Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of man, which was shed for you and for me, to save us from sin and the world now, and from the wrath to come, and to fit us for that place in glory where the same Lord Jesus Christ now dwells, "having abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel," from whence also He will soon descend to take His believing people to Himself, that where He is, there they may be also. "For as Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

"Chiefest among Ten Thousand"

When first I heard of Jesus' name,

I only then for refuge came:

I heard that He for sinners died —

And from His pierced and wounded side

Had flow'd the water and the blood —

To bring the sinner near to God.

I found Him meet my every need,

That He a Saviour was indeed;

By Him my every want supplied,

Whene'er I have to Him applied.

Of grace, the storehouse full and free,

All fulness dwells in Him for me.

But, oh! I have such glories viewed

In Him who as my surety stood;

Such beauties, human and divine,

In all His words and actions shine,

That now I sing, with rapturous heart,

"Thou altogether lovely art."

And all He is, He is for me!

So meek in all His majesty,

So tender in Almightiness,

So sympathising in distress,

So liberal — all He has He gave,

Yea, e'en Himself, my soul to save!

It is not terror makes me flee,

Saviour of sinners, Lord, to Thee;

Thy excellencies me constrain

To seek Thee as my greater gain;

Thy presence, my eternal home,

Come, blessed Lord, oh quickly come!

Amen.

The Veil Rent, the Rocks Riven, the Graves Opened

Matthew 27: 51, 52.

These verses relate what took place when Jesus yielded up the ghost. The blessed Lord died, surrendered the life which He had, and which none had title to take from Him. "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." Such are His own blessed words. The moment that was done results came forth which nothing else could accomplish, which even His own blessed and beautiful life on earth could never have produced. But the giving up of His life, His surrendering Himself as a willing victim to death, as the just judgment of God due to sin, as well as wielded by the power of Satan, is followed by the veil of the Temple being rent in twain from the top to the bottom, by the earth quaking, the rocks rending, the graves opening, and many bodies of the saints which slept, coming forth out of the grave after His resurrection. Heaven, earth, and hell, felt a power they had never owned before.

"By weakness and defeat

He won the meed and crown;

Trod all our foes beneath His feet

By being trodden down.

He hell in hell laid low,

Made sin, He sin o'erthrew;

Bow'd to the grave, destroy'd it so,

And death, by dying slew."

•        •        •        •        •

The "Holy of Holies" was separated from the rest of the temple by a veil, made of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen work; it signified the distance of man as a sinner from God, and set forth the impossibility on the part of God to have any intercourse with man in his sins. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest; God could not come out, and man could not go in. But now all is reversed, the veil was rent; that veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, typified the spotless humanity of the Lord Jesus. It must be rent before the full moral glory of God can come out, and before we can go in. The new and living way was consecrated for us "through the veil, that is to say, his flesh."

Once more, observe the manner in which it was rent, namely, "from the top to the bottom;" thus declaring that no hand but God's could rend it. He declares that He does not wish the distance, which up to this moment existed, any longer to continue, and not only so, but undertakes Himself to remove it, and in such a way as to display all the righteousness, holiness, truth, and love of His nature. The life of Jesus, beautiful, and perfect, and blessed as it was, His services to man, His obedience to God, could never have rent the veil or opened the graves. If there were no Saviour who died, whose blessed body was given, and whose blood was shed, God were still concealed behind that veil. Man, even at his best, was still at a distance; hell still unconquered, and he that held the power of death still unsubdued. But, blessed be God, it is not so, now that Christ has died. All of God has come out, sin in its root has been judged, the way into the holiest has now been made manifest. The Christ who died is risen and glorified, and in His face shines the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. W. T. T.

"What hath God Wrought?"

Numbers 23: 18.

The thought is that our state should answer to the state into which we have been brought. Where the conscience is good this is the case; we enjoy the thing into which we have been brought in the measure in which we enter into it. The soul must be broken down, the pride of man, that would meet God face to face, that must be broken down — that pride is the worst of all. (I am not speaking of brutish sins.) In his course man has no idea that sin separates him from God.

But when we come to righteousness, that will not do. We all know we have sinned, and that heaven is a holy place, and yet we expect to get there. Call it mercy, or what you will, but man would rather be something else than what he is if going to be judged now. The conscience must be awakened by a present revelation of God. The light comes in, and makes everything manifest, and puts us just as we are in the presence of God. There is no pride in the conscience when we are before God; pride of heart is just being without God altogether. Who am I to be afraid of if God is not in all my thoughts? When I have to do with God there is fear, right fear; that is the beginning of wisdom. There is never any pride in the conscience when we have to do with God. In these verses we find the most absolute justification; God sees no sin at all.

When we look at it as it is here — an absolute judgment outside of what we have done — what hath God wrought? I don't prescribe any particular course of experience, but the pride of heart must be gone to enjoy this.

All the failures of the wilderness had gone before this. (Chap. 23.) Could the enemy, the accuser of the brethren, take up all that Israel had done, and make it a barrier to their entering the land — hinder our getting into heaven? — for this is heaven for us. He could not. (Deut. 9.) They were there at the same moment as when this question was raised by the accuser, Can you go in or not? Well, what is Moses' account? Incessant murmuring. "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you." What is the normal state of a Christian? The Christian's path is clearly living up to his privileges — Christ our life, walking in the Spirit, accepted in Him.

We must either be before God in the lowliness of the sense of the grace of God, or meet a God that breaks us down. What is man's place with God? Lowliness. And being nothing, all the man's delight is being nothing, and receiving everything.

The judgment of the Spirit in a saint is another thing from the judgment about him. By the Spirit of God I see such a thing was not meekness, not gentleness on my part. The Spirit of God judges me according to what I am; that is all right, but when God judges me it is according to what Christ is, and has done.

The Spirit of God judges everything in us that is contrary to God; but when the question arises with the accuser, you see what God's judgment actually, absolutely is about me, and that is according to what Christ is and what He has wrought. "God is not a man that he should lie." All the hostility comes to nothing. Why? Because it met God.

Verse 21. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel." Why, Moses had seen nothing else! In one sense God had seen it all. Why hath he not seen it? Because He had put it away Himself; there is no such thing seen when you come to the judgment of God about us.

It was not that He allowed the evils. He had humbled them, and proved them, to know what was in their hearts. They had gone all through the wilderness thus. He had chastened them about their sins. You get all God's gracious dealings with them. in Deuteronomy 8. But here it rests with God Himself, and for us I find Christ there, the Lamb that was slain, in the presence of God. Suppose I am broken down, and humbled, and go to God about it, what do I find there? I find the Lamb slain there; a Man there. What tale does that tell? That Christ has finished the work and gone back there, having put our sins away. "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." If I come at the beginning, or at the end, I find Christ there. God does not see iniquity in me. Why? Because Christ has put it away. It is what hath God wrought, not what I have wrought. He undertook that work, and there I find that "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Christ could not allow sin. Well, then, did He put me away? No; He put my sin away!

We cannot judge ourselves too much and too earnestly. The converted man loves holiness.

The question is now, Is God satisfied with what He has wrought? That, of course, is simple. It overrides all experience. Experience is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, but that is desert work. "Thou hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed." Experience is right; but when you come to the end of all experience, it is, what has God wrought!

Chapter 24: 6. "As the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted." Well, He hath wrought in our hearts that we should follow Him in righteousness and true holiness. When God has wrought, that is the effect. He has taken me in hand, brought me out of Egypt. Who is to condemn? Condemn yourself when you are wrong. But what matter who condemns if God justifies; that is the true side. Are you satisfied with yourself? Then you don't know God at all. Satan may accuse, so as to bring chastisement for our good, but no judgment.

Verse 24. Now you get strength. "Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion."

There I get a picture of power. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Consequent on this we get power against the evil.

Reader, is your heart or conscience on that ground? When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, are you there in your heart according to what God has wrought? or are you looking to the ground of your acceptance for what is done in the plain?

Are you judging of yourself, by yourself, down in the wilderness, or by God, up in the mount? It is God that justifies; the whole thing is God's work: that is a blessed thing.

Our hearts are able to rest and see there is an end, an utter condemnation of all that is of the old Adam state. The whole thing for the heart to rest in is, "what hath God wrought?" The human heart kicks against that, for man likes to be something. The more we look into it, the more we shall see the value of it. Let us judge ourselves, and walk, according to what God hath wrought, in practical holiness. I am going to be like Him. Well, I must be like Him here, bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

The Lord break us down thoroughly; empty us of ourselves, of all thought that we can do anything! Keep us in His presence, that we may know that joy now; that we may stand there in peace. J. N. D.

The Harvest Past, the Summer Ended

I had just entered on my labours in the hospital at —, when a messenger came saying I was required in ward No—. It was my first visit. I felt my personal weakness, and in my heart said, "Who is sufficient for these things?" as my eye glanced along a ward where on each side were ranged beds, occupied by pale sufferers, young and old.

I soon discovered the person for whom I was specially sent. She was a young woman in the last stage of consumption. Her mother stood beside her wiping the large drops of sweat from her brow. After a question or two, I knelt to ask divine guidance and blessing upon what might now be said to this helpless one. My words were few, and when I rose to speak her ears were deaf, her eyes were fixed, her heart had ceased to beat, and there lay the lifeless form of the subject of my first visit.

As I stood looking upon that lifeless body, something seemed to whisper, "There is no room for trifling here, be diligent, the night is far spent; see around, all are hastening on to eternity; set before them life and death — the way of escape from the wrath to come."

I could only speak a few words of comfort to that bereaved mother, and then turn to tell of Him who through death conquered death, and by whom all that believe are delivered from its sting.

The person who lay in the next bed heard of that mighty One, His finished work for sinners, of whom she felt herself to be one, trusted all to Him who is able to save, and rejoiced with joy unspeakable.

J. — became exceedingly happy, she gave daily increasing evidences of having passed from death unto life.

During the last few days of her sojourn here, she was heard repeatedly going over that beautiful hymn, commencing —

"Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly;

While the raging billows roll —

While the tempest still is high."

And she dwelt with emphasis upon these two lines,

"Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee."

And when she could no longer articulate the words, she loved to hear them repeated. As death drew near, her joy increased; it was manifested in looks and broken sentences, in which the name of the refuge of her soul sounded again and again: and in a few weeks after I had stood at the first bedside, Jenny's departure took place in fulness of joy.

To those who witnessed it, who were chiefly Romanists, it was a matter of wonder. They said they had never witnessed anything like it. I hope it was the beginning of "good things to come" to many of them.

But how many have passed away in such a manner that it pains my memory now to recall those dreadful scenes!

Death, Guilt, and the Power of Satan

Psalm 22.

There were three things which the Lord Jesus had to encounter, and to triumph over, and which were ever before Him — Death, Guilt, and the power of Satan. The union of these against Him was the "power of darkness," which He acknowledges to the multitudes who came to apprehend Him, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness."

Now, these were the three great enemies which were against us. We had sinned, and God had declared, "The wages of sin is death." We were guilty, and condemnation could not be put away, but by the removal of the occasion of it; and Satan was manifestly against us, as an adversary to our final freedom. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ had just to meet all these, as the federal Head and representative of His people; then there was liberty — glorious and everlasting liberty. We find, then, that Christ had really these three to contend with. He came to be the sin-bearer; and bearing sin, He must necessarily subject Himself to its wages, which was death. Thus bearing sin, guilt was necessarily imputed to Him, and He must suffer its condemnation, until God was satisfied; and, finally, He must, as the Head of His people, overcome him under whom Adam, and all mankind in him, had failed. This Christ did; these He met, took, sustained, remained steadfast under, and overcame; conquered them all, obtained the victory — with wounds and bloodshed indeed; but, having triumphed, He rose with the full blessedness of the enjoyment of God's countenance, death having passed, and guilt removed, and Satan overcome by Him, in the name and for the eternal blessedness of His people.

This was fully manifested at His resurrection, which was a seal of His perfect accomplishment and acceptance, when He rose, a living witness to the full satisfaction for sin having been asked and obtained, and God's faithfulness being manifested. "Thou hast heard me," said Christ, "from the horns of the unicorns," and then without any delay, He immediately adds, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren," as if the enjoyment He possessed was incomplete until the knowledge of it was communicated to those whom He had made part of Himself.

— Extracted.

"Jesus in Glory"

Rise, my soul! behold 'tis Jesus,

Jesus fills thy wondering eyes;

See Him now in glory seated,

Where thy sins no more can rise.

There in righteousness transcendent,

Lo! He doth in heaven appear

Shows the blood of His atonement,

As thy title to be there.

All thy sins were laid upon Him,

Jesus bore them on the tree

God who knew them laid them on Him,

And, believing, thou art free.

God now brings thee to His dwelling,

Spreads for thee His feast divine,

Bids thee welcome, ever telling

What a portion there is thine.

In that circle of God's favour,

Circle of the Father's love,

All is rest — and rest for ever,

All is perfectness above,

Blessed, glorious word for ever,

Yea, for ever is the word;

Nothing can the ransom'd sever,

Nought divide them from the Lord.

The Three Crosses

Luke 23: 27-49.

These verses detail the solemn circumstances connected with the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would invite your earnest attention to it, reader, and to some of the lessons which may be learned from them: —

"And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him."

Have you ever pondered over all that is unfolded in that little word Him? Who was He? The only-begotten of the Father, the Son of God, the brightness of His glory, the Christ, the wisdom of God, and the power of God. He whom they thus crucified was all this, and much more beside.

Have you ever pondered over all that is unfolded in that little word "they"? Who were they? The religious world of that time, the heads of the nation of Israel, the chief priests and scribes — but it was man in his rebel hatred of God and His Christ, letting out his true character, showing there was not a spark of latent good in his heart. If, then, I look at "Him," I learn, 1st, what sin is. Reader, do you know what sin is? The evil deeds of men whose names darken the calendars of crime will not teach you; the wail of the lost and damned, even if you could hear it, would not teach you; but the sorrow of the soul of Him, the Christ, the God man, as He cried, when under the judgment due to sin, and forsaken of God, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This and this alone tells me what sin is in its own nature, and how intolerable to a holy and righteous God it is. Oh, reader, is it not sufficient to make you blush to think it was on your account that blessed One suffered all this terrible judgment? 2nd, I learn what God is. He it was who gave His only-begotten Son; He it was who undertook to remove the distance which man by his sin brought in between himself and God. I learn what His love to the poor sinner is at the same place where I see that He cannot tolerate sin. It was man who introduced the distance, and, therefore, it was man who was bound to repair the breach thus made, but man had neither the ability nor the will to do so. Oh, how it magnifies the riches of His grace to know that on the side and part of the blessed God was the thought of removing the distance, as well as the providing, at the cost of His own Son, the only way by which it could be effected.

But there are two other crosses. Let us look a little at each.

In one I see a blessed and wonderful illustration of what God meant by the cross of Christ. He means a salvation, that is, pardon and forgiveness, and a place in Paradise with Christ, for the very vilest sinner that believes in His blessed Son. Observe the change which has taken place in this man —

1st, He has the fear of God in his heart; he rebuked the insolent mocking of his companion with these words, "Dost thou not fear God?" This is what man has not in him by nature. "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

2nd, He justifies Christ in words which tell out the simple story of His life, "This man hath done nothing amiss," at the same time that he fully condemns himself, for he says, "We indeed justly (are condemned), for we receive the due reward of our deeds."

3rd, His simple confidence was in the person of the Lord Jesus; his request was to be remembered when Christ came into His kingdom; he asks for no present relief in his suffering; he urges no plea; he seeks not to make good a claim; his simple utterance is perfectly magnificent, "Lord, remember me." And, reader, mark well the answer, "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." This is what God's salvation is and means — a full deliverance, and a place with the Saviour, all on the ground of the blessed redemption accomplished by the death of the Son of God.

But there is another lesson, and a deeply solemn one, which may be learnt at the cross of the other thief. Mark it well, reader, how near a man may be to Christ and perish. Here was one that witnessed all that we have had before us, one who being beside the Son of God, who was in that sense outwardly, at least, near to Christ, and yet he perishes. He spends the last moments of a life of shame and infamy in railing on the Saviour, and the tongue which soon would be silent in death is raised to revile and mock. Oh, reader, are there not many who pass away from the busy scenes of life, like him, who have left no memory after them but that which brings pain and sorrow with it? Some who have been in their day as outwardly near to Christ, surrounded with privileges, making a profession of Christianity, religious it may be and respectable, who have never known Christ, and who died as they lived, and are now lost for ever; over whose tombstone the truthful inscription would be, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and they are not saved."

I write these few words, reader, amid the closing hours of a dying year, with the earnest prayer that you may be warned to flee from the wrath that is coming, if you have never yet trusted in Christ, and to find Him, not only your salvation, but your full and abounding portion for ever. W. T. T.

"Come."

Come to the Father, come!

Oh why so long delay?

He calls His wanderers home,

Why should you absent stay?

Have you not sorely proved

How base is Satan's claim;

That all you've sought and loved

Is emptiness and pain?

Come! come! come!

Come to the Father, come!

His message now receive;

He yearns to have you home,

His pardoning love believe.

His arms are open'd wide

To clasp you to His breast;

For you His Son hath died,

Return, and be at rest.

Come! come! come!

Come, all ye lost and dead,

Ye starved and naked, come;

Come, for the feast is spread,

There's bread enough at home.

The fatted calf is kill'd,

The wine and milk abound;

With joy your Father fill'd,

To see you safe and sound.

Come! come! come!

Come from the far off land,

Where death and darkness reign,

Why should you halting stand?

Eternal life you'll gain.

The best robe you shall wear

Of righteousness divine,

Acknowledged son and heir,

In glory you shall shine.

Come! come! come!

Come to the Father, come!

He wants His child to greet.

Come to His happy home;

What welcome shall you meet!

The dance and music wait

To wake their liveliest strain,

When entering through the gate

You're safely home again.

Come! come! come!

London: G. Morrish.

STEM Publishing : W. W. Fereday : God's Glad Tidings

God's Glad Tidings

(Gospel Addresses)

W W Fereday

The Sword of God (Gen. 3: 24, etc.),

Two Great Questions (Gen. 4: 10, etc.),

The Ass and the Lamb (Ex. 13: 13),

Face to Face with Death (1 Sam. 28: 19, etc.),

"Is it Peace?" (2 Kings 9: 22)

"Me" and "My Sins" (Psalm 41: 12, etc.)

"Good News from a Far Country" (Prov. 25: 25)

Human Insensibility (Isa. 1: 3, etc.),

Peace: False and True (Jer. 6: 14, etc.)

An Imperial Convert (Dan. 4: 1, 2)

Joshua the High Priest (Zech. 3: 2)

A Divine Complaint (John 5: 40-45)

Man's Mouth (Rom. 3: 14, etc.)

"No Difference" (Rom. 3: 22, etc.)

"So Great Salvation" (Heb. 2: 3)

Creator: Saviour: Father (1 Peter 4: 19)

To the reader.

The little volume of addresses, entitled "The Old, Old Story," has been so much appreciated that it seems desirable to issue another volume similar in character. If these pages are used of God to help anxious souls into peace and blessing, or if they afford suggestions to those who preach the Word, the writer will be truly thankful.

THE SWORD OF GOD.

"He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim and a flaming sword." — Gen. 3: 24.

"Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man that is My fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts." — Zech. 13: 7.

&";Out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword." — Rev. 1: 15.

There is a tender side, and there is also a stern side, to the divine character, for God is both light and love. Rom. 11: 22 bids us "behold therefore the goodness and severity of God." But who is competent to declare either? Who is able to sound the depths of the matchless statement that "God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son? (John 3: 16). Or who can adequately gauge the meaning of the solemn warning, "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever?" (Rev. 14: 11) .

Men are always apt to think of God with a bias in their minds. Some perceive the tender side of His character and imagine that because God is love there cannot possibly be an eternal hell; others again fail to see the tender side at all, and think of God like the man in Matt. 25: 24, who said: "Lord, I know Thee that Thou art a hard man, reaping where Thou hast not sown, and gathering where Thou hast not strewed." Neither the one nor the other really know God in their hearts.

Our theme just now is the sword of God. The first mention of it in Scripture is in Gen. 3: 24. The Lord God placed at the gate of Eden, a Cherubim and a flaming sword. This marked the close of the first chapter in the history of man — a sorrowful close surely. The Creator  made man for His pleasure. He endowed him richly, placing him in the most delightful surroundings, and granting him manifestations of Himself. It was needful that some test should be imposed, in order that it might be seen whether this responsible being would continue in faithfulness or not; the test took the form of a divine prohibition of one tree. Against this, the man, led by the woman, who was herself deceived by Satan, rebelled, and thus fell from his first estate. He could no longer be suffered to continue in the garden, and was accordingly expelled, though not until words of hope were sounded in his ear in the curse upon the serpent. The Cherubim and the sword were then placed at the cast of Eden to keep the way of the tree of life. Man has thus forfeited all claim to life. Life — eternal life — can only now be had as the gift of sovereign grace. What a moment for the heart of God when He found Himself compelled to draw His sword against His favoured creature man, posting also at the garden gate the administrators of His judgement!

But we pass to Zech. 13: 7: "Awake, O sword, against My shepherd." Who is the speaker? Jehovah of hosts, the God of the flaming sword. Of whom is He speaking? Of His beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We have thus the sword of God directed against the sinner in Gen. 3 and against Christ in Zech. 13. Mark how this passage speaks of the person and sufferings of the Lord Jesus. Jehovah calls Him "My fellow." He is thus divine. In no sense and at no time was He ever inferior to Him. "I and My Father are one," said He in the days of His flesh — one in majesty, power, wisdom and glory. But Jehovah of hosts calls Him "the man." He became this in His grace — the seed of the woman, that He might bruise the serpent's head.

We thus think of the Saviour as uniting Godhead and manhood in His one sacred person. But He must needs suffer; for incarnation could not of itself suffice to procure our salvation. So we hear the awful words, "Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts; smite the shepherd." This was at Calvary. There the good Shepherd did not merely risk His life for the sheep, like David when he pursued the lion and the bear, but He laid down His life. Well knowing all that would befall Him in this world, He came from heaven's glory, and did not pause in His downward course until He closed His eyes in death upon Calvary's tree. What a moment it was when God felt Himself obliged to sheath His sword in the heart of the Son of His love! But in the hour that He was thus smitten of God He wrought a full and efficacious atonement for our sin and guilt.

In Rev. 1: 15 we have a sword proceeding out of the mouth of Christ. This time the sword is directed against the foes of God and His Son. The language is necessarily symbolical, as occurring in the book of Revelation, but its meaning is plain enough. It is judgement executed at His command. When will this be? When He rises up from the throne upon which He is now seated, and comes forth in His majesty and might. Rev. 1: 11-21 gives us a graphic description beforehand of that terrible day.

It is God's way before drawing His sword to sound the trumpet. Turn, please, to Ezek. 33: 4, 5, and you will see this plainly. "Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come; and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning;" etc. Thus before God destroyed the earth by water, He sounded the warning trumpet by means of Noah: and in our own time, ere the last stroke falls, His trumpet resounds in the Gospel call. Will you not heed it, and seek salvation while you may? "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?" (Amos 3: 6). Will you not be afraid, and flee from the wrath to come? Does the Gospel trumpet sound in your ears in vain? I conclude by quoting Prov. 2: 1: "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." God grant this may not be your doom!

TWO GREAT QUESTIONS.

"What hast thou done?" — Gen: 4: 10.

"What think ye of Christ?" — Matt. 22: 42.

It has frequently been remarked that there are two great questions concerning which God is dealing with the children of men — the sin question and the Son question. Both are before us in these passages of Scripture. With neither the one nor the other do men care to burden themselves. Gladly would they shelve them altogether. It is the business of the preacher to arouse men's consciences both as to sin and as to God's beloved Son.

We have the question of sin raised in Gen. 4: 10: "What hast thou done?" True, the words were addressed to Cain by the Lord God after the murder of his brother Abel. But the challenge comes home to us all. Let us review our lives in the light of God. We have spent so many years in this world — 20, 30, 40 or more, as the case may be. They have been years of responsibility to Him who created us. But what have we done? If it be asked what we should have done, and how our lives should have been regulated, our Lord's words in Luke 10: 27 supply the answer. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself."

There is no mistaking such language as this. Every nook and cranny of our moral being should be filled with devotion to God, and from this should flow unselfish love to all others. But "what hast thou done?" Who amongst us would dare to affirm that he has so lived? What then? Rom. 3: 22 puts us all in our place: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." As the Prayer Book expresses it: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us."

Some will doubtless affirm that they are not so bad as others. So said the Pharisee of Luke 18. But the question still remains, Have you sinned at all? I have lying before me a curious calculation cut from the pages of a magazine. One sin in thought, one in word, and one in deed, committed daily, amounts to 10,950 sins in ten years, 21,900 sins in twenty years, and so on. Thus the youth of 20 has 21,900 sins standing to his debit in the book of God, reckoning upon the low basis of one sin in thought, one in word, and one in deed daily. 21,900 sins! This is a pretty serious matter is it not? Young man, is it not time for you to seek divine pardon?

Someone will perhaps say: "I wish you would change your tune, sir. Why do you so persistently bring forward this question of sin?" Herod doubtless said something of the same sort to John the Baptist. The King frequently sent for the great preacher, but his one text was: "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." The imperfect tense in the Greek of Mark 6: 18 shows this to have been John's habitual theme with the wicked monarch. One of Charles II's chaplains, who was wont to sternly denounce sin, is said to have been warned by the King to alter his manner of preaching. The faithful chaplain replied: "I will, your Majesty; when you alter your manner of living." The guilt of sin is the first divine lesson every man has to learn. Until this has been learnt no other lesson is possible.

We come now to the second great question: "What think ye of Christ?" Observe, please, the context of the passage. Our blessed Lord had been beset with cavilling questions from Sadducees, Pharisees, and lawyers. He had silenced them every one; not only giving direct answers to their inquiries, but making home thrusts at their consciences also. When they had said their last word, His opportunity came, and He turned upon them thus: "What think ye of Christ?"

This is a question altogether out of the ordinary, for every man's eternal future depends upon the answer which his heart gives thereto. The question of the Son is inter-woven in a remarkable manner with the question of sin. We shall see this presently. Some think of Him as a wonderful teacher. They say that if men would only live according to the principles inculcated in the Sermon on the Mount we should soon have an ideal condition of society. Others think of Him as an example. They speak of His life in the highest terms, and express their conviction that all who follow His example can never go far wrong. All this sounds very excellent. Surely men who speak thus must think highly of Christ!

But if the Son of God is no more than a teacher or exemplar, of what benefit is He to me a sinner? I ask the question with all reverence. His life and teaching rebuke, but do not help me in the smallest degree. "What think ye of Christ?" Let us hear John the Baptist's account of Him. As to His person, he says: "He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (John 1: 27). Truly human, yet truly divine; greater than the greatest of the prophets. As to His character, we hear John saying to Him in Matt. 3: 14: "I have need to be baptised of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" All others who came to John at Jordan had sins to confess, but not this One. As to His work, let us listen to John once more: "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29). This means a propitiatory sacrifice. Now listen to Paul as he expresses himself concerning God's Christ. As to His person, he says: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for by Him were all things created; . . . and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. 1: 15-17). To Paul He was thus the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. As to His work, hear the apostle in 1 Tim. 1: 15: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."

In the eyes of both John and Paul the Christ was thus the divine Son of God, who stooped from Godhead glory to the death of the cross in order to make atonement for human sin and guilt. Only those who regard Him thus in faith have true thoughts concerning Him.

What think ye of Christ? All manner of sin may be forgiven. The blood of the Lamb is sufficient to cleanse the reddest stains. But the rejection of Him is unpardonable. "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the Only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18).

THE ASS AND THE LAMB.

"Every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck, and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem." — Ex. 13: 13

The instructions here are of a remarkable character, and they are repeated in Ex. 34: 20. To call a man "an ass" would be the reverse of complimentary, and yet in these passages Jehovah indicates an analogy between the firstborn of an ass and the firstborn of man, for both had to be redeemed in the selfsame way. So serious a suggestion demands our earnest consideration.

First, let us see how the ass of Scripture is described. We shall then be able to say how far this animal is the representative of ourselves. To begin with, it fell into the category of unclean beasts. To be accounted clean, an animal must divide the hoof and chew the cud (Lev. 11: 26). The ass does not belong to this class! Is man a clean creature, or an unclean in the eyes of God? Long ago Bildad asked: "How can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? "Listen also to Job's pitiful wail: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one" (Job 25: 4; Job 14: 4). Then hear David's broken-hearted confession: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. 51: 5). These men evidently had a deep sense of their own moral uncleanness. Now notice how Isaiah, speaking representatively, describes the condition of his nation: "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Not only did the prophet thus declare the evil of others; in an earlier chapter he says of himself: "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa. 64: 6; 6: 5). It was the sight of the glory of Jehovah that so filled him with dismay at his own condition. The most frequent type of sin in Scripture is the loathsome disease of leprosy. Let us not deceive ourselves. In the eye of God, man with all his vaunted light and learning is as unclean as the ass that he despises.

In the Word of God the ass is not only represented as unclean; it is also the very synonym for self-will. Read Jehovah's account of him in his expostulation with His servant in Job 39: 5-8. And what is sin? It is correctly defined in the Revised Version of 1 John 3: 4: "sin is lawlessness." In other words, sin is doing our own will to the neglect of the will of God. Who can plead exemption here? Who amongst us does not love to have his own way at whatever cost? The life of the natural man is described in Eph. 2: 3 as "fulfilling the will of the flesh and of the mind." In Ps. 12: 4 haughty, insubject men are represented as saying: "Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?" Job 11: 12 is very pointed when it says: "Vain man would be wise, though man be born a wild ass's colt." Gen. 16: 12, correctly rendered, says of Ishmael, "He will be a wild ass of a man."

The analogy is thus complete between the unclean and self-willed ass and our poor fallen race. In one point man has sunk even lower than the ass, as Isa. 1: 3 shows. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass him master's crib; but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider." In other words, these beasts at least know to whom they belong; man, on the contrary, in the stupidity of his unbelief, fails to perceive that his owner and master is God.

What a wonderful work is conversion! It is a turning right round. Horrified at their previous perverseness and self-will, converted ones humbly acknowledge, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53: 6).

The law of Sinai was given as a curb upon the flesh. It fenced man about with prohibitions. "Thou shalt not" do this; "thou shalt not" do that. But it was all of no avail. The law only develops the evil of the human heart by provoking it. Its prohibitions wake up all the latent devilry in man. So the apostle argues in Rom. 7: 7-8. This being true, he calls the law "the strength of sin" in 1 Cor. 15: 56. How hopelessly and incorrigibly evil is flesh if the holy law of God has such an effect upon it! Yet some plead that there is good in every man if only it be looked for!

For both the firstborn of the ass and also of man a lamb must be sacrificed in Israel. The lamb typified Christ. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29). In its characteristics the lamb is the very opposite of the ass. Clean, it typifies Him who, though born of a sinful mother like ourselves, yet entered the world unstained in nature. All His ways too, were holy. His very judge had to say of Him: "I find no fault in this man." The lamb is also the symbol of meekness. How suitably do we read in Isa. 53: 7 of the Lord Jesus: "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." This is the passage that the Ethiopian was quietly pondering in his chariot when Philip accosted him. With charming simplicity he inquired of the Evangelist: "I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself, or of some other man?" (Acts 8: 34). With all readiness "Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."

The meek and clean One must needs die for the self-willed and the unclean — even ourselves. God "hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5: 21). Now He asks nothing from the conscience-stricken sinner but the humble acknowledgment of the mighty fact that Jesus died and rose again. But what of those who refuse to take the place of perishing ones before God? Destruction, as in the case of the unredeemed ass in Israel. Concerning a scornful rejecter of long ago, it was said: "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, dragged and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. 22: 19). In other words, he was cast out of God's dwelling place as unclean. Of the new Jerusalem it is written: "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth" (Rev. 21: 27). Happier far to take the place of the ass here and accept redemption by the blood of the Lamb than be thrust into the ass's outside place for evermore.

FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH.

"To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me. ... Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel." — 1 Sam. 28: 19, 20.

"We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." — Paul, in 2 Cor. 5: 8.

These passages show us two men face to face with death and the feelings which possessed them at the great crisis. Remarkably each bore the same name, and each had a violent death before him. Death is always a solemn thing. It marks the close of one stage of a man's being, and it is the gateway into the indefinite beyond. It is thus a test for every man. Mistakes made on earth cannot be rectified in eternity. Even the believer in Jesus realises the solemnity of the great change. Whatever opportunities of usefulness have been missed here will never recur again; and they must be accounted for to the Lord whom we serve. But the ungodly man has every reason to quake when death lays its icy hand upon him; for in his case "the last enemy" is the policeman come to bring him up to judgement. It is what comes after death that guilty ones dread (Heb. 9: 27).

Let us briefly consider the circumstances of King Saul. His forty years' reign of self-will and disobedience to God was now ending. The Philistines had declared war against him, and he was to meet them in battle on the morrow. Filled with foreboding, the unhappy King appealed to God, but without avail. Then he inquired for someone possessed of a familiar spirit, and learning that there was such a person at Endor, he went by night in a disguise and asked her to bring up Samuel. Some will perhaps say: "That is somewhat like what Spiritualists do to-day." They do absolutely nothing of the kind. The claim to put the living in communication with the dead is a monstrous fraud. The keys of Hades are in divine hands alone. Neither the just nor the unjust can be disturbed by Spiritualistic mediums. Yet it is not denied that such persons are in communication with the invisible world, but it is with demons they have to do; and it is with demons the mediums link up their miserable dupes.

No one was more astonished than the woman of Endor herself when Samuel really appeared. Never having known such a result from her previous incantations, she at once discerned the hand of God, and concluded that her visitor must be King Saul. Samuel forthwith challenged his disturber: "Why hast thou disquieted me, to, bring me up?" A dead man speaking! Certainly Samuel was not in the resurrection state (for that he must wait until the Lord's coming); he simply appeared in some form by divine permission. It has been asserted that the dead are in a condition of unconsciousness. Ecc. 9: 5 is quoted in proof — "the dead know not anything." But the writer of that book is concerned with things "under the sun"; and in the passage referred to he means that the dead are no longer able to follow the course of things down here. The story of the rich man and Lazarus (to which may be added such passages as Isa. 14: 9; Ezek. 32: 21) is sufficient to show that both saved and lost are fully alive to the reality of their condition in the unseen world. Besides, the apostle says as to himself that to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord.

"To-morrow shalt thou be with me." Samuel did not mean by this that Saul would be found in the same place and circumstances as himself. Between saved and lost "there is a great gulf fixed," which is impassable from either side. Samuel simply meant that Saul would be in the death-state next day; that is to say, numbered amongst the dead like the departed prophet.

There is no trace of tenderness in Samuel's words. Time was when he had cried to Jehovah all night on behalf of Saul (1 Sam. 15: 11). But Saul had sinned away his day of grace, and nothing remained but to pronounce sentence upon him. "Jehovah is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy." So said the prophet. "God is departed from me," wailed Saul, "and answereth me no more." Solemn position in which to be found! Saul had had many opportunities. His early reign was blessed with the light of God's presence, and with the counsel and support of the prophet. Yet his privileges were as nothing compared with those of men to-day who are permitted to hear the Gospel of Christ proclaimed in their ears. How awful should God say of anyone amongst us: "Let him alone" (Hosea 4: 17).

Let us ask ourselves what our feelings would be if some such message as was delivered to Saul was delivered to us. What if from the realms of the dead we heard the words: "To-morrow shalt thou be with me?" The believer in Jesus would say with rapture: "To depart and to be with Christ is far better" (Phil. 1: 23). But the football enthusiast and the lover of the theatre — what would they say? Dr. Johnson, of Uttoxeter fame, once remarked after visiting a place of amusement: "It went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think, but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone."

When Saul heard of his impending death he "fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid." We are reminded of Jacob when he learned that he must now meet the one against whom he had sinned: "Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed" (Gen. 32: 7). Now mark the contrast to all this in Paul the apostle. His life was in jeopardy for the Gospel's sake. But was he dismayed? The very reverse. "We are confident, and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5: 8). It is such an unusual thing to find men willing to be absent from the body (even the devil once said, "All that a man hath will he give for his life"), that we are constrained to inquire as to the ground of the apostle's confidence. His own words in Rom. 5: 8 tell us all we need know as to this: "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Here we have that which, when known and believed, banishes from the soul all dread of death. Christ has been into death for us, thus making complete atonement for all our sin and guilt, and breaking the power of the enemy once and for ever.

"IS IT PEACE?"

"It came to pass, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, 'Is it peace, Jehu?' And he answered, 'What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel, and her witchcrafts, are so many?'" — 2 Kings 9: 22.

There is anxiety, and even alarm, discernible in the inquiry of Joram, "Is it peace, Jehu?" The sequel proved that there was ample occasion for these sentiments. It was a time of upheaval in Israel. A revolution was in progress, which presently cost King Joram both his throne and his life.

The circumstances may be briefly stated. Israel and Syria were at war over Ramoth-Gilead. Joram, being wounded, had been obliged to return to Jezreel in order to consult his physicians, leaving his officers to prosecute the campaign. One day there arrived in the camp one of the sons of the prophets, who informed Jehu that it was Jehovah's will that he should be King over Israel. Nothing loth, Jehu sought the co-operation of his fellow captains, and forthwith set out for Jezreel to overturn the throne of his master. The watchman on the tower of the royal city reporting the rapid approach of a company, two horse-men were sent forth to inquire if all was well. The messengers not returning, the King set out himself to meet Jehu with the anxious question in our text. "Is it peace?" Note the reply. "What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel, and her witchcrafts, are so many?" The meaning is that no peace could be expected with so much unjudged sin in the land.

Joram, who thus rode out to his death, had been a very privileged person. Jehovah had taken great pains with him. See this King in 2 Kings 3, turning, with two other sovereigns, to the prophet in circumstances of dire distress. No water was available for their hosts. Their need was graciously met in the goodness of God. Then we have him in 2 Kings 5 made aware of Jehovah's wonderful healing power in the matter of Naaman's leprosy. In the following chapter we find God warning him on several occasions of designs against his life, and thus safeguarding him. 2 Kings 7 gives the story of the siege of Samaria, and the marvellous intervention of God on behalf of the famine-stricken people; and 2 Kings 8 shows us the King in conversation with Gehazi, and learning from him all the wonderful works of Elisha his master. In these various ways Jehovah spoke to this man's heart and conscience, if haply he would turn from his evil ways and live. But with all these divine privileges, Joram perished. How often has God spoken to us? Let us ask ourselves, how many privileges He has mercifully vouchsafed unto us?

There is a present-day application of our text. We are living in a time of universal disturbance. Revolutions in both East and West; wars and threats of wars in various directions. In the industrial sphere there is unrest everywhere. Thinking men are pretty much in the state of mind described by the Saviour in Luke 21: 25-26: "Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity . . . men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth." The anxious inquiry on every hand is: "Is it peace?" How relieved men are to learn that the atmosphere in the direction of Germany is somewhat clearer than formerly! With what thankfulness do men hear of a strike averted here or settled there! How would all England feel if to-morrow's newspaper reported a settlement of the coal dispute? Yet everyone realises that these questions are not really being laid to rest, that the difficulties are only being bridged over, to surge up again at some future date. No one believes the root is being reached.

"Is it peace?" is the anxious question to-day, as in the time of Joram. The answer to men now must be upon the same lines as the answer to him so long ago. Peace is impossible with sin unjudged. There is a sin lying at the door of the world to-day compared with which even Jezebel's whoredoms and witchcrafts were the veriest trifles. What sin is that?

Go back with me in your thoughts 1,900 years in the world's history. In the village of Bethlehem a Babe was born of whom it was written centuries before: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace" (Isa. 9: 6). Outside in the fields the angelic host celebrated His birth thus: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men" (Luke 2: 14). He came from heaven to bring peace into a scene long distracted by sin. Judgement was not His mission. As Peter put it in Acts 10: 36, God was "preaching peace by Jesus Christ." Aged Simeon, as he beheld the wondrous Babe, blessed God, saying: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." The sight of the Saviour dispelled from his mind all fear of death, and filled his soul with peace.

But men rejected the Prince of peace. "Depart from us was men's cry to God before the flood" (Job 22: 17); the cry was the same when the Son came to earth. Since the Son was the revealer of the Father, the rejection of the Son involved the rejection of the Father also. "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father" (John 15: 24). This explains the Saviour's words in Matt. 10: 34: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." His mission was peace, but men's refusal of Him has made peace impossible, and they have to suffer the sword instead. When the Lord Jesus thought of the consequences to men, He wept, saying: "if thou hadst known . . . the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes" (Luke 19: 42). And so it has become true of men everywhere: "the way of peace have they not known" (Rom. 3: 17).

There are not wanting those who prophesy smooth things. In Jeremiah's day some said "Peace, Peace" while Jehovah's sword hung suspended over the land, and we have similar false prophets amongst us at the present time. If such may be believed, the upheavals that are going on in every sphere are the birth throes of a new and better day. Man is emerging from the chrysalis stage, and will presently be a more glorious being than ever before. All who speak thus are deceivers of men's souls. More to the point are Isaiah's words in Isa. 57: 20-21: "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, said my God, to the wicked."

What is the Scripture outlook? Smash upon smash, catastrophe upon catastrophe until the whole of man's order of things has been ground to powder. Then God will bring upon the scene His Man, the world-rejected Jesus, and He will establish His throne upon the ruins of everything human.

Suffer me now to appeal to every individual heart! Why should not you be right with God? Then you need fear no ill, whatever may befall. Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1: 20). Here we have the settlement of the sin question, a matter of greater moment to you personally than any political or industrial question in the world. God's claims as to sin have been met by the atoning blood. Accordingly peace is preached "to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh" (Eph. 2: 17); that is to both Gentiles and Jews alike. The believer in Jesus is justified by faith, and has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5: 1). More than this, every believer is invited to bring his every request to God, with the sweet assurance that "the peace of God! which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4: 7). In 2 Thess. 3: 16 at the close of an epistle which deals with the horrors of the last days, we find the comforting words: "The Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means." Amid the crash of empires and kingdoms, the overturning of every ancient institution, and the subversion of all law and order, the man who is right with God in virtue of the cross of Calvary can afford to be in perfect peace. It will suffice to close with the words in Job 22: 21: "Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace, thereby good shall come unto thee."

"ME" AND "MY SINS."

"As for me, Thou beholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before Thy face for ever." — Ps. 41: 12.

"Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." — Isa. 38: 17.

It is a wonderful thing that the Psalmist should say, evidently with pleasure, "Thou settest me before Thy face for ever." No man naturally wishes to be brought face to face with God. The whole history of the human race proves this conclusively. Adam and his wife, as soon as they were conscious of having sinned, "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." Cain, after his fearful crime, "went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod." Jonah in his self-will fled to Tarshish "from the presence of the Lord." Scripture abounds with instances of men being brought into the divine presence, and being forthwith filled with the deepest distress. Isaiah's case (Isa. 6) will suffice for an example.

This is a truly awful condition of things when we consider the end and object for which man was created. This is well expressed in the opening words of the Westminster Catechism. Question: "What is the chief end of man?" Answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever."

Men shrink from God's all-searching eye. As Heb. 4: 13 puts it: "There is no creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." There is much that we can hide from one another, and even from ourselves; there is nothing that we can hide from God.

Yet the Psalmist says with rapture: "Thou settest me before Thy face for ever." To understand this, we must go back somewhat in the book of Psalms. In the thirty-second the same writer says, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." The Holy Spirit's comment upon this passage is found in Rom. 4: 6: "David describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works." This is the first step towards being happy and free in the presence of God. But upon what equitable basis is He able to impute righteousness to a man apart from works? Ps. 40 will answer. There we hear the Incarnate Son saying: "Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." The atoning sacrifice of Calvary, which has superseded for ever all the offerings of the Levitical order, enables God to righteously pardon and justify every sinner who believes in Jesus. The Psalmist was evidently in the sweetness of justification when he penned our text. "Thou upholdest me in mine integrity." Imagine mortal man thus addressing his Maker! It is the Old Testament way of expressing the truth of Rom. 8: 33: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth?"

There is thus something to be got rid of ere any man can enjoy God and be at home in His blessed presence. That something is guilt. How beautifully our two Scriptures run together. "Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." "As for me, Thou . . . settest me before Thy face for ever."

Ps. 41 has a first and primary reference to the Lord Jesus Himself. HE is before the face of God — justified, accepted, in eternal favour and love. Divine grace has associated me with Him, so that what God has made true of that blessed Man is true of me also. I am "in Him," accepted in His acceptance, blessed as He is blessed, and loved as He is loved. No wonder we read in Ps. 84: 9: "Look upon the face of Thine anointed," i.e., Thy Christ. According to the worthiness that God sees in Him, so is every believer favoured for evermore.

Let us take notice of the words "before Thy face." Not "before Thy throne." The "throne" is suggestive of distance, the "face" of knowledge and intimacy. Character is declared in the face. Through eternity God will be telling out His perfections to His redeemed, and we shall ever be learning what a God He is with whom we have to do. Ps. 21: 6 says: "Thou hast made him exceeding glad with Thy countenance." Ps. 27: 4 describes the heart's deep longing in this connection: "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple."

"Thou settest me before Thy face for ever." The first man commenced with the knowledge of God, and before sin entered he enjoyed Him according to his measure and circumstances. All this he lost by his transgression. But grace sets the believer in Jesus upon a new footing altogether. Everything now depends upon the triumphant Second Man, and upon what He has accomplished. Thus everything is secured beyond the possibility of forfeiture or loss. "For ever" is my place and portion in the favour and love of God.

GOOD NEWS FROM A FAR COUNTRY.

"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." — Prov. 25: 25.

Water is a symbol of the Gospel. We find it so used in the last chapter of Scripture: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

In the parable of the Pounds in Luke 19 the Lord likens heaven to "a far country." Why is this? In the opening chapters of Genesis heaven seems very near, and God a neighbour at hand. We read there of a garden planted by the hand of the Creator, containing everything that was pleasant to the sight and good for food. This was the home of the first man and his wife, and there the Lord God used to come, and hold sweet converse with them. But all this was quickly changed. There came the day when Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Sin was the cause of this. It was said to Israel at a later date: "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isa. 59: 2). Sin having thus entered, the divine pleasure in man ceased, and heaven from that moment has seemed "a far country." There is no moral affinity now between heaven and earth.

But there has been a visitor from the far country. John 1: 14 tells us: "The Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us . . . full of grace and truth. This is the glorious Person of whom we read higher up in the same chapter that He was in the beginning with God, and was God. Moreover, "all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." What a Visitor! In John 6: 38 we hear Him saying: "I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me." His unbelieving hearers stumbled at this, and said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it, then, that He saith, I came down from heaven?" In their blindness they saw in Him nothing more than a carpenter's son.

The people of Great Britain are accustomed to distinguished visitors. From time to time Emperors and Kings come to their shores. They are always well received, and they invariably return home well pleased. But how was the Son of God received when He came to earth? "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Long before, Isaiah had written concerning Him: "He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

The Son of God was not only rejected when He came; He was murdered. In the parable of the Vineyard, He showed this vividly before the dreadful deed was committed. Having sent many servants to the husbandmen without avail, last of all the master of the vineyard sent his son, saying, "They will reverence my son." The master is God, the son is the Lord Jesus. But when the husbandmen saw the son they said: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance" (Matt. 21). This is how men treated the Lord Jesus. Spite of His unique words and works, they hated and slew Him (John 15: 22-24).

What next? The young Prince of Wales has recently been touring on the Continent. He has been treated with respect everywhere, but supposing he was murdered, and that by the sanction of the authorities, what would happen next? Surely the heavy hand of retribution would fall somewhere? When the statue of the Emperor Hadrian was destroyed in a riot at Antioch, the people trembled at the thought of the consequences. But what happened when Christ was slain? In Acts 1 we see Him ascending up where He was before, carrying the wounds which men had inflicted upon His sacred Person right up to the throne of God — sight of all sights for the angelic host! What response did God give to this? For ten days there was a lull. Then heaven opened once more, and the Holy Ghost came forth. What for? To destroy the guilty sons of men? No, but to preach the Gospel. Accordingly in Acts 2 we hear Peter charging home upon his hearers their dreadful sin in the murder of Christ, and concluding by offering them all forgiveness in His name. The Saviour, before He went on high, said that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24: 47). His very murderers were thus to have the first opportunity of blessing. Surely the message of forgiveness of sins for everybody is "good news; from a far country." We deserved wrath, and lo, we are offered pardon and peace!

Why are not men keen for such blessings? Our text tells us. They are not "thirsty." Cold waters are only acceptable to thirsty souls. Thirsty ones are most tenderly invited. Rev. 22: 17 says: "Let him that is athirst come." In John 7: 37 we hear the Saviour's call: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." But men are not thirsty. There is with them no sense of need, and so they are not interested. Yet when "good news" of another kind comes along men are interested enough. Suppose someone in our town fell heir to a fortune or a peerage, would it not quickly become the general topic of conversation? Or, to come closer home, suppose some man amongst us became notified of an inheritance left to himself, how keen he would be. Down would go his tools for ever, and he would start forth to take possession of his own. Yet when "good news from a far country" are addressed to men concerning the forgiveness of sins and eternal blessing they are not interested at all! They see nothing in it worthy of a thought!

One word more. The Visitor from the far country is coming again. The world has not seen the last of Him. The parable of the Pounds says so plainly. But how will He return? Not in lowly grace, upon a second mission of mercy, but in kingly power, to take vengeance upon all His foes. Hear the terrible words from His own blessed lips: "Those Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me" (Luke 19: 27). This is not mere parabolic language, but the setting forth of a dread reality. He who is at present proclaimed as Saviour to all is the divinely appointed Judge of quick and dead. The quick (i.e., the living) He will deal with at His appearing; the dead He will call before Him when time is ended.

HUMAN INSENSIBILITY.

"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider." — Isa. 1: 3.

"Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle-dove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgement of the Lord."  - Jer. 8: 7.

Of all the creatures with which we are acquainted, man is by far the most gifted and the most privileged. Moreover, he has been established by God lord and head over the whole system in which he moves. This being so, it is painful that a comparison should be divinely instituted between man and beasts and birds, with the result altogether unfavorable to man. In both Isa. 1 and Jer. 8 we have throughout the language of complaint. The Creator complains of His creature man. Our texts expose his insensibility — insensibility to both grace and judgement.

Isa. 1: 3 was addressed to a people of pastoral habits. It was not yet the day of great manufacturing cities. Every man possessed oxen and asses. Accordingly Jehovah bids His people go to their own stockyards and learn a lesson there. "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider." These are not the most intelligent of the domestic animals, but even so they offer a rebuke to man.

The ox knows to whom it belongs, "but Israel doth not know." Are men more intelligent to-day? Every man belongs to God, but are men alive to the fact? "In Him we live, and move, and have our being . . . we are His offspring" (Acts 17: 28). Daniel denounced the wretched Belshazzar thus: "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified" (Dan. 5: 23). Are men more mindful of their position in relation to God now?

The administration of the universe has been committed to a Man. "The head of every man is Christ" (1 Cor 11: 3). The Father has given Him authority over all flesh (John 17: 2). Sooner or later every created being will be constrained to acknowledge this. At the name of Jesus every knee must bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2: 10-11). Oh, the blindness that hinders men from perceiving to whom they belong until compelled to do so when time is no more, and salvation has become impossible!

The ass knows who feeds it, "but My people doth not consider." The beast knows from whose hand its bounties come, but not man! Yet, as Paul told the men of Lystra in Acts 14: 17, God has never left Himself without witness, in that He has done men good, giving rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling men's hearts with food and gladness. But do men acknowledge His hand? It would be interesting to know in how many homes in this so-called Christian England men have given thanks at the meal table to-day. The old-fashioned "grace" is dying out, in keeping with the growing infidelity of our time. If men fail to own God in His lesser gifts, what is their bearing towards the stupendous gift of His Son? Is Christ appreciated?

Thus in Isa. 1: 3 God complains of man's insensibility to grace; in Jeremiah 8: 7 He complains of his insensibility to judgement. The stork, the swallow, etc., know their times, "but My people know not the judgement of the Lord." The birds named in this passage are all migratory. They take notice of the seasons. They perceive when the period of sunshine is over, and when the clouds and storms of winter are approaching, and they have the instinct to know when they should move off. But alas, for man! What was the character of the times in which Jeremiah prophesied? It was the last days of the Kingdom of Judah. The northern ten-tribe kingdom had already been overthrown, and "the destroyer of the nations" (Nebuchadnezzar) was now on his way to overthrow Judah also. Judgement was thus imminent, but the people understood it not. And so there was no repentance.

In our Lord's day men could discern the face of the sky, but were unable to discern the signs of the times (Matt. 16: 3). They were too obtuse to see that it was their great day of opportunity. They had the long expected Messiah in their midst, and if they failed to recognize Him they must lose Him, and have the Roman scourge instead.

The men of Jeremiah's time and our Lord's day find their contrast in Noah. "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house" (Heb. 11: 7). Like the crane and the swallow, he saw the dark clouds approaching, and judged it wisdom to seek a place of safety. The men of Nineveh read us an even more striking lesson. The whole city was profoundly stirred at the preaching of Jonah, so that the King came down from his throne, and humbled himself before God in common with all his people. They recognized a warning from heaven in the denunciations of the strange man who walked through their streets. There has never been a more solemn moment in the history of the world than the present. The portents around us are of the gravest character. Everything is suggestive of coming disaster. A point is being reached in human affairs. Statesmen and leaders of every sort perceive this. But what is the point that is thus almost in sight? The end of man's day, and the ushering in of the day of the Lord. "Man's day" is that long period during which man has been allowed to have his own way without manifest intervention from heaven; the day of the Lord is the coming kingdom of the Lord Jesus, which will be introduced abruptly, and with desolating judgements. His appearing will dash to pieces the whole fabric of man's godless civilisation, and upon the ruins thereof He will establish an order of things that will perfectly suit the eye and the heart of God. The wise man says: "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself: but the simple pass on and are punished" (Prov. 22: 3). In view of the break-up that is coming, are you "prudent" or "simple"? Must the swallow and her fellows be your reprovers in the great day?

PEACE: FALSE AND TRUE.

"They have healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, Peace, Peace, when there is no peace." — Jer. 6: 14.

"And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." — Eph. 2: 17.

Two preachers of peace are seeking to gain the attention of the children of men. Both are in earnest? and in each case the preaching is intended to produce eternal results. These preachers are Satan and Christ. Neither is, of course, in person upon the earth speaking with audible voice. Both make their appeal to men by means of human instruments. There are thus two orders of preachers amongst us, both energised by supernatural power, and both preaching peace to men. Hell energises the one; heaven energises the other. The one order proclaims a false peace — a peace resting upon rotten foundations, and from which there must sooner or later come an awful awakening; the other proclaims a true peace — a peace founded upon the immutable basis of the Saviour's atoning blood.

Let me remind you of a remarkable parable which once came from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will find it in Luke 11: 21-22. "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils." The strong man here is Satan; the stronger than he is Christ Himself. The strong man's palace is this world; and his goods are the men and women who live therein. It is Satan's policy to keep these in peace, to lull them to sleep, so that serious thoughts may never disturb their minds. As 1 John 5: 19 puts it: "The whole world lieth in the wicked one." He has his arguments for all classes and for all ages, and all designed to keep souls in a state of unconcern and death. Suppose a young person to become awakened to the great realities of God and eternity. Satan at once preaches peace by saying, "Time enough yet. Life is before you. Don't spoil your pleasures by serious thoughts." Suppose a middle-aged man to be aroused, again comes along the destroyer with the suggestion that now is the time to make money and the man who fills his head with solemn considerations will fall back in the commercial struggle. "Time enough yet" is once more the text. Or suppose a religious person to become exercised as to whether all is well for eternity, Satan at once protests that one so morally excellent, and so devoutly religious, can have nothing to fear, for all must be well. Yet the wise man has said: "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14: 12). The man or woman who is trusting in religion or morality for salvation is building upon sand. Woe to them if they heed the lulling voice saying, "Peace, Peace," when indeed there is no peace.

Hezekiah says in Isa. 38: 17, "Behold, for peace I had great bitterness." It is a mercy from God when a false peace is smashed up. The "great bitterness" which results is not pleasant, but it is nevertheless the way to God. See Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9: 9 three whole days unable to eat and drink. When a man goes off his food thus his mind must surely be deeply agitated. The fact is, Saul had made the fearful discovery that with all his blamelessness of life and his religious zeal he was at heart an enemy of God and His Son. The best man of his time saw himself to be "the chief of sinners!" Oh, the bitterness of it? Have we been in the depths thus?

Our first text thus speaks of a false peace; our second tells us of a true peace, proclaimed by the Christ of God. "He came and preached peace," says the apostle, "to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." He is manifestly speaking of Christ in resurrection. But what lies behind resurrection? Death. Christ has been down into death, and this on behalf of sinners. At Calvary the storm of divine judgement broke upon His holy head. All the waves and billows of God's wrath rolled over Him. But the storm has spent itself now; sunshine has come, and the Christ who died is alive again from amongst the dead, and glorified on high. The God of peace has brought back from the tomb the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. He is now righteously able to preach peace to men everywhere. The peace He proclaims is not a mere soporific for the conscience, but the blessed knowledge that every question has been equitably settled by His atoning blood, and that, in consequence, every storm cloud has been dispelled for ever. "He is our peace," says the apostle. The very fact that He is now accepted in heaven is the public proof that the horizon Godward has been cleared once and for all for those who believe in His name

Hence the absurdity of bidding a man make his peace with God. The thing is impossible. No man can of himself get rid of a single sin. But in truth there is no peace to make. Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1: 20), and this He now proclaims to all in the Gospel by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. He "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 4: 25; Rom. 5: 1).

Would you have peace with God? It is good to be at peace with our fellow-creatures to feel as we walk up and down the street that there is no enmity between ourselves and a single living soul; but it is better far to be at peace with our God. This happy position may be realized to-day by all who will humble themselves at the divine feet, and consent to be saved by grace alone.

AN IMPERIAL CONVERT.

"Nebuchadnezzar the King unto all peoples, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth . . . I thought it good to show the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me." — Dan. 4: 1, 2.

Nebuchadnezzar had recently been exalted to an imperial position by the hand of God. Kings and kingdoms had fallen before him, and he was now supreme amongst the nations. It was God's original purpose to govern and bless the nations of the earth by means of the people of Israel and the house of David; but Israel proving grossly unfaithful, and David's house becoming very evil, this purpose was put aside until the day of Christ, and power was meanwhile placed in Gentile hands. Accordingly Nebuchadnezzar was raised up, and to him was granted "the kingdom, power, and strength and glory."

Dan. 4 gives us the story of his conversion, as related by himself in a proclamation to all his subjects. What is conversion? A change of religious opinions? Nebuchadnezzer's views undoubtedly underwent a complete change. Bel and Nebo were to him gods no more. But conversion is more than this. A man might be severely orthodox in his opinions and yet perish for ever. Conversion is a mighty moral work in the soul whereby a man is turned right about face. One moment he has his back towards God and the next he finds himself face to face with Him, and he begins to regard sin and judgement as God regards them. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18: 3). Conversion is an absolute necessity for all who would have to do with God in peace and blessing. Have we all experienced it?

Nebuchadnezzar's conversion was as remarkable in its way as that of Saul of Tarsus. There are indeed some points in common in the two cases. Both were persecutors of God's saints; both were stopped abruptly by a voice from heaven; and both published the story of their conversion.

There were three great steps in the dealings of God with Nebuchadnezzar. We find the first in Dan. 2. The vision of the great image, when expounded by Daniel, after all the magicians had acknowledged their impotency, so impressed the King that he exclaimed, "Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldst reveal this secret." He thus acknowledged Jehovah as superior to all other deities, but he was not yet prepared to transfer his allegiance to Him. He was Daniel's God — " your God"; but Nebuchadnezzar was not yet able to call Him "my God." The second step is in Dan. 3. After the marvellous rescue of the three Hebrews from the fiery furnace the King said: "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego . . . therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort." There is progress here as compared with chap. 2. He has come to respect Jehovah, and will not allow anyone to speak amiss of Him, but still He does not know Him. He is "the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego," but not yet the God of Nebuchadnezzar.

Dan. 4 records the final step, and here we have a complete capitulation. Let me repeat that this chapter is an imperial proclamation. Such documents are not often read by the people at large, but here is a proclamation which must have excited the deepest interest amongst the many peoples who composed Nebuchadnezzar's empire. The King converted, and then telling the whole story in this public manner! Would that such proclamations were more frequently published. The King's story is very simple. In a dream he saw a mighty tree, with room in its vast branches for the fowls of heaven, and with shadows beneath for the beasts of the field. He also saw a watcher and an holy one come down from heaven directing the tree to be hewn down, with its stump alone remaining. The magicians being helpless as usual, Daniel was called in, who told the King that the tree represented himself, whose ways had been noted in heaven, and who was about to be visited by God in judgement unless he repented. Men forget that there is a Watcher who sees their every act and hears their every word. In Noah's day "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth," and in David's time He looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God, but could find none that were not wholly unprofitable in His sight (Gen. 6: 5; Ps. 14: 2-3). How would any of us stand if the word went forth, "Hew down the tree?"

So solemn a dream should have brought Nebuchadnezzar to his knees, but it did not. Yet God, who is long-suffering to all, granted him twelve months respite before the stroke fell. At the end of that time the King, in all the pride of his heart, walked upon the roof of his palace, and as his magnificent capital with its mighty walls and brazen gates spread itself out before him, he exclaimed: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdoms, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" While the words were yet in his mouth, a voice from heaven said, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; the kingdom is departed from thee." He was forthwith deprived of his reason; and imagining himself a beast, he was driven out into the fields, where for seven weary years he ate grass as oxen; and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. This visitation broke him down utterly, and when reason was graciously restored, he who once impiously said to Shadrach and his fellows, "Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" now in his proclamation to all his subjects says, "I blessed the most High; and I praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever and ever."

Let us individually learn the lesson. Every man must sooner or later come down from his pedestal and prostrate himself at the divine feet. It is happy and wise to do so to-day, and then as lost sinners who have naught of our own to plead seek refuge in the Son of God, the only Saviour. His precious blood suffices to meet the need of the greatest transgressor.

JOSHUA THE HIGH PRIEST.

"Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" — Zech. 3: 2.

Zech. 3 gives us the fourth of a series of eight visions which were granted to the prophet on a single night. He was thus shown the whole future history of his people. Israel is yet to be restored to Canaan, all their enemies are to be destroyed, and Jehovah will once more take up His abode in Zion. Our chapter deals with a very important question in connection with all this. Is Israel worthy of such blessing? And if not worthy (as indeed the people are not), on what ground will God grant them such inestimable good? This chapter cannot but be of the deepest interest to all who, in every age, realize that they merit nothing but judgement at the hands of a holy God.

The vision shows us a man in the divine presence. Surely a serious position for anyone. How would we feel to find ourselves there? Job was overwhelmed when he found himself, as it were, face to face with God. "I abhor myself," cried he, "and repent in dust and ashes." Isaiah, again, when granted a vision of God, exclaimed, "Woe is me! for I am undone." In what condition was Joshua found? As High Priest of Israel he was the representative of the people; accordingly his condition was the living picture of that of the people. The Scripture says, "Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments." In what better condition are men found today? Our very righteousnesses are as filthy rags; what then our unrighteousnesses? "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

Look again at our chapter. Not only was Joshua in the divine presence; Satan was there also, "standing at his right hand to resist him." It was the great adversary objecting to the exercise of divine mercy. Short shrift should we all receive if left to the commissions of Satan. With energy he denounces men before God emphasising their sin and guilt, and protesting against favour being shown to any. There is no more effective minister of righteousness than Satan when it pleases him to play that part.

Now mark the activity of divine grace. No word proceeded from the mouth of Joshua. What indeed could he say? The filth was there, in all its hideousness to the eyes of God. "Every mouth must be stopped," says Rom. 3: 19. Accordingly Joshua said nothing, and did nothing. God took up his cause, and rebuked the foe. "Is not this," said He, "a brand plucked out of the fire?" Like to be burned, but snatched from the burning. This is just the picture of all who believe in the name of Jesus. Next, the Lord commanded, "Take away the filthy garments from him." Then, "Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." The garments of Joshua thus represented his iniquity with which the eye of God saw him to be covered from head to foot. Nothing gives our God greater delight than to justify the ungodly. When a sinner takes his true place before Him, confessedly guilty, and without one word to say in self-defence, with joy He says now as of old, "Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." The cross of Calvary explains this marvel. The sacrifice of Christ is so divinely efficacious that, on the ground of it, God is righteously able to clear from all charge of guilt, once and for ever, the soul that pleads it before Him.

In Joshua's case there was not only a stripping off; there was also a putting on. "So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments." Here let us notice an important distinction. In Zech. 3: 4 iniquities are called "filthy garments"; in Isaiah 61: 10 righteousnesses are described as "filthy rags." Garments cover us; rags are things with which men seek to cover themselves, but in vain. Our iniquities cover us indeed; to change the figure, not a sound place can God find in our whole moral constitution, as Isaiah 1: 6 shows. But when we foolishly seek to cover our nakedness by works of our own, it is but tatters we put on, which in reality cover us not at all. But God puts upon the returning prodigal "the best robe," and that is Christ. As He is, so are we in the divine sight henceforward and for ever.

Mark, God had a direct word for the sinner himself. "Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." If God were to keep His purposes of grace locked up in His own great heart, how could any amongst us experience the comfort and blessedness of them? But He has not done this. On the contrary, He has told Himself fully out in the Gospel of His Son. By the testimony of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven we know that He who once suffered for our sins is now accepted on high, and that in consequence "there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1). John's first epistle was written in order that Christians might have divine certainty as to all things. "That ye may KNOW," is John's characteristic word.

A DIVINE COMPLAINT.

"Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life. . . . There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust." — John 5: 40, 45.

We seem to detect something in the nature of a sob in the Saviour's complaint — "Ye will not come to Me." Nothing is more painful than to be made to feel that one is not wanted. Some of us have perhaps had such an experience. But none have known this bitterness like the Son of God. His life on earth was one perpetual snub. He was despised and rejected of men; and, in consequence, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When He considered what this must involve for those who thus coldly passed Him by His heart groaned within Him. In Luke 19: 41 we have Him weeping over the blindness and obstinacy of men.

But who was this "Me" to whom men would not come? We learn something as to Him in the first chapter of this Gospel. He is the eternal Word, the Only-begotten of the Father, the One by whom all things were made. Our present chapter tells us more concerning His dignity and glory. He is the quickener of men's souls, the raiser of men's bodies, and the final Judge of all (John 5: 25-29). When on earth He was well attested, and divinely recommended. The Baptist bore witness of Him, the Father's voice spoke publicly out of the heavens concerning Him, His own miracles testified to Him with no uncertain sound, and the Scriptures which the people read spoke of Him in their every part. All this He pointed out in the verses which precede our text. Yet with such an One men would have nothing to do. The awfulness of this becomes the more apparent if we think for one moment of all the honours which have been heaped of late upon King George in both East and West. Everyone has been keen to get near him, foreign squadrons acclaim him on his journey home — scarce a dog moves his tongue against him. Yet when the Sovereign of the universe visited our poor earth He was despised and rejected of men. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not" (John 1:10-11).

What was the character of His mission that men shunned Him thus? Had He come here in majesty and wrath, men, conscious of their guilt, might well have sought cover from Him wherever they could find it. But "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3: 17). As our text says, He came that men "might have life." He was standing in the midst of a scene in which sin had long reigned unto death (Rom. 5: 21). In order that life might be available for men, He was prepared to give His flesh for the life of the world. So He says in John 6: 51. And yet men did not want Him!

Who were the "ye" who so scornfully refused Him? Men who were the creatures of His hand, and who were moreover the objects of His special favour, for since the days of the Exodus no people had been so privileged as Israel. And what was their condition? They were "the slaves of sin," spite of their false boast that they had never been in bondage to any man (John 8: 33-34). Their peril was thus deadly, and their need great; yet they rejected the Son of God.

But there is another side to this matter. There was one in whom they did put their trust, as the Lord Jesus pointed out in verse 45. Hear them saying in John 9: 28: "Thou art His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples." Moses then was their confidence and boast. Now Moses was a type of Christ in some respects. In his circumstances — as lifted out of the waters of death and set in association with the throne; and in his mission, as mediator between God and the people. But in other respects he was a contrast. After the dreadful sin of Israel in the matter of the Golden calf, we hear him saying "Now I will go up unto Jehovah; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin" (Ex. 32: 30). No such language of uncertainty ever rested upon the Saviour's lips. He first made complete atonement for His people's guilt, and then went up on high in the power of it.

John 1: 17 shows the contrast between the missions of these two: "The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The law, as 2 Cor. 3 tells us, was a ministration of condemnation and of death because of the utter inability of sinful flesh to render its righteous requirements. Yet men love the Moses principle! It is as true as ever what Peter said in Acts 15: 21: "Moses hath in every city them that preach him." That is, there are those in every quarter who proclaim works as the ground of blessing before God. Men's confidence in Moses is really the expression of their confidence in themselves, for men cling to the notion that there is some good thing in flesh if only a fair chance be given to it.

The rejected Saviour was soon to leave His scornful hearers. Accordingly He warned them of the Antichrist. "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 5: 43). The Saviour's voice, now heard in the Gospel, will soon be silent. The next thing will be the last great deception, when men, who would not come to Him that they might have life, will hail with delight the Antichrist of the Devil, to their eternal ruin. Let us ask ourselves how far His bitter complaint applies in our own case.

MAN'S MOUTH.

"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." — Rom. 3: 14.

"Every mouth stopped." — Rom. 3: 19.

"With the mouth confession is made unto salvation." — Rom. 10: 10.

"With one mind and one mouth glorify God."  - Rom. 15: 6.

The mouth both takes in and gives out. It is the avenue to the stomach and the outlet for the heart. The wise man has said: "All the labour of man is for his mouth" (Ecc. 6: 7). In this he spake truly. The Pharisees of our Lord's time were more fastidious concerning that which goes into the mouth than that which comes out of it. Hence their contention with the Lord in Matt. 15 because His disciples ate bread with unwashed hands. In His reply He said: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Then, after sternly denouncing the hypocrisy of these religious folk, He added an awful description of what the human heart contains. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries," etc.

It is not my intention on this occasion to run through all the Scripture passages which speak of the mouth. I propose to confine myself to the four passages in the epistle to the Romans in which it is mentioned. These all regard it from the moral side — as the outlet for the heart. In Rom. 3 we have the divine indictment of man, presented in a string of quotations from the Prophets and the Psalms. Amongst them we find these terrible words from Psalm 10: "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." If the heart did not contain these evils the mouth could never give them forth. Here then we have an insight into the human heart. Let it be noted also that this awful quotation occurs in the apostle's description of religious Jews, not in his account of heathen Gentiles. We are reminded of James' exposure of the inconsistency of the tongue: "Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God." It is possible therefore to sing the praises of God on Sunday and be guilty of cursing and bitterness towards men on Monday. Oh, the appalling corruption of the human heart! Well might the Saviour say: "How can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matt. 12: 34). Yet it is one of the hardest of all lessons to learn that the heart of every man is incurably wicked.

But we pass on to Rom. 3: 19. Here the apostle concludes his detailed accusation of the whole human race, Gentiles and Jews alike. "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." The meaning is that not one single word can be said in extenuation of man's universal condition of guilt and ruin. Not a single reason can be justly assigned why God should not pass sentence forthwith. How would a man feel in whose defence nothing can possibly be urged as he stands in the presence of His Majesty's judge? This is exactly man's position in relation to God. Convinced he may not be; convicted he is beyond all controversy. It is a happy thing when a man acknowledges the truth as to himself, and feels constrained to say: —

"Nothing but mercy will do for me;

Nothing but mercy, full and free:

Of sinners chief, what but the blood

Could calm my soul before my God? "

In Rom. 10 we have God's principle of salvation —  faith in contrast with works. Two kinds of righteousness are presented to us: "the righteousness which is of the law" in verse 5, and "the righteousness which is of faith" in verse 6. The first is what men love most, because it gives a place to human effort; the second, however, is what God sets forth in the Gospel of Christ, and it calls for no human effort at all, but instead magnifies what God and Christ have done. Does any soul long to be saved, crying out with the Jailer of Philippi: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16: 30). Here is God's answer to this tremendous question: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord (R.V.), and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." To confess Jesus as Lord is to renounce once for all our own self-will, the root of our every sin. It was a great moment in the history of the writer of the epistle to the Romans when he first lay broken and humbled at the feet of Jesus, and contritely called upon Him as Lord. God demands this from us all as the first step towards eternal blessing. Why does the apostle add, as a second condition, if thou "shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead"? "Some perhaps would have preferred him to say, "If thou shalt believe that Jesus died." But the apostle does not so express himself. The reason is very simple. Resurrection pre-supposes death. The two great cardinal truths of the Gospel are given to us in 1 Cor. 15: 3, 4 thus: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures . . . and He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures." Incidentally it is added, "And He was buried," as if to emphasise the reality of the Saviour's death.

Now see the magnificence of the statement in Rom 10: 9. The Christ who died for the ungodly according to Rom. 5: 6, has been raised from the dead, and that by the very One to whose righteous throne His great sacrifice was presented as an atonement for our sin and guilt. This is the grand public proof that all the divine claims have been once and for ever satisfied. Thus "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." The mouth gives expression to the peace and delight which now prevail in the heart when God becomes known as a Justifier and Saviour.

Our last text is really an exhortation to Christian unity. "Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 15: 5- 6). Such a passage serves to illustrate the marvellous fruits of God's salvation, when it is known and enjoyed in the soul. It brings together into one holy bond a great variety of persons who, apart from divine grace, would never have wished to know one another at all. Moreover, it enables them to sink their natural selfishness, and walk together in mutual consideration and love. Occupied not with themselves, nor with one another, they are free to glorify God with one mind and one mouth. Here we have a purifying of the mouth indeed. That which was full of cursing and bitterness in Rom. 3. is full of praise in Rom. 15. Outward reformation could not effect so great a transformation. The mighty work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, whereby God and Christ become known and appreciated, can alone suffice for it.

NO DIFFERENCE.

"There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." — Rom. 3: 22, 23

"There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." — Rom. 10: 12.

When reading the opening chapters of the epistle to the Romans one seems to be breathing the atmosphere of a court of law. All classes and conditions stand arraigned there. We hear the witnesses called, guilt proved, and then the verdict. In Rom. 1: 18-32 we have the condition of the Gentile world discussed; that is, the Gentile world as it appeared in the day of the apostle. Debasing idolatry and frightful moral corruption are the charges laid. The witnesses against these transgressors are the things which the Creator has made, whereby are declared His eternal power and Godhead. The sun and the moon in the heavens are a standing protest against idolatry by their perpetual witness to the reality of the supreme God. The Gentile world of the apostle's day finds its answer in the profligates of our own time —  those who cast aside all divine restraint, and who not only themselves commit things worthy of death, but take delight in others who do the same.

In Rom. 2: 1-16 philosophers are addressed. These would denounce sin and propound good moral ideas, but their lives were no better than those of their fellows. Macaulay, in his essay on Bacon, remarks that "these teachers of virtue had all the vices of their neighbours, with the additional vice of hypocrisy." Wesley, in his "journal" comments upon Homer's words concerning the liar. "My soul abhors him as the gates of hell," that "he himself, on the slightest pretence, tells deliberately lies over and over." We have moralists in our own time also — men who speak well, but live ill. But God will not be put off with good words and fair speeches; He demands reality.

The last class charged in Romans 2 are the Jews. These were the professing people of God, into whose hands the Scriptures had come. They correspond to the multitudes who throng the "places of worship" of to-day. In his arraignment of the Jews the apostle does not cite creation as his witness, but produces passage after passage from their own Scriptures (Rom. 3: 10-19) . Those who are privileged to possess the Bible in any age must be judged thereby if they do not submit to its holy teaching.

The summing up follows — "every mouth stopped — all the world guilty before God." "There is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Let us not misunderstand the apostle here. He does not say all have sinned equally. Some have been so mercifully placed that all the innate devilry of their hearts has not been drawn forth, and this is cause for thankfulness. Our Lord in Luke 7 told of two debtors, one who owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. There was thus a difference in the amount due, but both were on the same level in this respect, that neither had anything wherewith to pay. I was once addressing a congregation of lepers in Barbados, and amongst a number of deplorable cases I observed two smart young men wearing gold watches, and looking the picture of health. At the close of the service I inquired what these were doing in such company, and was told that the dread disease had but recently manifested itself in them. Whatever their general appearance, they were thus lepers like all the rest.

Why does the apostle say, "come short of the glory of God?" The reason is this. Man has lost the earth irretrievably; it is now for him a question of heaven or hell. But who is able to meet the requirements of God's glory, so as to be free and at home there? In Isaiah 6 we have a man terror-stricken because for one moment he found himself in the presence of the glory of God. There has been but one man in this world whom the glory could acknowledge as worthy of it. To Him there came a voice from the excellent glory: "this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (2 Peter 1: 17). In Him then we see what the glory of God requires in a man. Do we correspond to Him? Here alone is the true standard whereby we may measure ourselves aright. Suppose a young man sought entrance amongst his Majesty's guards, it would be vain for him to plead that he is the tallest person in the town if he falls below the fixed standard. In like manner it is useless to compare ourselves with other sinners. The Pharisee of Luke 18 committed this folly, and in consequence went home unblessed. Sin is a great leveller. God has said it, and from His sentence there is no appeal: "There is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." The religious man and the atheist; the High Conservative and the Socialist; the moral man and the adulterer stand upon one common platform of guilt before God.

Thus salvation must be altogether of grace; and if of grace, distinctions are impossible. Here our second text comes in most blessedly. The atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus has one value for all who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles. The "no difference" doctrine angered the Jewish people deeply. Paul, as its chief exponent, was fiercely persecuted by them on this account. Even Peter, when charged to preach to Cornelius and his company, was slow to admit that the grace of God was for all alike. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Remark in passing one of the many incidental proofs of the Deity of Christ. This verse is cited from Joel 2: 32, where manifestly the reference is to Jehovah; in Rom 10 it is applied to the Lord Jesus. Then He is Jehovah! Were He not, He would not possess the competency to be the Saviour of men. He is moreover "Lord over all." Thus every one must bow to Him, either now or in the great hereafter.

What is required of men in order that they might be saved? Simply to "call" upon the name of the Lord This was all Israel could do in the midst of their misery in Egypt. To shake off Pharaoh was impossible; to get rid of the taskmasters was out of the question; but they could cry to God. In like manner to-day, he who calls upon the name of the Lord, acknowledging Him thus as his only hope, will be saved. To all such He is "rich." The blessings bound up in the salvation of God are neither few nor small; no creature tongue could declare them in their blessed fullness.

Now turn to a passage in Ex. 11: 7, by way of contrast to this. "Against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." If there is "no difference" amongst men in the matter of guilt, and "no difference" in the dispensing of God's saving grace, there is a difference, deep and eternal, between God's saved ones and all others. As light from darkness, day from night, and life from death, so may be distinguished those who are saved from all who are unsaved. In Ex. 11 it was a question of the judgement of God. The destroyer was about to pass through the land. For the Egyptians there was to be divine judgement, but for Israel none. Christ is the line of demarcation to-day between those who are hastening to eternal doom, and those upon whom no judgement can ever fall. How do we all stand in relation to Him!?

SO GREAT SALVATION.

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" — Heb. 2: 3.

In the course of his ministry the apostle had to do with all sorts and conditions of men. He was a chosen vessel unto Christ to bear His name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel (Acts 9: 15). His theme everywhere was the same — Christ as the one and only provision of God for the need of men. But his presentation of the theme necessarily varied according to the circumstances of those to whom he addressed himself from time to time. Thus at Lystra, amongst ignorant heathen, we find him speaking of the goodness of the living God in giving men fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14: 15-17). At Athens, amongst learned heathen, we hear him insisting upon the unity and supremacy of the Creator, and the origin and unity of the human family, and from these truths reasoning against the folly of idolatry (Acts 17: 21- 31). With the heathen he felt constrained to begin upon the very lowest rung of the ladder of truth.

Our text is from the epistle to the Hebrews. These were a people possessed of the Scriptures. For fifteen centuries the Hebrew nation had been in special relationship with God. Their minds were familiar with the many prophetic announcements of the coming Christ, and their eyes had witnessed the offering of multitudes of sacrifices which all pointed to His great atoning work. Moreover, the Saviour Himself had been in their midst. Neither in Rome, nor in Great Britain, was the Saviour born, but in the tiny land of the Hebrews. There He lived, suffered, and died, and from a hill in that most favoured of all lands He ascended into the Father's glory. It was thus to a people who were conversant with the mightiest of divine facts that the apostle put the solemn question: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? "

Let us dwell awhile upon this word "great." First, how great the need! The whole human race in revolt against its Creator! Jew and Gentile, high and low, rich and poor — all brought in guilty in the divine sight. No exceptions admitted anywhere; "there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3: 22-23). Moreover, no man naturally wishful for a different condition of things, for the carnal mind is enmity against God (Rom. 8: 7); and to complete the tale of ruin no man able either to help his brother or save himself. How great, then, the need that God should intervene in mercy with salvation for His rebellious creatures.

And how great the peril! Man being possessed of the divine inbreathing, he has eternity to face. When the grave is reached every man's condition and destiny becomes unalterable. Men are perishing; let us be quite clear as to this awful fact. Who can estimate what this means? How urgent, then, the need that God should provide a way of salvation for men since none could provide one for themselves.

How great the Saviour! Paul in his epistles to Timothy and Titus loves to speak of "God our Saviour." A salvation provided by One so exalted must needs be great and marvellous — worthy of His name. David, in 2 Sam. 7 when meditating upon the divine disclosures concerning himself and his house felt that a "great" God must of necessity do great things for those to whom He manifests His grace. God, then, the One against whom we have sinned, is the One who has undertaken our cause.

How great the cost! Hear it described in the words of the Lord Jesus. "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Well might the poet sing: —

"Ours is a pardon bought with blood;

Amazing truth! the blood of One

Who, without usurpation, could

lay claim to heaven's eternal throne."

Nothing could expiate sin but the blood of Christ. Silver and gold are valueless here. Meritorious works and tears of repentance are alike unavailing. Not even the holy life of the Son of God could suffice to bridge the terrible gulf that sin has made between man and his Maker. "Apart from shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9: 22). How evil is Satan's slander that God is an austere person! Wonder of wonders! He who seemed to deny an apple to man unfallen has given His Son to man a sinner. Let men beware how they behave in the presence of God's "unspeakable gift." He who refuses the Son of God does so to his eternal loss.

How great the blessing! The salvation of God goes far beyond the mere forgiveness of sins, inestimable as this initial blessing is. The believer in Jesus is washed, sanctified, and justified; he is brought into the family of God and given a place amongst the many sons; he becomes an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ; he is blest with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ; and presently the whole blood-washed throng will be lifted right out of the present evil world and be set down in the Father's house on high, there to enjoy divine favour and blessing for evermore. Well does the apostle say — "so great salvation!" What creature tongue is able to declare what God saves His people from, and all that to which He brings them in Christ our Lord?

Let us now take account of the words which precede our text. "If the word spoken by (or through) angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord," etc. The apostle's first reference is to the law, which was given by angelic ministry at Mount Sinai. Judgement must needs fall upon those who set it at defiance. But if the transgression of the law brought men under judgement, how much more the refusal of grace? Such is the argument. Nothing could be more solemn. The God who would not have His law set at naught can never consent to have His Son treated with contempt.

What must men do in order to perish eternally? Go out and commit some fearful sin, such as would scandalise the town? There is no need to do anything of the kind. People have but to attend the preaching of the Gospel, and neglect to appropriate the Christ of God for themselves in faith, and their ruin is certain for evermore. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" To "reject" is not necessary; to "neglect" is sufficient.

CREATOR: SAVIOUR: FATHER.

"A faithful Creator." — 1 Peter 4: 19.

"God our Saviour." — 1 Tim. 1: 1.

"God our Father." — 1 Tim. 1: 2.

God is declared to us in three characters in the Holy Scriptures — as Creator, as Saviour, and as Father. In each of these characters we may know Him and confide in Him, if so our hearts desire.

In our time "Creator" has become a merely complimentary title upon men's lips. The theory of evolution represents the various forms of life as we know them to be just developments of lower forms, ever struggling upward in virtue of some power inherent in themselves. This view makes God at best a mere superintendent. That man is an independent creation, absolutely and essentially distinct from every other, is no longer believed by the many. But how does Scripture speak as to this? The sacred oracles most unquestionably represent God as the source and originator of everything — not only of everything that we see, but of "all things that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible" (Col. 1: 16). Six times in Gen. 1 the word "created" is used of His handiwork. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. 11: 3). Not "by geological research" (good and useful as this may be in its place), but "by faith" we understand. Matter is not eternal; it was created by the hand of God. But, what is of greater moment to us, man also was divinely created. Daniel used no figure of speech when he said to Belshazzar: "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." He was seeking to impress upon the guilty man the fact that he was a creature of God, with deep responsibilities to Him, which he had never acknowledged. This was the truth which Paul insisted upon with the learned men of Athens in Acts 17. He quoted with approval their own poet's words, "We are also His offspring," and himself added, "He giveth to all life and breath and all things." To these learned dreamers the apostle judged it necessary to teach that man came forth from the workshop of the Almighty. The process is described in Gen. 1: 2. First we hear God saying, "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness," and then we have the different stages in the work. "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." The divine Potter first formed the body, and then into the inanimate frame He breathed His own breath. Man is thus a being totally distinct in nature and character from every other creature of God's hand.

"God our Saviour" is a wonderful title. It is found only in the epistles to Timothy and Titus. That He should Himself seek to save rebels against His own majesty is a marvel indeed. Though there is infinite variety in God's works, He has only been pleased to create two orders of moral beings — angels for the heavens and men for the earth. Both of these have revolted against Him. For angels He has provided no Saviour; for men He has. Who can explain so great a mystery? He was under no obligation to save any of His rebellious creatures. He might have declared Himself "God our Judge" to men as to angels. But the Incarnate Son has told us: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3: 16-17). And so "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men" (Titus 2: 11). "The kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man has appeared," as we read in another place. "God our Saviour" is not so familiar a thought to some as "Jesus our Saviour." The popular conception is a severe God, and a gracious Jesus. Popery goes even further in its misrepresentation making even Jesus severe, and needing words from Mary to render Him favourable to sinners. "God our Saviour" means that the very One against whom we have transgressed has in His great love Himself provided all that His throne demanded. Who would distrust such a God?

Some were falsifying the Gospel in the apostle's day by preaching the law. Of these he says contemptuously: "Understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm" (1 Tim. 1: 7). In the same way would he speak of the religious leaders of our own time who put men under law, and encourage them to go into the presence of God with vows upon their lips which none are able to perform. The Gospel reveals Him, not as an exactor but as a giver. It is a solemn thing to falsify His testimony.

Now if it be indeed true that "God is our Saviour," and that "the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared," the question arises, are we saved? Paul could say in 2 Tim 1: 9, "Who hath saved us," and in 1 Tim. 1 he blesses God for saving the chief of sinners. Can you thank God for the same inestimable blessing?

We read in our third text, "God our Father." Not the great universal Father, as some say, coupling with it the idea of the universal brotherhood of man. This is not God's truth, but one of Satan's most dangerous lies. He is the Father of all who believe in the Lord Jesus, but of no others. His name of Father was revealed by the Son. Israel knew Him as Jehovah, and the early patriarchs as the Almighty; we are privileged to know Him as Father. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1: 18). But the unfolding was gradual. During His earthly ministry He taught His disciples to say "Our Father, which art in heaven," and "heavenly Father," but these titles do not express the full grace of Christianity. Not until He was risen from the dead did He say "My brethren," and "My Father and your Father, and My God and your God" (John 20: 17). Such words put all His own into His place and relationship with His Father and God. Godward we are "many sons;" Christward we are "many brethren," amongst whom He is Firstborn. Well might the apostle say: "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3: 1). The Lord's own touching parable in Luke 15 shows how the Father delights to lavish His love upon those who come to Him in repentance. His love as "God our Saviour" is a love of compassion; His love as "God our Father" is a love of tenderest relationship.

STEM Publishing : W. W. Fereday : The Old Old Story (Gospel Addresses)

The Old Old Story

(Gospel Addresses)

W W Fereday.

Fig-Leaves

Lame on Both His Feet

The Queen of Sheba

Kiss The Son

Four Things Exceeding Wise

The Great Election

What Think Ye of Christ?

New Garments, etc.

The Strong Man Armed

The Pharisee And The Publican

Three Men of Jericho

Moses or Christ?

Lord, to Whom Shall We Go?

This Same Jesus

The Gospel

Anathema-Maranatha

He Became Poor

The Victory of Christ

One God and One Mediator

To the reader.

This unpretentious little volume contains condensed reports of Gospel addresses delivered on Lord's Day evenings in different places in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The addresses were greatly appreciated by those who listened to them; and it is hoped that they will now yield blessing to those who read them. Our great aim has been to

Make the message clear and plain

That Christ receiveth sinful men.

That the Gracious Spirit of God may speed the book on its happy mission is our earnest prayer.

"FIG-LEAVES."

There are but two religions in the world, and both are found in Gen. 3, for both commenced in the Garden of Eden. Man's religion is described in Gen. 5: 7; God's in Gen. 5: 21. Man's religion may assume many forms, as Brahmanism in India, Buddhism in China, Mohammedanism in Turkey, and Romanism in Spain; but one principle is common to them all, and is expressed in the little word "Do." Man is thrown upon his own resources, to work out his own salvation as best he may. God's religion, in contrast with this, is happily expressed in the word "Done." His grace has so perfectly supplied every need, that a finished work is now proclaimed to man; nothing is demanded of him but acceptance of it in simple faith.

The story of Gen. 3 is no allegory, but sober, historical fact. It is God's own account of the greatest disaster that has ever befallen the human family. The wily foe gained the ear of the woman, and then through her the ear of the man, and so brought about revolt against God. The sceptic scoffs at the notion that all the world's misery is traceable to the eating of an apple; but what lay behind that simple act? Disobedience to God; self-will; treason against the Creator. Herein we have the essence of sin.

The guilty pair became aware of their condition before they were challenged as to it by the Lord God. "They knew that they were naked." In like manner men today feel within themselves, spite of their frequent boastings, that they are sinners against God. Who ever met a man perfectly satisfied with himself, who would not, when pressed, admit that he is not quite all he should be, or would wish to be? What is this but an acknowledgment of sinnership, even though the depth of the heart's evil may be utterly unknown? Conscious of nakedness, Adam and his wife "sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons." They had each a conscience now, and a bad conscience withal; accordingly they laboured to make themselves presentable to the eye of God. But it was self effort entirely; God had absolutely no part or lot in the device. From that day onwards multitudes have followed in their steps. In so far as sacraments, temperance, benevolence, etc. (things excellent enough in themselves) are trusted in as contributing in the smallest degree to the salvation of the soul, they are just aprons of fig-leaves and nothing more.

The sound of the divine voice blasted Adam's whole scheme. Spite of their aprons "Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." They were consciously unfit to stand before Him. Scripture abounds with instances of men who became utterly undone when the light of God streamed upon them. Isaiah cried, "Woe is me"; Job said, "Behold I am vile." Peter exclaimed, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." It is happier far to discover one's moral nakedness now, than when this world is left behind for ever. The apostle hints in 2 Cor. 5: 3 at the awful possibility of some being found "naked" in the resurrection state.

Our hope, as sinful men, is in God alone. When He came upon the scene of the first great sin, He spoke forthwith of Christ, the Seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head. Further, "unto Adam and his wife the Lord God made coats of skins, and clothed them." Aprons of fig-leaves! Coats of skins! What a contrast! Not a trace of divine handiwork in the one; not a trace of human handiwork in the other. Here we have the first notice of death in Adam's world. Man's sin occasioned it, for the guilty ones must now have a covering such as would satisfy the eye of God. Every bullock, lamb, etc., that has ever been sacrificed on account of human guilt, pointed in its way to the cross of Calvary, where in God's due time the Son of His love suffered "once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18). On the basis of Christ's redemption, God is able to impute righteousness to the most ungodly rebel who believes in His Son. As Rom. 3 expresses it, He is "just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Away then with all our human devices. Let us no longer go about to establish our own righteousness; let us rather submit ourselves unto the righteousness of God. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth" (Rom. 10: 3-4). The man who was once more diligent than any in sewing fig-leaves together — Saul of Tarsus — counted all his accomplishments in that direction as "loss" and "offal" when he came to know Christ Jesus the Lord. It was from his pen, as guided by the Holy Ghost, that the fine declaration has come down to us: "to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4: 5). Oh, the blessedness, for time and for eternity, of the man to whom God imputeth righteousness apart from works!

"LAME ON BOTH HIS FEET."

The story of Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 9) is a charming representation of the Gospel of God. It was no mere human kindness which David proposed to bestow upon the man, but kindness after the divine pattern. "Is there yet any of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God unto him?" It is remarkable the prominence given to the name of Saul in this story. It was rather as the representative of Saul than as the heir of Jonathan that Mephibosheth was blessed. Now Saul was David's relentless foe. For years he hunted him, thirsting for his blood. Yet David speaks of showing grace to his seed. How like our God is this! "Beginning at Jerusalem," was the Saviour's word when sending forth His disciples with the gospel of divine forgiveness (Luke 24: 47). The city guilty of His blood was not merely to have an opportunity of blessing; it was to be approached first of all with the mercy of God. Deep down in every man's heart there is enmity to God and to His Son. But even so, grace abounds. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5: 10).

Mephibosheth was a cripple. When he was but five years old, he had a fall as his nurse fled with him after the battle of Gilboa. In consequence of this, he was "lame on both his feet." In like manner, man, in the very childhood of the race, experienced the grave moral fall described in Genesis 3, and has been a poor lame creature ever since. The doctrine of the fall is distasteful to the pride of the present day. The theory of evolution is more palatable, because it represents man as going forward, instead of backward. But if the record of Genesis 3 is the truth of God as every pious soul believes, then the theory of evolution is a lie of Satan, ruinous in its effects for all who imbibe it.

Mark, Mephibosheth was lame on "both" his feet. Even so man, since the fall, has been incapable both toward God and toward his fellow. Neither of the tables of the covenant is he competent to keep. As to the first, he can neither walk with God, nor run in the way of His commandments (Gen. 5: 24; Ps. 119: 32). As to the second, he fails at every step. Every man is ready to object to so humiliating a conclusion in regard to himself, while recognising it carefully enough in his dealings with all others. Who would care to transact serious business without having everything secured in writing, with the signatures properly attested? What is this but a confession that man is a fallen creature, to be watched in all his words and ways? It is wisdom on our part to acknowledge our total moral ruin. It is not sufficient to admit that there may be shortcoming here and there; the bottom is never reached until a man owns that he is absolutely "without strength," dependent alone for salvation upon Christ who died for the ungodly (Rom. 5: 6).

Mephibosheth's condition, as representative and heir of a great enemy and transgressor, and lame on both his feet, is thus the exact picture of every man's moral condition by nature. Now observe his position. He was resident in "Lo-Debar," which means "no pasture." The world is a veritable Lo-Debar for us all. Absolutely nothing is contained therein that can satisfy our highest needs. He who makes the world his pursuit, whatever his advantages, must sooner or later come round to the wise man's opinion that it is all "vanity and striving after wind."

"Then King David sent and fetched him." Mephibosheth might well have approached David and pleaded before him the name of Jonathan. The King would certainly have honoured his covenant with the departed, and shown favour to his son. But Mephibosheth did not thus take the initiative. Even so, it is not man that takes the first great step towards the soul's blessing. The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost; and now it is the Holy Spirit who speaks the first word in the soul which leads to reconciliation with God. If God were to wait for man to act voluntarily, so deep is the enmity of the heart toward everything divine, that God and man would remain estranged eternally. Once Mephibosheth found himself in the presence of David, he learned that he was being blessed for another's sake, which put everything upon a sure basis as far as personal merit was concerned. It is the comfort of every believing heart to-day that all blessing depends solely upon what Christ is, and has done. The thought of this delivers the mind from self-contemplation, which engenders despair. Never again could Mephibosheth long after Lo-Debar; his place henceforward was with the King, in happy enjoyment of his grace. Similarly the Christian is lifted by the mighty power of divine goodness right out of the world. He becomes a heavenly man now, with his whole soul aflame with the powerful attractions of the Lord Jesus.

In the following chapter we hear David again proposing to show kindness. The King of Ammon died, and David sent messages of condolence to Hanun, his successor. But this time his kindness was rejected. Evil counselors urged upon the young King that David only meant mischief by his embassy. Accordingly the messengers were maltreated, and their overtures repulsed. Swift judgement resulted, as was meet. Every man who has Christ presented to his attention must needs play the part either of Mephibosheth or of Hanun. The one appreciated "the kindness of God," as shown by David; the other refused it to his ruin. It is a wonderful thing to be told of the Saviour's name, and of the precious blood which alone could reconcile sinners to God, but it is a solemn thing to reject the heavenly message. The man who cannot appreciate the love of the divine heart must yet experience the severity of the divine hand.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.

Royal visits are always interesting, and frequently excite considerable enthusiasm amongst the people; but it does not often happen that such visits are instructive, leaving a testimony behind them to men of all succeeding generations. Yet this was the result of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, King of Israel (1 Kings 10). Her visit was not one of courtesy, such as monarchs sometimes pay one to another; nor was it a political visit, designed for the arrangement of treaties which might be to the advantage of her dominion; still less was her visit one of curiosity in order that she might see and hear the most remarkable man of his time. Her journey to Jerusalem was altogether an affair of the soul; "the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord." Like Nicodemus later, she had a sense of need within, which she felt conversation with God's servant might remove. Accordingly she thought it worth her while to travel a thousand miles in order to lay her difficulties before him. In her case was strikingly answered Solomon's prayer concerning "the stranger" at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8: 41-43). The Son of God once held up this zealous queen as a rebuke to the indifference of men in His day (Matt. 12: 42).

We will divide our subject thus: (1) what she heard; (2) what she saw; and (3) what she received.

What she HEARD. She came to prove Solomon with hard questions. "She communed with him of all that was in her heart; and Solomon told her all her questions." Precisely what her difficulties were is not recorded; it is enough for us to know that they were all removed. The soul in every age has its "hard questions." To whom can men turn to-day with their heart problems but to the Son of God? The Samaritan said concerning the expected One: "When He is come He will tell us all things" (John 4: 25). Some of the soul's "hard questions" are distinctly noticed in Scripture. We find one in Job 9: 2: "How should man be just with God?" This is the guilty man's "hard question." Bildad's remarks drew this forth from Job. He had just said: "Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man." To this Job replied: "I know it is so of a truth; but how should man be just with God? If He will contend with him, he cannot answer Him one of a thousand." It was all very well for Bildad to say "God will not cast away a perfect man." No one ever supposed He would, but where is the perfect man to be found? Certainly Job felt that he was not that man. The divine answer to the guilty man's "hard question" is found in Rom. 3: 21-26. The redemption that is in Christ Jesus enables God to justify freely by His grace every confessedly guilty one who believes in His Son.

Another of the soul's "hard questions" is noticed in Ps. 4: 6: "There may be many that say, "Who will show us any good?" This is the language of disappointment. The world has been searched, as it were, for satisfaction, and in vain. Accordingly the poor votary of pleasure exclaims in despair, "Who will show us any good?" The Son of God, of whom Solomon was a type, can alone answer this "hard question." Hear His apostle in Phil. 3: 8: "I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but offal that I may win Christ." The heart of such a man was evidently at rest; in the knowledge of Christ he had found eternal good. Apart from Him the search for satisfaction is but strivings after the wind. The WORK of Christ is thus God's answer to the guilty man and the PERSON of Christ to the disappointed man.

Let us now consider what the queen SAW. First, she SAW the most glorious monarch of his time — " Solomon in all his glory." But this will not compare with what faith sees to-day. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2: 9). What a sight! Then she observed that all Solomon's servants were well fed. The meat of his table" struck her. With what food does Christ nourish those who are His? Hear Him saying in John 6: 51 — "the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Do not read the Lord's Supper into this chapter, for it had no existence at the time of speaking. By eating His flesh and drinking His blood the Saviour meant faith's appropriation of Himself as the One who once was slain. I partake of the Lord s Supper on the first day of the week but I am privileged to feed upon Christ every day and every hour of the day. Moreover, if to eat His flesh and drink His blood is to have eternal life, and if these words must be applied to a sacrament, then it follows that whoever has once partaken, however evil, is saved, and all who have not partaken, however pious, are lost. What thoughtful person would contend for anything so manifestly absurd? The Queen of Sheba noticed also the apparel of Solomon's servants; they were all well clothed. Christ's servants are clothed with "the best robe" of divine righteousness (Luke 15: 22), conferred by grace alone. Everyone around Solomon seemed satisfied and happy. "Happy are thy men," exclaimed the delighted queen. In like manner all who are Christ's have been made happy for evermore, and outside of their circle happiness is nowhere to be found.

Here we must note some points of contrast between the Queen of Sheba and the believer in Jesus. She said: "I heard . . . but I beheld not until . . . mine eyes had seen." We believe while as yet our eyes do not see. "Whom not having seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1: 8). She said moreover: "The half was not told me." Concerning the divinest of all themes, God revealed in human flesh, we read: "Even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21: 15). No finite mind could entertain even "the half" of what the Holy Spirit could tell concerning the Christ of God.

A few words now as to what she RECEIVED. It is true that she brought large presents to Solomon, but she went home enriched nevertheless. "King Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire . . . beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty." In like manner, our God not only meets the actual need of the sinner who comes to Him, but He forthwith enriches him with all the blessing of Christ Himself. Hence Christians are described in Rom. 5: 17 as "they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness." There are two things here. Righteousness is our actual need; without it we must perish; "the abundance of grace" corresponds with the "royal bounty" of Solomon. As we read in Eph. 1: 7. "Forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." As men in Christ, we are endowed with all the blessing of Christ. According to His worthiness and the merits of His atoning work is our wealthy portion for evermore.

"KISS THE SON."

Christ is everywhere the theme of the Spirit in Holy Scripture. Not only in the Gospels, which tell of His past humiliation; not only in the Epistles, which speak of His present glory; but throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, Christ is the one theme of the Spirit of God. Happy the man who has eyes to perceive this, and a heart to appreciate it. It is the fruit of the gracious work of God Himself within.

Perhaps no book is better known than the book of Psalms. For centuries it has occupied a peculiar place in the religious services of Christendom. But perhaps there is no book less understood. It is commonly regarded as containing only devotional exercises. Certainly the heart tells itself out in the Psalms as nowhere else in the Book of God. But beyond the devotional aspect lies the prophetic; and unless this is seen, there is much in the Psalms that can never be comprehended. The whole book looks onward to the day of the Lord — that momentous day when God will abandon His present attitude of reserve, and interfere once more in the affairs of men.

The theme of Psalm 2, is Christ's future appearing. The Spirit asks in the opening verses why men are so enraged against Jehovah and His Anointed, and why they are determined to cast away their cords from them. At man's impotent rage Jehovah laughs, and insists that He will yet set His King upon His holy hill of Zion. When the moment comes for Christ to ask for His inheritance, the work of judgement will begin, and every foe will be swept out of His path.

In view of this, the Spirit in verses 10-12 offers counsel to men. "Be wise now." "Be instructed." Let us examine carefully verse 12. "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, for His wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him" (R.V.). There are four things here: — An exhortation, a warning, an announcement, and a beatitude.

(1) An EXHORTATION. "Kiss the Son. It is not the kiss of affection that is meant, but the kiss of allegiance It is the reverent acknowledgment of His title and claims. It is the moment when the heart exclaims, "My Lord and my God." Two different words are used for "Son" in this Psalm. In verse 7 we have "Ben "; in verse 12 "Bar." According to Gesenius, the one is the term of love, and the other the regal term. In other words, His relation to God as the object of His heart's delight; and His relation to men as the appointed universal Ruler to whom all must bow. Pride blocks men's path when Christ comes into view. We all like to receive homage, but we are not so ready to render it. Man's haughty mind cannot brook the thought of a superior. But God has made Jesus, whom men crucified, both Lord and Christ, and has decreed that to Him every knee must bow, and that every tongue must own Him Lord. The most stubborn heart that ever beat will be constrained to humble itself at the feet of the despised Jesus: those who bow in faith now receive salvation; those who do not bow until compelled to do so in another world will be lost eternally.

(2) We have next a WARNING, "Lest He be angry, and ye perish." Is it possible that the Son of God can ever be angry — He who sat by Sychar's well, and spoke so tenderly to a sinful woman there; He who suffered a conscience-stricken transgressor to shed tears of repentance upon His feet, and turned her not away; He who comforted even a thief in the hour of death, and took him with Himself into the Paradise of God? Can He indeed be angry? Let us remember that the divine nature is twofold: "God is Light" and "God is Love." He was angry in Noah's day, and the earth was in consequence swept clean of its transgressors; He was angry in Lot's and the guilty cities fell. He will not for ever address His Gospel to the children of men.

(3) There follows an ANNOUNCEMENT. "His wrath will soon be kindled." So the Revised Version correctly reads. Nothing is more certain than judgement, however unwilling men may be to believe it. It is "because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath ordained," that God "commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17: 30-31). The moment will assuredly come when the divine attitude towards men will undergo a total change, and He who now sits enthroned in patience at God's right hand will arise to the execution of His solemn work as Judge of quick and dead.

(4) Our text closes with a BEATITUDE. "Blessed are all they that put their trust (or, take refuge) in Him." Christ is the only refuge for sinners. He alone is our hope. It was He who suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust; and in Him alone may we confide. There will be found no refuge FROM Him when He appears, but refuge may be found IN Him by all who desire to flee from the wrath to come. But if Scripture presents Him thus to us as refuge from divine wrath, is He not necessarily GOD? Who else could shield us from the judgement of God? What mere creature could screen us from His uplifted hand? He who once was slain is indeed our Lord and our God, worthy of our heart's adoring love for evermore.

FOUR THINGS EXCEEDING WISE.

It is natural to us to connect wisdom with greatness, but in Prov. 30: 24-28 we are divinely bidden to learn lessons from little things. The Lord Jesus also bade His disciples learn from lilies, sparrows, and even from the hairs of their head. The four little things of Prov. 30 are said to be "exceeding wise." Who amongst us would not desire to be exceeding wise, especially in matters spiritual and eternal?

Four suggestions concerning faith may be gathered from this portion of Holy Scripture. First, faith takes account of the future. This is illustrated in the ants. "The ANTS are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." These little insects know that summer is not eternal. In like manner men's opportunities are fleeting. In the brief span of life here we determine our everlasting destiny. There are two cases held up for our warning in the Scriptures of men who lived only for the present. Esau for a mess of pottage sold his birthright, and is called a profane person for so doing; the rich farmer of Luke 12 who surveyed his possessions with such complacency, thinking nothing of the life beyond, is called a fool. Let us note it well; "profane" and "fool" are God's titles for men who live only for the present. Alas, how full the world is of such. Would that they might become "exceeding wise"!

Second, faith seeks a place of refuge. The CONIES illustrate this. They are "but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks." The Syrian hyrax is here intended, a timid, cautious creature ever on the alert for danger. Noah by faith recognised that wrath was approaching, and availed himself of the shelter of the ark; the Israelites believingly sprinkled the blood of the lamb upon their houses on that night of judgement in Egypt; Ahab, on the contrary, defiantly slighted divine warning, and perished miserably at Ramoth-Gilead. The wise man has said: "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished" (Prov. 22: 3) Men are living in peril at the present hour. The day of judgement hastens on. Divinely "prudent" are they who have fled to Christ for refuge; distressingly "simple" (however wise in their own conceit) are they who slight Him and His great salvation.

Third, faith values fellowship. "The LOCUSTS have no King, yet go they forth all of them by bands." A child may crush an individual locust; but an army of them is irresistible. Desolation attends their progress. There is no individualism in Christianity. By the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven a divine unity has been created between believers here and Christ in glory. Every saved soul belongs to that great spiritual organisation called in Scripture "the Church of the living God." Abraham, and all other pious ones in the world's earlier ages, were just believing units; one of the reasons for which Christ died was that He might "gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad" (John 11: 52). One of our choicest privileges here is Christian fellowship. When Peter and John were released from prison "they went to their own company." In the assembly of the saints they found their consolation and strength.

Fourth, faith leads to glory. The spider (or more correctly the lizard) suggests this. "Thou takest hold of the LIZARD with thy hands, yet is she in King's palaces." In tropical countries these little creatures are ubiquitous. They may be seen crawling up the walls of both hut and mansion. Every blood-washed soul is marked for heavenly glory. God has called us by the Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The feeblest and most insignificant believer will not miss this magnificent consummation. Neither the violence nor the craft of the enemy can hinder it.

Oh, to be "little" yet divinely "wise"! The foolish, the weak, the base, and the despised has God chosen. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called" (1 Cor. 1: 26-29).

THE GREAT ELECTION.

Man's entire history upon earth has been, in a manner, an election time. From the beginning until now two persons have been seeking the confidence and allegiance of the children of men. Those persons are God and Satan. God is entitled by every right to the confidence and allegiance of our hearts. To our confidence, because of the absolute truthfulness of His character (for it is "impossible for God to lie " — (Heb. 6: 18), and also because He is the source and spring of all our blessings. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1: 17). He is entitled, moreover, to our allegiance, for He is at once our Maker and our Judge. Satan has no rightful claim to service from us, being but a creature like ourselves; a creature, too, in revolt against the God who made him.

Looking back over the past six thousand years of human history, three special occasions may be clearly marked when men were called upon, in the most pointed manner, to choose between God and Satan. On each occasion they made "the wretched choice." Turn first to Gen. 3. There we have Adam and his wife in the garden, surrounded by everything that was calculated to fill their hearts with joy and gladness. They had every inducement to remain loyal to their God. One simple condition was laid upon them as a test of their obedience — of the fruit of the tree which was in the midst of the garden they were not to eat. The consequence of rebellion was clearly stated: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Presently the tempter came along, and, after a short parley with the woman, he boldly said: "Ye shall not surely die." This language made the position perfectly plain. It was a question of "whom will you believe" — God or Satan? Alas, for the decision! Our first parents decided to credit the tempter rather than the Creator, with all the dire results of which the world is full unto this hour. Ever since that day in Eden infidelity has been inherent in the human heart; man would prefer to believe anyone rather than his God.

Turn next to Matt. 2. The story of that chapter is familiar to us all. A Babe had been born in Jerusalem, concerning whom wise men from the East came up to make inquiry. At the mention of one born King of the Jews Herod was troubled, which was no wonder, seeing that he was accustomed to bear that title himself. No rival could be welcome. But mark the further statement "he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." "All Jerusalem" is comprehensive enough, surely. The expression would include learned and unlearned, old and young, clergy and laity. All Jerusalem was troubled! Herod acted promptly. "He gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, and demanded of them where the Christ should be born." With the utmost readiness these men of the Bible turned up Micah 5: 2, and read out to the King the well-known words: And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule My people Israel." Yet not one step did these men take in the direction of Bethlehem to see if the promised King was there. There is nothing more heartless than mere Bible knowledge without faith. Strange as it may seem, it is possible to go down to an eternal hell with the mind crammed with Bible truth. The indifference of Jerusalem's priests and people is the more awful when we remember that Micah added concerning the promised One, "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." It was thus God Himself who was coming into the world, and men did not want Him! The question in Eden was, "Whom will you BELIEVE?" At the Incarnation the question evidently was, "Whom will you SERVE?" To this the human heart gave answer, "Herod, Caesar — anyone rather than God and His Christ."

Turn now to John 18. Once more a choice is submitted to men, and all are called upon to record their vote. Pilate has the Son of God upon his hands, and would fain be quit of the heavy responsibility. Falling back upon the custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover, he brought forth Barabbas, murderer and robber, and bade the multitude choose between him and Jesus. Urged on by their religious chiefs, the people fiercely clamoured "Not this Man, but Barabbas." The question on this occasion clearly was: "Whom will you RECEIVE?" Alas! anyone but Jesus was welcome. It is not that the multitude had the smallest regard for Barabbas; the point was that they did not want Jesus. Remarkably, on each of the voting days of which we have spoken, men chose a murderer. Satan, Herod, and Barabbas were all murderers (John 8: 44; Matt. 2: 16; Acts 3: 14).

The Christ question is with us still, and every man must give his answer thereto. No neutrality is permitted, and indeed no neutrality is possible. Whatever men may say with their lips, or whatever they may refrain from saying, every one has his opinion of Christ, and in his own heart at least every man has recorded his vote, for or against Him. The Saviour Himself has said: "He that is not with Me is against Me" (Matt. 12: 30). Neglecters of Him are in as desperate a position as outspoken rejecters, and will share together for eternity (Rev. 21: 8).

God will yet compel obedience to His Son. He has decreed that to Him every knee shall bow. In the day of His power not a tongue will be permitted to move against Him. Even hell itself will be constrained to yield respectful homage to Him. But in this there is no salvation. Blessed is the man who to-day confesses Him as Saviour and Lord, preferring to believe, serve, and receive Him to every other.

"WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?"

The Christ had long been promised. Ever since the fall God had been speaking of Him to the children of men. Psalmists sang of Him, and prophets foretold His appearing and mission. He had now come, and the great test question for everyone was, "What think ye of Christ?" (Matt. 22: 42). His presence in the world caused "the thoughts of many hearts to be revealed" (Luke 2: 35). Men of necessity fell into their respective ranks, either for or against Him.

Our Lord's question was uttered in the temple, at the close of a day of questioning. The Herodians with their political query, the Sadducees with their doctrinal quibble, and the Pharisees with their legal inquiry had all been successively silenced by the Saviour. It was the last of their questioning. No man "durst from that day forth ask Him any more questions." His time had now come. While all His objectors were gathered together, He turned upon them saying, "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?"

This is the great question of the age, and every man's eternal future depends upon the answer that his heart gives thereto. The question is not as to religion, whether Christianity is to be preferred to any other belief; nor is it as to preachers, their excellence or otherwise. Concerning these things it is possible to hold correct opinions and yet perish for ever. The great root question is as to a Person — God's beloved Son. Upon the attitude of our hearts toward Him everything turns, whether for blessing or for Woe.

In the Scriptures we have many hearts telling themselves out concerning Him, and it may be to our advantage to look briefly at some of them. Take first Simeon of Jerusalem (Luke 2). That aged saint had it revealed to him by the Holy Ghost that he should not taste death before he had seen Jehovah's Christ. At a given moment he entered into the temple, where a humble village couple were presenting their offerings in connection with the birth of the Babe under their care. Instantly Simeon took up the Child into his arms, and blessed God, saying, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace . . . for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." To him that wondrous Babe was the salvation of God, and the very sight of Him banished from his spirit all dread of death. Take next the wise men of Matt. 2. After their long journey from the East they at last found themselves in the presence of the new-born Christ. What was He in their eyes? Manifestly He was to them the mighty God, the everlasting Father of Isaiah 9: 6, and the Governor of Micah 5: 2, "whose goings forth have been from of old," for they fell down and worshipped Him, pouring their treasures at His feet. Simeon blessed the parents, but not the Babe; the wise men worshipped the Babe, but not the parents. Both in what they did, and in what they refrained from doing, these pious men of old were guided by the blessed Spirit of God, who knew perfectly what was just and meet for the wondrous Child.

Hearken to Peter in Matt. 16: 16. Others were speculating as to who the Saviour might be, whether Elijah, Jeremiah, or some other (not really caring in the smallest degree); Peter, having learned of the Father, exclaimed with rapture, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Listen also to the once-blind man of John 9, when the Saviour found him in the temple, and said "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" When he learned that it was He who was addressing him, he cried, ''Lord, I believe." And he worshipped Him.

What did Mary of Bethany think of Him as she poured her pound of ointment upon His feet? (John 12). To her He was the Son of God, the Quickener of the dead. Others, as in John 13, might need their feet to be washed; His were worthy to be anointed, let the spikenard be never so costly. Her adoring appreciation of Him was most grateful to His heart in an hour of sorrow.

Even at Calvary itself one heart told out its faith in Him. One of the dying thieves, at first as blasphemous as his fellow, afterwards confessed Him as the spotless Lord (Luke 23: 42). In his eyes, as taught of God, the Sufferer by his side was the stainless One who had done nothing amiss, and for whom the Kingdom must yet be in a day to come. In the face of all the world, as it were, he thus acknowledged Him, and then followed Him, through infinite grace, into the Paradise of God.

We go further. On the Resurrection morning we behold a weeping woman at the tomb of Jesus (John 20). She was dull in her spiritual apprehension, and she utterly failed to understand the import of what had happened, but she unfeignedly loved her Lord. In her outburst of grief, she said: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." So much was He to her heart that the world was a desolate waste without Him. One week passes, and we find unbelieving Thomas in the presence of his Master. He had spoken very sceptically concerning His resurrection; but the sight of Him standing in the midst of His own, with the marks of Calvary in His sacred person, drew forth from Thomas the fervent cry, "My Lord and my God." To this let us add the confession of the man (Paul, I mean) who heard Him speak from heavenly glory. In Gal. 2: 20 he calls Him "The Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

"What think ye of Christ?" To Herod the king He was just an intruder, to be swept out of the way, if possible; by murder or otherwise. To the religious leaders around him, who were able to tell the king where the Christ should be born, He did not possess sufficient attraction to draw them to Bethlehem to seek Him (Matt. 2: 4). In the eyes of Herod Antipas, at a later date, He was a mere wonder-worker who might perchance entertain him by the performance of a miracle (Luke 23: 8). But "What think ye of Christ" is the question for us all, and every individual amongst us will have to face it sooner or later. To the men of His time the Saviour said: "If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8: 24). And; to Nicodemus He solemnly declared: "He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the Only-begotten Son of God" (John 3: 18). All manner of sin may be forgiven; the vilest offender may be purged from his sins in His precious blood. That which ruins men's souls beyond all recovery is their rejection of the Christ of God.

NEW GARMENTS, ETC.

A fast was in progress in Judea, and both the Pharisees and the disciples of the Baptist were observing zealously. Noticing that those who followed the Saviour bid no heed to it, some challenged Him concerning the matter. After He had shown them in His reply how incongruous it would be for the children of the bride chamber to fast while the Bridegroom was with them, He added a parable, wherein He set forth the new order of things which His coming into the world had introduced for all who believe in His Name. The Son of God had not come forth from His glory in order to patch up those things which man has spoiled by sin.

Accordingly in Luke 5: 36-39 He speaks of three "new" things — new garments, new wine, and new bottles. Concerning garments, men are found in three different conditions Godward. First, there are those who have not a rag upon their back, and who don't pretend to have. These are the careless folk, who make no religious profession whatever, and who never trouble themselves as to how they appear in the eyes of God. You may see this kind in multitudes parading the streets, or disporting themselves upon the golf ground, when the Word of God is being preached. Second, there are those who are possessed of a garment of a sort, but it consists only of filthy rags, could they but see it. These are the people who are going about to establish their own righteousness, never having submitted themselves to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10: 3). Third, there are those who stand before God in a righteousness which is divine, unimpeachable before His throne. These are the souls who believe in Jesus the Lord, upon whom divine grace has put "the best robe" of Luke 15.

"No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old." The old garment of human effort is described in Rom. 10: 5 as "the righteousness which is of the law"; the new garment — gift of grace — is called in the verse following "the righteousness which is of faith" Paul, who had proved experimentally the value of both, in Phil. 3: 9 calls the old garment "mine own righteousness, which is of the law"; and the new, "that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Ever since our first parents sewed fig-leaves together in Eden men have been busily occupied with their own efforts to hide their nakedness from the eyes of God and of every other. Many would reduce Christ to the level of a mere helper, making up by His perfections for their shortcomings and imperfections. Never will God suffer His Son to be put in any such place. He has not given Him from above to be just a patch for the dilapidated garment of man's righteousness; to everyone to whom the Gospel comes, Christ must be all or nothing. The cross has so perfectly met all the divine claims that God, in absolute consistency with His own righteousness, is able to justify for ever the sinner who believes. Christ risen from amongst the dead, and accepted on high, is the measure and security of our blessing in righteousness before the face of God. With Christ, the best robe, upon me, covered thus with His matchless perfections, my right is unchallengeable to be for ever in the divine presence above.

The Lord Jesus spoke not only of a new garment, but also of "new wine." Wine is the familiar emblem in Scripture of joy. In Ps. 104: 15 we read: "Wine that maketh glad the heart of man." Christ has introduced new joys for His people. Everything "under the sun" has been marred by sin. All around us the hiss of the serpent resounds in our ears. Foolish indeed are they who seek to content themselves with things here. Now, Christ has gone up on high, and has entered into that scene where there is fullness of joy, and where there are pleasures for ever more (Ps. 16:10). To that scene of fadeless delight He would lead the hearts of His own to day. Let us not defer the joys of heaven until the present world is no more; let us rather rise upon the wings of faith and live now in the spirit of our minds where we shall find our home throughout eternity. In order that this may be, the exalted Lord has poured out upon us the Holy Spirit from above. He is the living link between our souls here and Christ in His present glory. It is His office to minister His things to us, and to maintain our hearts in perpetual peace and joy. Notice the effect on the day of the Spirit's coming. So full of ecstasy and power were the disciples that some, mocking, said: these men are full of new wine" (Acts 2: 13). They were indeed full of new wine, but it was not the vintage of earth. It was the new wine of heaven.

The Christian who is in real enjoyment of his heavenly portion is a standing riddle to the man of the world. He absolutely refuses the world's sports and lies, and yet is happy. He even finds pleasure in a prayer meeting. How can this be? The observer wonders, but understands not. "New wine must be put into new bottles." This explains everything. Until a man becomes born again, and thus gets a new life from God, he is altogether incapable of understanding and appreciating divine joys. It is a world to which his heart is an absolute stranger. The "new man is according to God created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. 4: 24) . Here we have the new bottle, which alone can contain the new wine of Christianity.

Alas, for the infatuation of the multitude! "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, 'the old is better.'" That is to say, Christ is presented to the soul, with all the wealth of blessing and joy which is the fruit of His atoning work, and men turn away from Him into the world behind saying, "The old is better." For what the world has to offer to-day men are not unwilling to blast their souls for eternity.

THE STRONG MAN ARMED.

"When the strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when the stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils" (Luke 11: 21-22). This parable was uttered under peculiarly solemn circumstances. The Lord had just cast a demon out of a man; His observers, instead of praising God for the deed of mercy, went so far in their wickedness as to attribute His power to Beelzebub. It was not the ignorant folk who did this, but the religious leaders of the people. The parable was given in order to show the true state of affairs between the Lord Jesus and the great enemy. The strong man is Satan. In all ages he has proved himself too strong for his victims. Take the drunkard. However deeply he may long at times to be free from the awful influence which controls him, he finds within himself no power to shake it off. The opium smoker of the East would tell the same dismal story. Take again the modern Spiritualist. From that diabolical snare some would doubtless extricate themselves, but it is impossible. Satan is far too strong for man.

His palace is this world — "His own palace," as the Revised Version puts it. The world was made for Christ, and it will yet be His; but for the time being, Satan is in possession. The Lord Himself twice spoke of him as the "prince of this world." Many blunder as to this. Even some true Christians imagine that because Christianity has come in, Satan's hold upon the world is not what it was in pagan times. Instead of this being true, the Spirit calls him "the GOD of this age" (2 Cor. 4: 4), i.e., of the present Gospel era. God having come to earth in human flesh and been rejected, Satan has usurped His place in the minds of men.

The strong man's palace is thus the world: "his goods" are the men and women therein. Awful thought! Independence of God was the bait offered in Eden. Unlawfully grasping at this, man became the slave of Satan. Yet how little is this realised!

"His goods are in peace." We all love peace, but a false peace is terrible to contemplate. The cemetery is a peaceful place, but it is the peace of death. Religion is largely responsible for the false peace with which many are afflicted. Religious observances and sacramental privileges apart from faith in Christ, are a terrible snare. All who are resting in these things need to be aroused. Some would rebuke those of us who would sound an alarm. We should consider it our bounden duty to arouse, however roughly, a man sleeping in a burning house; how much more serious is the peril of those who are going religiously down to destruction!

Christ is our only hope. He is the stronger than the strong, and has overcome the enemy. In Ex. 3. we have God coming down to bring temporal deliverance to His people; in Christ He came down to bring eternal salvation. In Isa. 49: 24 we have the inquiry: "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?" And the answer is given: "Thus saith Jehovah, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered." But how has the deliverance been wrought? How has the victory been obtained? By death. Through death the Saviour annulled him who had the power of death (Heb. 2: 14). Isaiah 53: 12 puts it thus: "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death." By submitting to death for one brief moment He has broken the power of Satan for ever. Like David with Goliath, He has cut off the enemy's head with his own weapon.

Resurrection manifested His victory. The cross was in appearance His defeat. But on the third day He arose triumphantly, death being powerless to retain Him in its grasp. "Having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2: 15). He who once descended into the lower parts of the earth has ascended up far above all heavens, that He may fill all things (Eph. 4: 9, 10).

None need remain in captivity to the strong man. The Deliverer has come and the victory has been gained. When Israel in Egypt felt the bitterness of being treated by Pharaoh as "his goods," they cried by reason of their bondage, and so deliverance came. In like manner today, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10: 13).

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.

We have here one of the many moral contrasts which are so strikingly characteristic of the Gospel by Luke. Two men are shown to us as standing in the presence of God, with the ground each took before Him. In their respective ways, these men illustrate the two contrasted righteousnesses of which the apostle speaks in Rom. 10: 5-6 — "the righteousness which is of the law," and "the righteousness which is of faith." They are the Cain and Abel of the New Testament.

The Pharisee comes before us first. He went up into the temple professedly to pray, yet not a word of true prayer passed his lips. Instead, he paraded his fancied goodness before his Maker, and merely thanked Him that such excellencies were found in him. "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." Thus far he speaks negatively, proclaiming what he was not; next he speaks positively. "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." Surely he was twin-brother to the man who said: "Lo, these many years do I serve Thee, neither transgressed I at any time Thy commandment" (Luke 15: 29). But what a spectacle is here! A man in the presence of the Discerner of all hearts, yet conscious of no sins to confess; addressing the Giver of all good, yet sensible of no need to spread out before Him. Neither the holiness nor the goodness of God seem to have crossed his proud mind. Little wonder that he got nothing; for with God the rich are sent empty away (Luke 1: 53).

Let us seek to understand this man's case, for the lessons of it are meant for us all. He does not appear to have been insincere. Surely if a man is real anywhere he is so in the presence of his God! The Pharisee may indeed have been all that he claimed to be. But a terrible possibility is suggested by this story — a man's religion may be his ruin! Alas, how often is this the case! Religion and morality are frequently used by men to hide from themselves their true condition as fallen children of the first Adam, and personally guilty withal. "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not" (Ecc. 7: 14). The Pharisee, though standing in God's house, and using His name, had no sense of WHO it was with whom he was having to do; else "Woe is me" would have burst from his terrified lips, as from the lips of Isaiah of old. Self-righteousness bursts like a bubble when once the reality of God's presence lays hold of the soul. Saul of Tarsus experienced the truth of this most solemnly.

The publican (or tax-gatherer) took wholly different ground before God. Whether the Pharisee realised it or not, the publican felt deeply in WHOSE presence he stood. Accordingly he smote upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me the sinner." His act was the confession that the heart is the spring of all iniquity, and his words were an acknowledgment that his only hope lay in God. "THE sinner" is what he said, for his whole attention was concentrated upon his own personal condition, without regard to the Pharisee or any other. To this point every man must come, ere God can meet him in blessing. "Be merciful" means "be propitious." The lamb then being burnt upon the altar in the temple court shows how God can be propitious to the guilty. The altar and the sacrifice speak of Christ and His cross. "The redemption that is in Christ Jesus" warrants God in granting pardon and justification to every contrite believing soul. We have it from the Lord Himself that the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other. That is to say, the one was justified, and the other was not. It is a clear case of righteousness being imputed apart from works (Rom. 4: 5-6). In the day of reckoning many a wastrel of earth will be found amongst the saved, while many a religious devotee will be numbered amongst the lost. For the one class feel their need of the Saviour, and bow to Him in faith; while the other class, in the pride of their hearts, pursue their own course of self-justification, in despisal of the Saviour's grace.

THREE MEN OF JERICHO.

The city of Jericho has an unique place in Holy Scripture. And no wonder, for it is a remarkable type of the present world. Men said of it in the days of Elisha: "The situation of this city is pleasant, but the water is bad, and the ground barren" (2 Kings 2: 19). In like manner, there is pleasantness all around us in the world in which we live; but there is nothing to satisfy the heart, and there is no fruit for God.

In connection with Jericho, three names are made specially prominent in Scripture — Zaccheus, Bartimeus, and Hiel. These are representative characters. Every man in the world may be classified under one or other of them. These men may be described thus: — Zaccheus the Pharisee, Bartimeus the beggar, and Hiel the infidel. It may be objected concerning the first that he was not a Pharisee but a tax-gatherer (Luke 19: 1-10). But a man may easily be a Pharisee in spirit without belonging to that ancient sect. Have we not those amongst us to-day who plume themselves upon their own goodness, and who expect God to accept them accordingly?

It was a fine feature in Zaccheus that he had some interest in the Son of God, for many in that day, as in this also, passed Him by with cold contempt. Hearing that the Saviour was approaching Jericho, Zaccheus determined that he would at least get a look at Him. Hence, at whatever cost to his dignity, as one well-known and wealthy, he climbed a sycamore tree by the roadside. His amazement must be imagined when the Lord paused at that very tree, and addressed him by name. He was soon to learn that the Prophet of Galilee was the Searcher of all hearts — God revealed below. As the Lord entered the man's house, critics murmured "that He was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner." But though outsiders might say this of him, this was by no means Zaccheus' opinion of himself. "He stood and said unto the Lord: '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.'" It was intolerable to his soul that one so benevolent and honourable as himself should be dubbed a sinner! One cannot help contrasting him with the centurion of Luke 7. Others said he was worthy; HE said, when he got into the Lord's presence, "I am not worthy." Here we have what the Parable of the Sower describes as "an honest and good heart."

It is humiliating indeed, but it is nevertheless true, that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Some men owe five hundred pence, and others fifty, but none amongst us have aught wherewith to pay. Godward, we are all bankrupt together. To this point the Saviour sought to reduce Zaccheus. He brushed aside all his self-parade, and at once spoke of salvation. He had not left heaven's glory, and come to earth simply to hear men tell Him how good they were; He had undertaken that mighty journey, which was soon to end at Calvary's tree, in order to bring salvation to the lost. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Thrice happy is the man who is prepared to relinquish all thought of merit, and then take his place as a perishing one at His feet.

Bartimeus was in every way a contrast to Zaccheus. The one was wealthy; the other was a beggar. The one felt he had much to plead; the other was conscious of nothing but the direst need, which he was determined should be met that very day (Luke 18: 35-43). A blind beggar! Yet so pitiable an object is a faithful representation of every man's condition by nature, could men but perceive it! "Nothing to pay": such is the Lord's account of us all, and what is this but beggary? "The god of this age hath blinded the minds of them which believe not," is the Apostle's sad description (2 Cor. 4: 4). The fact that men everywhere are found pursuing that which can only be to their hurt, while seeing absolutely nothing desirable in that which would be to their eternal advantage, should be sufficient proof that moral blindness prevails universally. Bartimeus was needy, and he knew it. Unlike Zaccheus, he had no self-righteousness to get rid of; his one business was to submit his need to the Son of God at the first opportunity. Never before had the Saviour visited Jericho; and He never passed that way again. A week later He lay dead in the tomb. Hear the beggar making strenuous use of his one chance, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." In vain did men bid him be still; the Saviour was near, and he would reach Him if possible. Oh, that men everywhere would individualise themselves as this poor fellow did! "Have mercy on ME." It is not sufficient to approach the divine presence with the multitude who vaguely call themselves "miserable sinners"; each must face his own personal condition before God ere salvation is possible. To-day, as of old, we may hear the Saviour saying to every seeking soul: "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" Life, light, pardon, and salvation are blessings within the reach of all who seek them in His name.

Hiel was a Bethelite, but his name stands for ever associated with Jericho as its re-builder in the days of Ahab (1 Kings 16: 34). When that vile city was destroyed in the days of Joshua, a divine curse was pronounced against any man who would restore it. "He shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it" (Joshua 6: 26). During some five centuries this terrible imprecation had been respected, and Jericho had continued a ruinous heap. Now arises one to whom the fear of God was naught. Jericho shall be rebuilt; why should so pleasant a situation be without human inhabitant? But what of the word of Jehovah? What of the judgement pronounced? At all this the infidel sneered; he believed none of it. But the divine sentence was fulfilled nevertheless. Both his firstborn and his youngest sons were sacrificed upon the altar of his impiety. "He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the Word of the Lord, which He spake by Joshua the son of Nun." The man whose sons were thus smitten to death is the standing representative of all who set at nought the revealed judgement of God. Never was this more commonly done than in our own day. From both pulpit and pew comes the loud disavowal of all belief in eternal punishment. But men's infidel folly will no more set God's future judgement aside than Hiel's bravado set aside His judgement in the past. "According to the Word of the Lord" it will assuredly be.

Under one or other of these representative characters each one of us must classify himself. Happy is the man who takes the place of Bartimeus, acknowledging his need, and seeking blessing alone at the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

MOSES OR CHRIST?

The Law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1: 17). Two principles are stated in this passage, as diverse as possible the one from the other; and two men are named who respectively represent them. The principles are law as contrasted with grace and truth; the men who represent them are Moses and Jesus Christ. Long ago it was affirmed that "Moses hath in every city them that preach him" (Acts 15: 21); which means that in every city there are those who insist on the performance of works as the means of blessing. It is also true, blessed be God, that throughout the world Christ is preached as men's only Saviour apart altogether from works of every kind. Every man in Christendom is thus ranged under either Moses or Christ. Said the Pharisees to the man to whom Jesus had given sight: "Thou art His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples" (John 9: 28). This was at least a clear enunciation of the ground upon which the speakers stood.

Let us be sure that we understand the significance of the terms employed in our text. The different terms may be defined thus. "Law" is the declaration of what man ought to be; "grace" is the activity of divine love; and "truth" is the revelation of all things as they really are — God, man, etc.

Nothing is so generally misunderstood as the law. We mean of course the law of God as given from Mount Sinai. Many to this hour regard it as the appointed means of blessing for men, and so they pursue it zealously. But what saith the Scripture? The PURPOSE of the law is to convict. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3: 20). As a faithful monitor it brings guilt home to the person who submits himself thereto. Its EFFECT is to provoke. "The motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death" (Rom. 7: 5). Flesh being abominably evil, the law by its prohibitions only stirs up its devilry. The very thing the law forbids is the very thing flesh longs to do. "I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known covetousness, except the law had said, 'Thou shalt not covet' (Rom. 7: 7). This being its effect on man, the law is called in 1 Cor. 15: 56 "the strength of sin " — a tremendous passage for those who seek either salvation or holiness by means of works. The POWER of the law is to slay. Says Paul in Rom 7: 10, "I found it to be unto death," and in 2 Cor. 3 he calls it "the ministration of condemnation" and "of death." Since man cannot render its righteous demand, the law can but pass its stern sentence upon him.

The law has thus nothing for me as a sinner. It holds blessing before the eyes of those who can respond to it, but upon all others its inexorable sentence falls. Moses avails me nothing, unless to show me my deep need of Christ.

"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" — two things, and yet one, for neither could subsist without the other. The Saviour was the very embodiment of grace. His every word and deed expressed it. "Never man spake like this Man," declared the officers who were sent to seize Him (John 7: 46). The men of Nazareth "wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4: 22). Before His coming, the Spirit of prophecy testified: "Grace is poured into Thy lips; therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever" (Ps. 45: 2). He was "full of grace and truth," and the moral glory of it was before the disciples from day to day during the wonderful years of their companionship with Him upon the earth. He came neither demanding nor threatening. Not with the majesty of a King, nor with the terror of a judge, did He walk amongst men, but with all the grace of a Saviour. He who spake at Sychar (John 4) was the same Person who spake amidst flame and smoke at Sinai; yet at Sychar He only sought to attract a sinner's heart. Again in Luke 7 we have a guilty one at His feet; receiving, not the stern condemnation of the law-giver, but the Saviour's pardoning grace.

The circumstances under which law and grace were introduced amongst men were in keeping with the character of their respective missions. In the midst of the most terrifying circumstances the law was promulgated. Even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Is this suggestive of blessing — of man being brought home to God to enjoy Him for ever? Far from it. But mark how grace came. The manger of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary have nothing in them to terrify the heart; on the contrary, these wondrous facts appeal to the tenderest affections, and assure us of God's good-will even to the vilest of His creatures.

Truth, as we have said, is the revelation of things as they really are. The law, though true, was not "the truth." It did not tell God out to us; its stern bearing hid, rather than revealed, Him. Nor did it show what man is, but rather what man ought to be. But Christ's coming has brought all out into the light. God is fully declared. He no longer dwells "in thick darkness." His love, mercy, holiness, and righteousness, have all been perfectly expressed in Christ and His cross. Man, too, stands fully declared. I need not go the round of the prisons to learn what man is capable of; the cross tells the story more completely and truly. Infinite love received for its return spittle upon the face, the crown of thorns, and the cross of shame. Nothing more remains to be told as to what man is. Satan also stands fully declared. Liar and deceiver from the beginning, Christ's presence here brought out the murderer in him. Seeing his Creator upon earth in human form, he treasonably united all sorts and conditions of men in order to compass His rejection and death.

"The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The law cannot help us; no blessing can it bestow upon the guilty and lost. We need grace; shall we not seek it? The truth has come; shall we, as Pilate, turn contemptuously from it? It is the divine desire that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2: 4).

LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?

"Peter was the speaker, and the words were spoken at the close of our Lord's discourse in the synagogue in Capernaum (John 6). It was a time of deep disappointment to many in Israel. The Messiah had indeed come, but in a form altogether unexpected. They had looked for a King, and lo, a carpenter's Son! Moreover, he hinted from time to time of His impending death. In the synagogue discourse He had spoken of giving His flesh for the life of the world. What this might mean the many utterly failed to understand, but the words made it sufficiently plain that their cherished visions of earthly glory were not to be realised. And so they were stumbled. "They stumbled at that stumbling-stone," said the Apostle later (Rom. 9: 32). Those who followed the Lord Jesus in a merely carnal way forthwith threw it up. If death really lay before Him, there was nothing in Him to interest them. "There are some of you that believe not," said He. "From that time forth many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him."

Defections test us all. The unreal have frequently insinuated themselves amongst the people of God, only to turn away in due season. Such sifting times make manifest where all hearts really are. At this juncture Jesus said to the twelve, "Will ye also go away?" Peter, ever the ready spokesman of the band, instantly responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God" (John 6: 67-69, R.V.). It is not that Peter understood the Lord's position much better than the seceders. There was much in His teaching which perplexed him, and which disappointed his own expectations, but he at least recognised the good Shepherd's voice, and so clave to Him through all. He felt that there was no other in the universe of God to whom his heart could rightly turn.

The question has its significance for our souls to-day. "To whom shall we go?" To Moses? Certainly "Moses hath in every city them that preach him" (Acts 15: 21). That is, there are in every quarter those who would put men under the law as the means of their justification before God. But for undone sinners this is of no avail. Corrupt human nature can never render the righteous requirements of the law; upon this principle can no flesh living be justified. For sinners Moses has nothing but curse and condemnation.

"To whom shall we go?" To Mary? Scripture does not so instruct us. We may well imitate her faith, and as lost ones take shelter in God our Saviour (Luke 1: 47). This lesson we may learn with advantage from the mother of our Lord. Nowhere does Scripture speak of mediation and intercession on her part for sinful men. Remarkably, in the sacred records we have Mary but twice seeking favours from the Lord, and in each case He rebuffed her as stepping out of her appointed place. See John 2: 4; Matt. 12: 46-50. Our last view of her is in Acts 1:14 as one of the praying band in Jerusalem who waited for the Holy Spirit after the Lord Jesus went on high. Not praying FOR, but WITH, her fellow-believers in the Saviour.

"To whom shall we go?" Everyone who has ever known Him has been filled and satisfied. David, when he saw His day in anticipative faith, burst forth in the language of holy rapture: "Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever" (Ps. 45: 2), Solomon, so despondent when surveying things "under the sun" in the book of Ecclesiastes, expressed himself ecstatically in The Canticles when the promised Christ rose up before his eyes. Paul, whose Christian career began with the sight of the Lord in glory, counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus (Phil. 3: 8). For us to-day, as for these men of old, it must be Christ or nothing. Apart from Him all is a dreary waste.

Peter, in his reply to the Saviour's challenge, speaks of what He has (5:68), and of what He is (5: 69) The one meets our need as sinners, and the other for ever satisfies our hearts as saints. "Thou hast the words of eternal life." This is what the Lord had been setting forth in the synagogue in Capernaum. It will suffice to quote verses 53-54: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." Let us beware of carnalising our Lord's words by importing a Sacrament into them. The Lord's Supper, so dear to every believing heart, was not instituted when these words were uttered. What then did the Saviour mean? Just this: that such was man's guilty and alienated condition in the sight of God that nothing could avail for his blessing but His death. Himself as the slain One must be appropriated in individual faith. In this way His flesh is eaten and His blood drunk, and the believing soul receives eternal life. The writer of the familiar words, "the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2: 20), was eating His flesh and drinking His blood as he adoringly penned the words.

"To whom shall we go?" What is the Christ of God to our hearts? To some of those who followed Him in the days of His flesh He said: "There are some of you that believe not." They wanted Christ and the world. Their hearts were not ready to renounce all for Him. What would He say if he were to come into our midst at this hour? And what would we say to Him? Oh, that with divinely-taught Peter, we could each one exclaim: "Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

"THIS SAME JESUS."

In the present world everything and everyone is liable to change. Everything that we touch has a tendency to decay; nothing really abides the same. TIMES change, and we shake our heads regretfully. PLACES change. We revisit the scene of our birth after an absence of many years, and lo, the whole district has undergone a complete transformation. The old familiar landmarks have disappeared, to be seen no more. FRIENDS change. Those who delighted in our company once pass us in the street now with averted head, and we feel the smart of it within. We OURSELVES change. The child becomes a youth, the youth develops into a man, and then the gray hairs appear. "Change and decay in all around I see."

Our text speaks of One who is ever the same. As touching His deity, He remains when heaven and earth have passed away (Ps. 102: 25-27); and as touching His humanity, He is the same Jesus to-day as when He trod this earth below. He is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever" (Heb. 13: 8). This comes home to us the more sweetly when we consider the circumstances under which the words of our text were spoken. The Son of God had just disappeared from the view of His disciples into the glory on high. Their eyes followed Him anxiously until the words of the two men in white apparel reached their ears. The disciples had known the Saviour in circumstances of poverty and shame. Together they had endured reproach and scorn. Now He had left all these humiliations behind Him, and had ascended up to the highest seat in the universe of God. But the angels assured them that He was the same Jesus! What comfort is here! How often among men he who has outstripped his fellows in wealth and honours coldly drops the companions of his humbler days. So common is this that we appreciatively speak of the exception as "not having a bit of pride.

Since the Saviour abides the same, we may learn what He is to-day from what He was when present amongst us on earth. Mark His grace as He permitted the city sinner of Luke 7 to rain her tears of contrition and love upon His blessed feet. His religious host would have dismissed such a person with disgust, but not He! He was the "Friend of publicans and sinners." See Him again in conversation by the well of Sychar (John 4) with one whose whole life He knew to be evil, but whom nevertheless He did not repel. The divinely appointed Judge of quick and dead setting Himself to win the heart of a gross offender against His laws is a spectacle that should move the most indifferent heart. He is the same Jesus to-day. His attitude towards sinners is still that of grace, and "Whosoever will may come."

Mark, too, His tenderness when confronted with the condition of men as the fruit of sin. At the graveside of Lazarus He wept — tender tears of sympathy with those whose spirits were wounded and torn (John 11: 35). And when He looked down upon proud, scornful Jerusalem which was bent upon refusing His grace, He wept for the people's hardness and impenitence of heart (Luke 19: 41). He is the same Jesus still; the same in His tender sympathy with distressed saints, and in His yearning over perishing sinners. His invitation is still, "Come unto Me"; the solemn words of dismissal, "Depart from Me" have not yet come upon His lips (Matt. 11: 28; Matt. 7: 23).

But the angels predicted His return. "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." A tremendous fact lies before us in these words. The world has not seen the last of the Son of God. A day is approaching when the heavens will be rent asunder, and He will be seen coming forth in majesty and power. Each one of us should challenge our hearts as to this. Would joy or horror possess us if confronted forthwith with the once-crucified Jesus? It is as certain as the sun in the heavens that every created being must yet look upon Him, and every knee must bow to Him, and every tongue own Him Lord. To him who has been cleansed from his sins by His atoning blood the prospect of beholding the Saviour face to face is "joy unspeakable." And when we thus gaze upon Him it will be the same Jesus of whom we have so often read in the Sacred Scriptures, and to whom our hearts have been drawn by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

"THE GOSPEL."

On this occasion I propose to give a rambling talk concerning the Gospel, showing its source and character, and endeavouring to elucidate the meaning of the various titles under which it is presented to us in Holy Scripture. Our English word "Gospel" is simply a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon "God's Spell," which means "God's Story." The Greek word represented by it means "good tidings," and it is sometimes so translated. Luke 2: 10 is an example. How wonderful is "God's Story," and how "good" are the "tidings" contained therein will become manifest as we proceed.

It would be a mistake to suppose that every time the word "Gospel" appears in our English Bible the present divine proclamation is intended. For example, in Gal. 3: 8 we read that "the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham." This does not mean that Abraham was told of the forgiveness of sins through a dead and risen Saviour; his good tidings were to the effect that through his Seed the predicted blessing should come. Again, when Heb. 4: 2 tells us that the Gospel was preached unto Israel, it is not meant that the present proclamation of grace sounded in their ears. The good tidings announced to them had reference to the rest in Canaan at the close of their desert journey.

It would also be a mistake to confound the Gospel with which we are familiar in Christianity with the messages of God to men in other ages. John the Baptist and our Lord and His apostles preached "the Gospel of the Kingdom," announcing the Kingdom of heaven as at hand (Matt. 3: 2, etc.). This has reference to the earthly blessing predicted by the Old Testament prophets, and which is now being held over as the result of the rejection of the Lord Jesus. When Christianity is finished, this testimony will be revived, and the glory of the Kingdom will be established (Matt. 24: 14). "The everlasting Gospel" is also a distinct divine message. It will be proclaimed in the midst of the Antichrist's reign, and its burden is "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgement is come" (Rev. 14: 7). Manifestly no such solemn pronouncement is being made at the present time.

Coming to the Gospel as we now know it, it is called first of all, "the Gospel of God" (Rom. 1: 1). Here we have the source and the spring of the heavenly message which has brought peace and gladness to myriad hearts. No creature mind could have formulated so wondrous a scheme; neither could fallen man have dared to suggest so audacious a plan as that the Eternal Son should be sacrificed in atonement for human sin and guilt. From the divine heart of mercy the thought flowed forth. There is no room for man in the scheme, save as the humble recipient of the blessing. What God purposed, He has Himself carried out, apart from creature aid of any kind whatsoever. In consequence, the glory of it redounds to Him alone, and that for ever. The Gospel is the full revelation of all that God is; therein is told out all His love, righteousness, holiness, truth and mercy.

In Rom. 1: 9 it is called "the Gospel of His Son," and elsewhere "the Gospel of Christ." This means that if God is the source of the heavenly message, His Son is the theme of it. The Gospel is the proclamation of divine facts — the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Here we have something substantial upon which both conscience and heart can safely rest. He whose utterances are not charged with these great facts should never speak of "preaching the Gospel." Mere ethical teaching is not the Gospel, still less is a political harangue, even though delivered from a pulpit. Let the discourse be ever so erudite, let it be the greatest possible "intellectual treat," if Christ is not its burning theme it is a travesty to call it "the Gospel." The deep need of the human heart is not to be met by the wit of men.

In 2 Cor. 4: 4 we read of "the Gospel of the glory of Christ" (R.V.). God's proclamation tells us not only of Christ crucified, but also of Christ glorified. He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree is now sitting as Man on the right hand of the throne above. This is the public proof that the sin question has been eternally settled for all who believe in the Saviour's name. If even one of my sins remained unatoned for, since the Son of God made Himself answerable for them all, He could not be accepted in His present glory. In connection with this, the apostle speaks in 1 Tim. 1: 11 (R.V.) of "the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God." This aspect of things was so characteristic of Paul's ministry that he calls it in 2 Tim 2: 8 "my gospel." He was converted by the revelation of Christ's glory; and he delighted to proclaim the mighty fact, with all its blessed consequences, that the glory of God now shines in the face of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is also called "the Gospel of peace" (Rom. 10: 15). The first grand result of believing the testimony of God concerning His Son is "peace with God" (Rom. 5: 1). This means, not merely a happy frame of mind, but the blessed knowledge that every question between God and the soul has been settled by the death of Christ, and that every cloud has been thereby dispelled from the horizon for ever. Our joy may fluctuate continually, for this depends very much upon ourselves — our conduct, and the measure of our daily trust in God; but peace knows no fluctuation, for it depends, not upon anything within us, but upon divine facts outside of us, the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. There have been two proclamations of peace on the part of Christ; first, during His life here (Acts 10: 36); and second, after His resurrection (Eph. 2: 17). The first was the announcement of God's attitude towards men, even though rebellious; the second is the declaration of the assured result of Christ's atoning sacrifice for all who believe God.

The Gospel is also "the Gospel of our salvation" (Eph. 1: 13). It not only proclaims to us the forgiveness of past offences — it tells us also how God has lifted us entirely out of the position in which we once stood as children of Adam, and put us into a new position "in Christ" before Him. The deliverance of the Christian is as complete as the deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt.

But by far the most comprehensive title of all is that found in Acts 20: 24 — "the Gospel of the Grace of God." In God's precious message to men concerning His Son, all His heart is declared. Grace beyond the utmost bounds of human imagination is therein proclaimed — grace which picks up the vilest of earth, and fits them for the eternal companionship of the First-born Son in glory. In the coming ages God will display "the exceeding riches of His grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 7).

"ANATHEMA-MARANATHA."

"If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema-Maranatha." A truly extraordinary passage to find in such a common-place chapter as 1 Cor. 16. It was manifestly the outburst of a flaming soul. Upon the subject in question the writer felt strongly, and accordingly he expressed himself strongly. Christ was everything to him. He was his Saviour, Lord, Object, and Hope — the Centre indeed of his whole spiritual system.

It was not always thus with Paul. He told King Agrippa "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did," etc. (Acts 26: 9-10). No man ever despised the name of Jesus more intensely than he; no one ever devoted himself so earnestly to the extermination of all who loved His name. But the transaction outside the gate of Damascus changed everything for Paul. From that moment the Son of God became his all-in-all.

"If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ." Knowledge must precede love. I cannot love a person whom I do not know. A man may know all the facts about Christ, and yet not know Him. Historical faith cannot save. I know WHOM I have believed (2 Tim. 1: 12). To know the Lord Jesus is to trust Him; and to trust Him is to love Him. ''Faith worketh by love" (Gal 5: 6). But why should I love Him? What claim has He upon my affections? Has He accomplished anything on my behalf? Oh, let us heed the apostle's glowing words: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1: 15). Is there anything in this that should appeal to the heart? Hear the apostle again: "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5: 8). Callous indeed must the heart be that can remain unmelted in the presence of such grace as is herein expressed.

Our text is very sweeping in its denunciation. "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.'' "If any man." He spares no one. Yet the apostle had met all sorts of people. Persons religious and persons irreligious; persons moral and persons immoral; persons honest and persons dishonest. He makes every thing turn upon Christ. A man may be both moral and religious, yet be lost for ever. John Newton's lines are true enough —

What think you of Christ? is the test

To try both your state and your scheme;

You cannot be right in the rest

Unless you think rightly of Him.

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the Only-Begotten Son of God" (John 3: 18).

"Anathema" means "accursed." The devoted apostle waxed indignant at the thought that anyone could hear of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet not love Him. Contrast with this his meekness under personal injury. Everything of that kind he could bear without one word of angry retort; but let Christ come into the question, let His name be involved, and his whole soul was immediately in a flame.

Let us not misunderstand the apostle's anathema. It is not that he desired the destruction of any. Indeed, he had drunk too deeply into the Spirit of Christ to entertain any such sentiment. Concerning his own rebellious fellow-countrymen his heart's desire and prayer to God for them was that they might be saved. He had even on one occasion wished himself accursed from Christ for them (Rom. 10: 1; 9: 1). He yearned over the souls of men everywhere. The point in 1 Cor. 16: 22 is his holy indignation against men upon whom full Gospel light had shone, and who found no place in their hearts for Christ. How far would this apply to the dwellers in Great Britain?

One cannot but connect his solemn curse here with another in Gal. 1: 8. "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." He had proclaimed the Gospel to the Galatians in its entirety; every pretended development of it on the part of others could be error only. What would this strong-speaking apostle say could he walk up and down in the midst of Christendom at this hour?

"Maranatha" is a compound of two Aramaic words, meaning "the Lord cometh." He thus brings to bear upon men's consciences that great day when everything will be brought to an issue for eternity. The Lord's descent into the air will remove to glory every believing soul; His public manifestation in the clouds of heaven will seal the doom of every foe. The door may soon be shut; the Gospel day may soon be over; happy the man who has found shelter in Christ the Lord. The long-neglected truth of the Lord's coming may well thrill every believing heart, while calculated to strike terror into the bosom of every rejecter of His grace.

"HE BECAME POOR."

Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich. — 2 Cor. 8: 9.

There are three things in this remarkable passage concerning which no creature mind can give us any really adequate account: first, the original riches of our Lord Jesus Christ; second, the depth of poverty to which He condescended; and, third, the wealth of blessing which is now the portion of every believer in His name

"He was rich." There are various ways in which riches may be measured. Many would estimate them by material possessions. Take an illustration. You and I are out walking together, and presently we notice a mansion standing in the midst of its grounds, and you tell me that such an one is the owner of it. I reply, "He must be a rich man." "Oh, but," you say, "that is not all he possesses. He has other estates dotted about in England, Scotland, etc." I remark, "He must be rich indeed!" But what are any man's material possessions compared with all that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ? Col. 1: 16 tells us, "by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him." Who can tell us all that such a verse means? Men are finding out that they do not yet know all that may be known of the "visible"; what then of the "invisible"? As the Creator and Sustainer of all, everything belongs to Christ. Not every man, however, would estimate riches by material possessions; with some, moral surroundings would count far more. A millionaire in a loveless, selfish home might conceivably feel poor indeed if he were to look into the cottage of a labourer, and see love and happiness reigning there, and his heart would tell him that the poor man has the better portion. But what was the moral atmosphere in which the Son of God moved ere this world knew Him? Who can describe the brightness and blessedness of that heavenly scene where love eternal reigns? And that scene was His everlasting home.

But, "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor." Here we need to tread very cautiously. Of what did He impoverish Himself when He came into this world? Certainly not of His deity. During His sojourn here, "all the fullness in Him was pleased to dwell" (Col. 1: 19). Not a single divine attribute did He abdicate in becoming human. Omnipotence displayed itself in His command of winds and waves, and also in His supremacy over death. Omniscience was manifested in His perfect ability to read the thoughts and hearts of men. Neither, in becoming poor, did He leave "the bosom of the Father," as some have said. This is not a geographical, but a moral, expression (John 1: 18), and it shows the unique place which He had in the Father's love. This He never for one moment left, neither did He forfeit it. Yet "He became poor." Let us content ourselves with noticing the actual circumstances of His pathway here. He was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger. The condescension would have been amazing had He consented to be born in the palace of the Caesars, but what shall we say of Bethlehem and the manger? Who amongst us has known such circumstances as these? Observe Him also in Matt. 17 in the matter of the tribute money. Though but a coin was required to cover both Peter and Himself, the fish of the sea had to furnish the sum. He had it not. During His progress through the land there was no demand for Him in the mansions of the rich and noble. "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head" (Luke 9: 58). But what were all the painful experiences of His pathway when compared with the cross of Calvary?

Friendless and robeless in the hour of His supreme grief! And when all was over, He had but a tomb that was lent by another. God would not suffer His beloved Son to be buried with the thieves. Isa. 53: 9, rightly rendered, beautifully expresses this: "His grave was appointed with the wicked, but He was with the rich in His death, because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth." Accordingly, Joseph of Arimathea came along, and craved the honour of burying the body of Jesus in his own new tomb. One thing that impressed me greatly in America was the sumptuous tombs of certain millionaires. They would be more suitably called temples. Their own wealth supplied these; but the Son of God was laid in the lent tomb of another. "For your sakes" was all this. Have we, one and all, been at His feet in humble acknowledgment of His matchless grace? Can each individual amongst us say, "the Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2: 20)?

"He became poor," says the apostle, "that ye through His poverty might be rich." Who is there, throughout the length and breadth of the Church of God, who can adequately declare the wealth of blessing which Christ has secured for all who believe in His name? The first of blessings is the forgiveness of sins. How do we regard that? When the four men of Luke 5 brought the palsied man to the Saviour their hope was that He would heal his body. Yet His first word was, "man, thy sins are forgiven thee." A sound body is much to be preferred to a fortune; but even a sound body will not compare with the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is, however, only the initial blessing of Christianity. It is the first expression of a grace which knows no limit. Hence the apostle speaks of forgiveness "according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1: 7). In the same chapter we get the magnificent statement, "He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Moreover, "in the ages to come He will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 7). What a spectacle will the bloodwashed host present to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places! An innumerable multitude of the base and despised of earth brought into eternal association with the Son of God, accepted in His acceptance, and loved as He is loved.

Beyond all the blessings which He bestows, there is the knowledge of Himself. Well may we sing: —

Were the vast world our own

With all its varied store,

And Thou, Lord Jesus, wert unknown

We still were poor.

Happy are the people to whom it may be truly said: "YE KNOW the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ."

THE VICTORY OF CHRIST.

There is something exhilarating in the thought of victory. Take a lesson from the battle-field. Two armies have met in conflict, and both are now going their several ways. The one host is dispirited and panic-stricken, cursing perhaps, the commander who has led them to defeat and shame; the other host is exultant in triumph and filled with cheer. The troops acclaim their leader, and are proud of their association with him. It makes all the difference to men's feelings whether they are on the side of victory or on the side of defeat.

Now on which side are we — we who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Without hesitation we reply, on the side of victory. Let us now, in a brief way, go over what Christ has wrought.

First, observe the point from which He started forth. That point was God-head glory. The opening verse of John's Gospel in three terse sentences proclaims the eternity of His being, the distinctness of His personality, and His true divine nature. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." When present on earth He could say to the Father in the hearing of His disciples, "Glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17: 5). Every Christian loves to seize every opportunity to confess the true deity of the Lord Jesus.

Next, observe the point to which He went down. Our text tells us "He descended into the lower parts of the earth." That means the grave. But what were the steps which led Him into such depths? Go with me to the manger of Bethlehem, and whom have we there? It is the Son of God, Maker of heaven and earth, Judge of quick and dead. What brought Him down from the glory that was proper to Deity to such circumstances of humiliation and shame? It was our salvation. Follow Him another step — to the cross of Calvary. We see His lifeless body taken down from the tree and laid away in Joseph's tomb. What is the meaning of such a spectacle, which might well fill the angelic host with amazement? The meaning is this: if He would deliver poor sinful man, lying under the doom of death and the power of Satan, He must enter and break the very citadel of the foe. What apparent triumph for Satan when he had his Maker and Lord sealed up in a tomb! But "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." Of what avail were all the devices of the creature? When the third day came the Saviour arose; and the stone rolled away, with the angel sitting as if in contempt upon it, testified to the reality of His glorious victory.

Now observe the point to which He has gone up. "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." He has gone up as Man to the highest seat, and the whole universe is destined to be flooded with His glory. Such is the purpose of God concerning the Son of His love. What a magnificent sweep we have here! From the degradation of death and the grave to the right hand of God, far above all heavens. What delight for all who believe; but what confusion for the foe! This is the Christ in whom we have put our trust. Can we not therefore sing with exultation, "the victory is ours"? In His triumph we read our own.

Let us consider some of the results of Christ's great victory. First, our sins have been completely put away. In this connection Heb. 10 attaches the deepest significance to the present seat of the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God. The very fact that He is there is the public proof that the sin-question, as far as His believing people are concerned, has been settled for ever. Seeing that He made Himself answerable for all our sins and iniquities at the cross of Calvary, He could not now be in heaven's glory had not every one of them been perfectly expiated. But not only have our sins been put away, but the power of death has for us been broken. Christ's empty tomb attests this. To John in Patmos He could reveal Himself as the living One, dead once, but alive for evermore, and having the keys of death and of Hades (Rev. 1: 18, RV.). Prior to the consummation of Christ's great victory even pious souls dreaded death. Job called it "the King of terrors"; and Hezekiah, when told to put his house in order because he was to die, and not live, turned his face to the wall and wept sore. But the language of Job and the conduct of Hezekiah would be alike unsuitable for the believer to-day. Heb. 2: 14 tells us the Saviour took part in flesh and blood "that through death He might destroy (or annul) him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." He has acquired the right to take His own into heaven's glory without passing through death at all, and this right he will exercise in the moment of His coming again (1 Thess. 4: 16-17). As the Resurrection He will raise every sleeping believer; and as the Life He will transform every living one (John 11: 25-26). If meanwhile He suffers any of His own to fall asleep, death is but the caretaker of the body until He wants it; and the happy spirit, freed from all earthly care, is at rest in the peace and delight of His heavenly presence. Truly "the victory is ours!" Whatever the circumstances of the moment, however painful the experiences through which we may be called to pass, however suggestive of defeat these may be, we are yet on the side of triumph, and this the exalted Lord will make manifest in His day.

ONE GOD AND ONE MEDIATOR.

The great truth stamped upon the opening verses of 1 Tim. 2 is that God is every man's sincere well-wisher. He desires all men to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth. It is a lie of Satan that some persons come into the world marked out beforehand for eternal ruin. If this were true, every Gospel overture in Holy Scripture would be but a mockery and a sham. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33: 11).

Christians are responsible to take their character from God Himself. This is why the apostle urges that prayer be made for all men, and for rulers in particular. If God wishes well to all, Christians must seek the blessing of all in like manner. In this connection, two weighty truths are affirmed. "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus." It is humiliating indeed that God should need to insist upon the reality and the uniqueness of His being with the creatures of His own hand. But ever since the deluge men have been guilty of devising gods of their own, to their folly and ruin. The nation of Israel was called out into a position of separation from all others to bear testimony to the unity of the God-head. In Deut. 6: 4 we have Moses saying to them: "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." But Israel miserably failed as a witness for God, copying the ways of the Gentiles, and becoming as idolatrous as they. This has resulted in the severest discipline for that unfaithful people.

The unity of the God-head was thus the distinguishing testimony of the Mosaic age; to this is added, now that Christ has come, the unity of the Mediator. It is not enough for sinful men to know that there is one God; the heart yearns to understand how that God may be reached and known. Job in his distress said: "He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgement. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9: 32, 33). Realising that man cannot bridge the gulf that sin has made between himself and God, Job felt the need of a mediator. Christ alone meets this need. From God-head glory He stooped to manhood in His ineffable grace. This enables Him to "lay His hand upon us both." But His incarnation could not of itself remove one single sin. "The extension of the benefits of Christ's incarnation," of which men of the Ritualistic sort speak so sagely, is nothing but meaningless jargon. Remission is impossible apart from blood. Accordingly the apostle adds: "Who gave Himself a ransom for all." The manger was a necessary step to the cross, where the foundation of all blessing for the guilty children of men was by Him well and securely laid. He is now risen and exalted. "Christ Jesus" is His resurrection title. His resurrection is the public proof before all the universe that every claim of the throne of God has been met by His atoning sacrifice. When Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, went up to God after the affair of the golden calf, he said to the people: "You have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto Jehovah; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin" (Ex. 32: 30). No such language of uncertainty could rest for one moment upon the lips of the Lord Jesus. The cross of Calvary admits of no "peradventure." In this world He made atonement, full, ample and perfect; and then, in the power of it, He went up to God on behalf of all His people.

The Mediator is one. No other dare we profanely put alongside Him, be it Mary, saints, or apostles. This would be to His public dishonour, and to the injury of our own souls. Christendom has been as grossly unfaithful in relation to the truth of the unity of the Mediator as ever Israel was in relation to the truth of the unity of the God-head. This sin God will not fail to judge when His present long-suffering is exhausted. Meanwhile, Christ may be universally proclaimed. He is Mediator, not between God and Israel, as Moses in the past, but between God and men. He gave Himself a ransom, not for a single nation, but for all. For this reason, Paul the apostle, once the most conservative of Jews, loved to describe himself "a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

STEM Publishing : W. W. Fereday : Gospel Tracts

Gospel Tracts

W. W. Fereday.

A Lost Tomb.

The old Abbey Church at Waltham, Essex (twelve miles from London) was founded by the sons of Earl Godwin in the eleventh century. The last Saxon King, Harold II, lies buried there. After the disastrous defeat at Hastings in 1066, two Waltham monks asked permission of Duke William to recover the King's body for burial. Being unable to identify it amongst so many mangled corpses, they called in the help of the notorious Edith, surnamed the Swan-necked. She found it, and it was duly interred in Waltham Abbey.

But the tomb is lost! No one to-day can say with any certainty just where it was placed.

We are reminded of another tomb, the whereabouts of which no one can speak positively — the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was in a garden, quite near the walls of Jerusalem and its owner at the time was a member of the Jewish Council named Joseph. (John 19: 38, 42). Nothing more can well be said about it. But while the tomb of the Saxon King is only of historical interest, and even that to but a limited number, the tomb of the Lord Jesus is of vital interest to every soul on earth.

Let us suppose that both tombs could be identified with certainty. What should we find? The one would contain the dust of him who was placed there; the other would be absolutely empty. The Saxon King awaits his resurrection at the last day; the Lord Jesus had His resurrection nineteen hundred years ago. There is no greater fact in the history of the world than this, and, in mercy to the children of men, God took careful pains to put it beyond all controversy. The risen Lord did not ascend up on high the day He left the tomb. He remained on earth nearly six weeks (Acts 1: 3); and during that time He showed Himself many times to His friends, some of whom were sceptical at first, not expecting such a marvelous work of God, but all ended in worshipping at His feet (John 20: 25; Matt. 28: 17). On one occasion more than five hundred brethren saw Him together. (1 Cor. 15: 6).

The Son of God is thus risen! The tomb has been rifled of its precious charge, to know it no more for ever. But here arises a question of the utmost importance. How came the Son of God to enter the tomb? What caused Him to die? Let God Himself answer the question for us. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5: 8). Listen also to John the Apostle. "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 we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John 4: 10, 14).

Thus it was our sins that involved the Son of God in the anguish of the tree and the disgrace of the tomb! Was there no other way whereby sinners might be saved from the consequences of their sins? Could not righteousness be satisfied otherwise? Clearly not, or God would not have gone to the extreme length of sacrificing His Son — His well beloved.

How offensive then is sin in the sight of God! How direful its consequences? Has the reader ever faced the sin question? Contemplate it, we beseech you, in the light of the cross and the tomb! you might well exclaim, with another:

"Oh, how vile my lost estate

Since my ransom was so great!"

It is delightful to the conscience-stricken sinner to meditate upon the love that shines out in the great sacrifice of Calvary. But how can we be sure that the sacrifice was sufficient — that the claims of divine righteousness have been truly met by it? The resurrection of Christ is the proof this. The stone was not rolled away in order that He might go forth, it was rolled away for our sake that we might know that death has been constrained to yield its prey. On the resurrection morning, the Angel said to the women, “He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." (Matt. 28: 6)

Faith can now see even more than this. The risen Chris is now on high, accepted in all the value of His great atoning work. So that we may add to the Angel's words, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." (Heb. 2: 9).

Reader, is your soul burdened with the guilt of sin? Learn then that it was for just such an one the Saviour died. His resurrection is the great discharge, not only for the Holy One Himself, but for every sinner who believes in His name. The vacant cross and the empty tomb are the joint proof that all the claims of the throne of God have been met once and for ever. Righteousness shall be imputed to us, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 4: 24-5: 1)

A Rock Sermon.

Early in the last century, the first European steamship, the "Comet," was launched on the River Clyde. Its inventor was Henry Bell, to whose memory a monument may be seen standing on the banks of the Clyde, a little to the east of Dumbarton Castle. At the base of the monument is inscribed upon the rocks the following sentences: —

"God is Love."

"Eternity — Where?"

"Flee from the wrath to come."

When we consider the large number of pleasure steamers which pass the spot in the summer season, and the many ocean liners which go by all the year round, it  seems certain that thousands of eyes have read this abiding rock sermon. What will the harvest be? The great day will tell.

The person who designed so public a testimony evidently judged there was something worth thinking about in the words thus inscribed, and we quite agree with him. "God is love,"  weightiest of all weighty truths, and yet how little is it understood! How many regard God as a severe Being, exacting hard things from His creatures, and taking pleasure in condemning those who fail to render His demands! But "God is love" (1 John 4: 8). The cross of Calvary has declared His love in all its vast extent. God's Son, His only and Well-Beloved, sacrificed  for the salvation of rebellious sinners; was ever love like this? Is anything like it known among men? Reader, have you considered the application of it to your own case? Have you ever thanked God for His love to yourself, a sinner only worthy of eternal flames? "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5: 8).

Well might the rock-preacher add: "Eternity-where?" A mere breath separates every one of us from it. All is well for him who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ: but what of the man (or woman) to whom this glorious Person is only a name? Eternity means destruction for all such; not extinction of being as some who love their sins fondly hope but desolation and ruin for ever and ever. Everlasting banishment from the presence of God where all is light and song — reader, can you bear to think of this? With all our powers we urge every unsaved one into whose hands this paper may fall to "Flee from the wrath to come." Before the storm of Divine judgment bursts, "Whosoever will" may find shelter in the Saviour: when the storm begins (and the dark clouds are gathering on every hand) His Saviour character will come to an end, and His enemies must meet Him as Judge. In their terror men will say to the mountains and rocks: "Fall on us, hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. 6: 16, 17). Beloved reader, in what character do you wish to know the Son of God?

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that obeyeth not (R.V.) the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him " (John 3: 16).

W. W. Fereday.

"What is a man profited…"

In the terrible retreat from the city of Mexico on the night of July 1st, 1520, Cortes urged his followers to carry as little as possible with them. He told them that those would fare best who travelled lightest. Many of the soldiers however preferred to take with them as much as possible of the gold they had looted; but the weight of it dragged them down to death as they endeavoured to swim the lake. For the sake of the treasure they risked and lost their lives, and that in spite of the warning of their Commander.

Men are just as foolish today. As the Lord Jesus expressed it in Luke 8: 14 they "are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life." The last of the three is the most deadly of all at the present. The pleasures of this life are abundant. Never was there such variety, and multitudes are simply intoxicated with them. Long queues standing outside picture houses, and massed thousands gaping and cheering at football matches, are sufficient of themselves to prove how deeply pleasure has eaten into the hearts of the people. They think of little else; by these things they live. That they have souls that must live for ever is a thought that never gives them a moments concern. That which is of vital importance, is as nothing in their esteem, while that which is worthless is, in their eyes, of the highest account.

Oh, fools, to throw away your souls thus! Well did our Lord ask, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16: 26) What indeed! The rich man of Luke 16: 19, when he found himself in torments, would have given all he ever possessed for an opportunity to retrieve his wasted past. When on earth his one thought was to "have a good time." He was "clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." In selfish enjoyment he spent his days, ignoring even the poor diseased mendicant who lay at his own gate. He was too absorbed in his own pleasures to have room in his mind for others. So he lived, and so he died, and perished forever.

Reader, this brief span that we call "time" is not everything. For each one of us there is a boundless beyond. Are you indeed willing to so load yourself with business, pleasure, or anything else of an earthly character that you must needs be lost for ever? Hear the voice of your Maker and God. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread? And your labour for that which satisfyeth not? hearken diligently unto Me... incline your ear and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live. (Isa 55: 2, 3) In His most Holy Word, He tells you plainly of your sin and guilt, and of the peril in which you stand. Moreover in His Word, He tells you of the wondrous mission of His Beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. From heaven He came in search of sinners lost and undone, and upon Calvary's cross, He suffered once for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. (1 Peter 3: 18)

Reader, what have you to say to this? Is the eternal future worthy of your consideration or not? Is it wise to throw away eternal bliss in order to enjoy the corrupt pleasures of this present short life? A gracious God waits to bless you, are you willing to be blessed?

Apron Factories

It was remarked one day by a servant of Christ that "many places of worship in these times are just apron factories, and nothing more."

The speaker had in mind of course, what is written in Genesis 3: 7. Genesis 3 is God's account of the most terrible catastrophe that ever befell the human family. The story is related in the very simplest terms, in order that everyone may understand. It is the story of the fall of man — of his revolt against his Maker, and how God met the sinners need. No sooner had Adam and his wife sinned, than they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Yet, in spite of their device, so conscious were they of their nakedness, that at the first sound of the voice of God they hid themselves as unfit to stand in His Holy presence.

There we have the beginning of what has long since developed into an enormous evil - sinners endeavouring to work out a righteousness of their own. But however industrious and sincere the workers may be, it is all to no avail, for, "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." Rom 3: 20. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Isa 64: 6.

Note what happened when God entered Eden. Having convicted the man and his wife of their sin, He spoke to the Suffering Seed, The Lord Jesus, and forthwith made coats of skin and clothed them. Here we have grace indeed. If man has no covering suitable for God, God is able to furnish all that the guilty one needs. So, in Rom 3 (already quoted) we go on to read that the righteousness of God has now been manifested unto them that believe; that righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ, and which is founded upon His atoning blood.

Death furnished the coats of skin; the death of Christ has made it possible for God to be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

Is this what is being universally preached to-day? Or are not the people being diverted to sacraments and other pious works, rather than to Christ, and the work He accomplished? Are not the multitudes being told that it is "character" that counts with God? This is just to repeat the egregious blunder of our first parents who "sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." And it is ruinous to the soul. What a contrast there was between there aprons and the coats which God supplied! Not a divine stitch was in the one, not a human stitch was in the other. In like manner, in mans efforts after righteousness, there is nothing of God, and in the righteousness divine which grace confers, there is nothing of man.

Now reader, on what ground do you stand with God? Are you spending precious time sewing fig leaves together? That is to say, are you doing your best to make yourself presentable to God? If so, you are on a false line altogether, and we entreat you to renounce your own efforts as worse than worthless, and put your whole trust in the Lord Jesus, and in the great work which He has done. This is what God says to those who believe. "By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works lest any man should boast. (Eph. 2: 8, 9) This is what believers say in response: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. (Titus 3: 5) Beware of "apron making." Beware of "apron factories."

A Well Balanced Budget,

and something still better

The Budget of 1932 caused more anxiety to all classes in Britain than any that had ever preceded it. The warning sounded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in February, 1931, that matters were going wrong, and that drastic steps should be taken, passed unheeded. Then came the great wake-up in August when the nation realized that it stood upon the verge of bankruptcy. Stringent measures were immediately taken in order that Britain might maintain its standing in the world. "The Budget must be balanced," was said by both rulers and people. During those anxious months every right-minded person wished well to the men in the seat of authority, and those who knew God and had access to His throne of grace, did not fail to make intercession for them there.

It is a serious matter for a nation to default. Everyone is thereby plunged into disaster from the King down to the meanest subject. In a moment all that men have set their hearts upon, and all that their industry has accumulated, disappears in overwhelming ruin. But God sometimes uses the disappointments of life for the blessing of men's souls. Some, as they behold everything slipping away from them, feel so keenly the transitoriness of everything earthly that they turn to God, and thus get into touch with the things that really matter, and that abide evermore.

In Psalm 4: 6, David says:

"There be many that say, who will show us any good?"

This is the cry of disappointed hearts. They have tried so many things that have yielded no satisfaction that they are at their wits end what next to try, or in what direction to turn. But David was able to answer the pitiful cry for himself:

"Lord lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou has put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."

He knew God, and that was enough. In his day he was the mightiest king on earth, but he was not always mighty. Commencing life as the youngest son of a farmer, and sent into the fields to tend sheep, he was, while yet a youth, privately anointed king by Samuel in substitution for the miserable failure who then ruled. Then followed years of persecution while his relentless foe sought his life, before he actually sat upon the throne of Israel. During those years he sometimes knew neither where to lay his head, nor where to turn for bread to eat, but those were his best years spiritually.

Reader, can you say anything at all like it? Have you proved the blessed reality of having to do with God? It is most certain that whatever measure of relief may be granted to us by a balanced Budget, everything is shaking beneath our feet. A glance at world-conditions generally makes this plain. Awful indeed for those who have nothing outside this world!

If you are seriously seeking what this world cannot give, you must first have to do with God about your sins. The sin-question is fundamental, and a holy God cannot pass it by. If there were no sin in the world, there would be no trouble, financial or otherwise. God looks to both you and me for a frank acknowledgment of this.

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. 51: 5).

Terrible is it not?

"The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they are born." (Ps. 58: 3).

This is true of everyone of us, like silly sheep we have all turned our backs upon the God who made us — our best friend really.

On what ground can God receive the sinner? Romans 5: 8, will tell us:

"God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

This is truly amazing. God's own Son, has suffered for my sins! All the judgment that I deserved was poured out upon Him, and, believing in Him, I am free!

W. W. Fereday.

STEM Publishing : F. B. Hole : Forgiveness

The Great Salvation

F. B. Hole.

Contents

Forgiveness

Justification

Redemption

Reconciliation

Salvation

Sanctification

The New Birth

Quickening

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

New Creation

Foreword.

The Scriptures themselves speak of the "great salvation," which has reached us through the Gospel. We, who have experienced the saving grace of God, know something of its greatness, but it is only as we search the Scriptures and investigate its details that the magnitude of what God has brought to pass begins to dawn upon us.

In these pages the main details are taken up one by one. If all be put together, the great salvation of God is before us; and it is important to remember that each is but one part of a great whole. They are considered separately in order that we may gain a fuller understanding of each part, and thereby more fully understand the whole.

We can no more apprehend the whole Divine plan at one moment than we can see all four sides of a building from one viewpoint. We have to content ourselves with one thing at a time. If this book helps any Christians to a deeper appreciation of the wonders wrought of God through the Gospel, not only will they be spiritually helped but God will be glorified.

STEM Publishing : Various : Twenty Gospel Tracts

Gospel Tracts

Edinburgh Series Wm. C. Reid.

1, Redemption.

2, Forgiveness.

3, Reconciliation.

4, Deliverance.

5, Salvation.

6, Justification.

7, Peace.

8, Joy.

Cumberland Series J. Wilson.

1. An Officer's Faith

2. Brought Down on Reconnaissance

3. A Storm at Sea

4. The Wrong Uniform

Preach The Word Series Wm. C. Reid.

The Counsel of Peace.

The Cup of Salvation.

An Anchor of the Soul.

No More Conscience of Sins.

Be Reconciled to God.

A Grave Warning and Its Sequel Robt. B. Wilson.

A Message from the Sea Robt. B. Wilson.

Original Distributors:

Galashiels — T. Oliver, 90 Channel Street.

Sydney — Tract Depot, 302 Pitt Street.

New York — Bible Truth Depot, 19 West 21st Street.

Redemption.

Redemption brings to light the power and glory of God, and presents to the believer in Christ the forgiveness of sins. The first chapter of Colossians sets forth a rich array of the glories of the Son of the Father's love, and these are introduced with "In Whom we have redemption — the forgiveness of sins." Before the glories of the Son, and the grace, power and glory of God can be known, the forgiveness of sins must first be enjoyed.

After crossing the Red Sea, where they had seen the display of God's power and glory, Israel sang, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed." They had been redeemed from Egypt and from the thraldom of Pharaoh by the blood of the paschal lamb and by the mighty hand of God. Similarly those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are redeemed from their sinful estate by the precious blood of Jesus, and from the authority of Satan by the mighty power of God, Who translates them into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

Jewish believers were told in 1 Peter 1, that the precious blood of Christ had redeemed them from the vanities of a corrupted Judaism. In the same way, Gentile believers have been set free from all the corruption of the human religions in which the Gospel found them, that they might live for God's good pleasure in the obedience of Jesus Christ, having come under the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Silver and gold could never secure this great redemption; but God has procured it at infinite cost to Himself.

Shortly before Jacob's death, in blessing Joseph and his sons he said, "The angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the lads." Redemption for Jacob evidently meant his deliverance from all the dangers and troubles of his tortuous path. Christians too can count upon the strong arm of the Lord to bring them safely through all the vicissitudes of the wilderness they have been called to pass.

Although already enjoying the blessed fruits of redemption in our souls, as having bodies of humiliation, we are hindered from full enjoyment; but this imperfect condition will be done away when the Lord Jesus comes to give us that for which we wait, "The adoption (or sonship), the redemption of the body." (Rom. 8: 23).

In glorified bodies the saints of God shall enter into the full blessedness of the joys of the Father's House, and shall possess the inheritance that God has given them in Christ. This immense possession has already been purchased at the price of Jesus's blood, and at His coming the Lord Jesus will redeem the possession He has purchased by removing from it those who have taken unlawful tenancy. Till that great and glorious day for which the Christian longs, God has given to the heirs His Holy Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance. (Eph. 1: 14).

Forgiveness.

Throughout the Christian ages, great and successful efforts have been made by Satan to rob believers in the Lord Jesus Christ of the knowledge of forgiveness of sins. When on earth the Lord Jesus said to a man, "Thy sins are forgiven thee" (Luke 5: 20); and to a woman, "Thy sins are forgiven." (Luke 7: 48). These two would therefore be assured that their sins were forgiven. All true believers should possess the same assurance for it is written in the Scriptures, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." (1 John 2: 12).

The forgiveness of sins rests on the foundation of the great redemptive work of Christ, and all the efficacy of the accomplished work abides in Him where He dwells before the face of God. No other could atone for sins. When Israel sinned at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses pleaded with God for them saying, "If thou wilt forgive; and if not, blot me, I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written." But Moses could not be accepted as a sacrifice, even for one sin. His zeal for Israel was wonderful; his sentiments were noble; but how could a sinful man, even though he was the meekest man on all the earth, die for sinful men? At the appointed time, God sent forth His Son, Who became Man, and as the holy, spotless Lamb of God laid down His life and shed His precious blood, so that a righteous and Holy God might be able in perfect consistency with His character and nature to forgive sinners who believe in Him.

With the sacrificial work of Christ in view God was able beforehand to forgive sinners of a previous dispensation. This is taught in Romans 3: 25; and in Psalm 32: 5. David in confessing his sin to God availed himself of this great benefit, even although, he could not know the glorious plan of redemption that was in the mind and heart of God. David said, "I acknowledged my sin to thee — and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin"; and this is an excellent example for all. That all may receive the same forgiveness as David is clearly taught in John 1: 9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Scripture also teaches governmental forgiveness of sins. This character of forgiveness was really granted to the man in Luke 5: 20; and is also indicated in John 5: 14 and 8: 11. God not only deals with His people in grace, but chastens them in His government; and some may be laid upon a bed of sickness because of some particular sin. James 5: 15 shows that such may be healed and governmentally forgiven. On this line Peter received authority from the Lord to bind and loose sins on earth, and his actions were to be ratified in heaven. This of course is governmental; and the case of Ananias and Sapphira demonstrated how heaven ratified the sin that Peter bound upon them.

Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is getting right with God. When Adam sinned, moral distance separated him from God, and he became an enemy of God. To be reconciled, man must be brought back to God with the enmity removed from his heart. Perhaps the outstanding picture of reconciliation in the New Testament is found in Luke 15. The need of bread, and the realisation of his Father's goodness awoke within the Prodigal the desire to return; but he had no idea of the reconciliation that the Father had prepared for him. A servant's place would have sufficed the Prodigal but the kisses, the best robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf, and the music and dancing revealed the resources of the Father for the satisfaction of his love. These things were all enjoyed by the erstwhile wanderer when the distance had gone, and the enmity displaced from his heart by the Father's love.

Old Testament incidents also help us to understand the truth of reconciliation. Absalom's murder of Amnon alienated him from the house of David, and although he was ultimately brought home he was not really reconciled. His rebellion against David proved there was enmity in his heart towards his Father. Absalom never confessed his guilt, and a reconciliation without confession and repentance will never do for God. With Mephibosheth it was very different. When brought from the distance of Lodebar, the kindness of God lavished upon him by David dispelled his enmity; and this was evinced in his mourning for David during his absence in rejection.

God reconciles sinners by bringing them near to Him in Christ, His Beloved, and by displacing the enmity from their hearts with the knowledge of His love. The love of God and enmity towards Him cannot remain in the heart together. Christ's wonderful death has fully manifested God's love for ungodly sinners who were His enemies, and this love has been shed abroad in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 5).

But reconciliation is also connected with the truth of the new creation. This is taught in 2 Corinthians 5; where the Christian is seen "In Christ" before God. The new creation describes the new conditions of life in which the believer exists; where death cannot come, and where there is no distance and no enmity. Every feature of this new existence in which saints have been created is portrayed in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Soon the Lord will return to reconcile all things to the fulness of the Godhead; which shall be completed when every sphere of government and authority on earth and in the heavens is recovered to God. By the exercise of His mighty power the Lord will remove His foes from these spheres and fill them with His glory, that God might be glorified in all things for the ages of ages.

Deliverance.

Elihu told Job that God speaks to man in various ways to instruct him, and to keep him from his purpose and pride. God speaks by dreams, by preserving men from violent deaths, by pain, sickness and disease, and by bringing men to the very point of death. All these things are to teach men the grace of God, and that they might hear Him saying, "Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom." (Job 33). To be the subject of this deliverance from divine judgment, the sinner must acknowledge his sin, saying as in this chapter, "I have sinned and perverted that which was right"; then "He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light." (v. 28).

Deliverance from the bondage of the law is realised by the knowledge that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ; and this liberty is given to Christians that they might live for the will of God to give Him pleasure. This is taught in Romans 7; the next chapter shows that the individual believer can enjoy deliverance from the law of sin and death. Before God, every true believer is looked at as liberated both from the law and from the bondage of sin; but the practical experience of these things is another matter. To enjoy deliverance from sin we must reckon ourselves as dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Having learned to do this the Christian will be able to say with Paul "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." Like Israel under the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt the sinner is under the yoke of Satan as the god and prince of this world. It is the privilege of the saints of God to know that the Father has delivered them from the power of darkness, and has translated them into the kingdom of the Son of His love. (Col. 1: 13).

Our God and Father desires that we should be delivered from this present evil world. (Gal. 1: 4). We learn how this is brought about in the same epistle, (Gal. 2: 20 and Gal. 6: 14). "I am crucified with Christ" is the experience of one who has allowed the truth of the cross to affect his whole moral being; and "I live by the faith of the Son of God" meant that Paul's whole life and being were bound up in communion with Jesus his Lord. Then in chapter 6 we see a man who realises that the world has been completely exposed and judged in the cross, and that that same cross which measured the world's hatred of God and His Son revealed the world's estimate of him as Christ's disciple. These are the lessons to be learned if deliverance from this present evil world is to be realised. When this guilty world receives its just judgment for the murder of God's Son, we shall not be here, for Jesus is "our deliverer from the coming wrath." (1 Thess. 1: 10).

Salvation.

Jonah, the prophet, had remarkable experiences, and doubtless made great discoveries during his sojourn in the whale's belly; but his release from such a prison would be the most blessed of all his experiences, and this was when he discovered that "Salvation is of the Lord." The discovery that we need salvation may be very painful, accompanied with anxiety and deep distress, as with Jonah. This will occur if we realise before God that we are ruined, guilty and lost; and powerless against sin and Satan.

Salvation is not procurable by human efforts, for Titus 3: 5-6 points out that we are saved by God's mercy, and not by works of righteousness which we have done. This is also emphasised in Ephesians 2: 8-9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should boast." God in sovereign love has secured this great salvation for us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Aged Simeon knew this when he said, "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." The Samaritans learned it when they heard Jesus speaking, for they said, "We know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." There must be personal contact with the Son of God to know Him as the Saviour. Peter, the great apostle, who truly knew the Lord said of Him, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

Many true believers have doubts and fears about salvation, not having in their souls the assurance that God gives in His word. The woman in Luke 7 would not have the slightest doubt on this question after the Lord said to her, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." Nor should we have the semblance of a dread, for the Scripture tells us that "God — hath saved us." (2 Tim. 1: 9). The word is not "may save" or "will save," but "hath saved." But we need to be preserved amid the dangers and snares of the world, and for this the Lord Jesus Christ has become our Great High Priest; and as such "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7: 25).

Complete salvation will be effected for us by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His saints. Then we shall be delivered from our present circumstances, and shall be taken to heaven to be for ever with the Lord. While awaiting this momentous event, we "are kept by the power of God through faith." (1 Peter 1: 5). If this salvation in all its parts is to be ours, we must heed the word spoken by Paul to the Jailor at Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

Justification.

When Job contended with his friends, who ignorant of God's dealings with him, falsely accused him, the cry was wrung from his grief-stricken but self-righteous heart, "How should man be just with God?" His three "comforters" could not rightly answer this question, but the true answer was given when God revealed Himself to Job, and when he replied, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." To tell God that we are loathsome sinners deserving only divine judgment is the way to be just with God. The same lesson is learned from the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18. Proud in his self-righteousness the Pharisee justified himself before God, but the Publican condemned himself, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Of the self-judged man the Lord said, "I say unto you that that man went to his house justified rather than the other."

Justification is simply to be righteous in the sight of God: to be cleared from the imputation of guilt. No man is free from guilt, for "all have sinned"; and none can redeem himself, for we are without strength." Therefore if sinners are to be justified, a means for its accomplishment must be found outside of themselves. God in infinite wisdom has devised the means, which manifests His great love and the riches of His grace. On the cross, the Lord Jesus endured the divine judgment merited by sinners, and shed His precious blood; and this enables God in perfect righteousness to clear from every charge of guilt those who believe on Him.

But there are those like the haughty Jews of Romans 10, who, seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. Like the man at the wedding feast they refuse the wedding garment provided by the King. Unlike the Prodigal they will not confess, "I have sinned," and so lack the best robe and all else provided by a loving Father, and remain like the elder brother outside the Father's house with its merriment and joys. The apostle Paul had once sought to establish his own righteousness, and thus be just before God; but his interview with the Lord Jesus on the way to Damascus disclosed to him the unsuitability of such a garment when exposed in the light of the glory shining from the face of Jesus. He desired thereafter "to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. 3: 9). While those who have neglected or refused the righteousness of God are sorrowing in the darkness for eternity, those who have received the abundance of grace will be displayed with the Lord Jesus in glory as "The righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5: 21).

Peace.

No one will gainsay that all the prodigious efforts of men to procure peace for the nations have ended in failure; but few realise that the explanation of this failure lies in the world's rejection of the Son of God. With the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem the entry of peace into the world was celebrated by the praising heavenly host saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace"; but the portending departure of peace was proclaimed just before Christ's final rejection, by the multitude crying, "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." Not until the Lord returns as Prince of Peace will peace be found on earth again.

But God in infinite wisdom and compassion used the very occasion of the cross to secure for men a more wonderful peace than that brought to earth in the Son's incarnation. This peace was made by the blood of His cross, and it is proclaimed in the Gospel. Indeed, in Ephesians 2: 17, Christ is presented as the great Preacher of peace both to Jew and Gentile. It is because of this peace received from Him that we can have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace when standing in conflict in the evil day.

The troubled sinner needs peace for his conscience, and he receives this when he believes the Gospel. Romans 5: 1, unfolds this, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment illustrates this beautifully. Trembling she came to Jesus, only to hear from His lips, "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." (Luke 8: 48).

Those enjoying peace with God soon realise that if faithful to Christ they will share the reproach of His rejection, and be the object of the world's malice and opposition. When forewarning His disciples of this the Lord said, "These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace." (John 16: 33). There is no peace for the Christian here; but while passing through tribulation for the Lord's sake he can have the bounty left by the Lord, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you."

Although brought into divine favour the Christian is not relieved from the trials that are common to men; and these are apt to bring anxious care. For such circumstances the believer may have the peace of God which passes all understanding, and this by making his requests known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4: 6-7). God's peace is not disturbed by the unrest and conflicts of the world, and this is the peace that is held out to His people. To enjoy this divine peace in its varied aspects, the Christian must abide in communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, for "He is our peace."

Joy.

Natural joy is very precious and according to the Preacher in Ecc. 2: 26, it is one of three things that God gives to a man that is good in His sight. Natural goodness, in the government of God brings its own reward of natural joy. But the joys of nature quickly fade before the trials and sorrows that man inherits, and the exercised soul at length discovers that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. The transient character of natural joy was demonstrated at the marriage feast of Cana of Galilee, when the wine ran out; but it was there the Lord Jesus revealed that in the best wine of His providing there was a source of an entirely new kind of joy. This new joy is from God, and is known in the reception of the Gospel. As a result of Philip's ministry at Samaria, where he preached Christ unto them, we read, "And there was great joy in that city." (Acts 8: 8). In the same chapter, Philip spoke to the Ethiopian about the Lord Jesus, and having believed the word spoken, it says of him that "He went on his way rejoicing."

Many new things bring joy at their reception or beginning, and afterwards the joy is displaced by distresses that eat like a canker. But Christianity is very different. Having saved us from our sins, God brings us into His kingdom. This kingdom is characterised by "Joy in the Holy Spirit," and in order that we may possess the joy constantly, God has given us the source of it by shedding His love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which He has given to us. One of the precious fruits of the Spirit as delineated in Gal. 5: 22, is joy.

The joys of nature are dependent on circumstances. If a man's circumstances are grievous, his joy disappears. But the joy given by the Lord is independent of circumstances, and therefore persists in seasons of trial and sorrow. Although the Lord Jesus on earth was "A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" it is written of Him "He rejoiced in spirit." His joy was from communion with His Father, in spite of His rejection by men. The apostle Paul following in the steps of His Master, shared His rejection and sorrow but knew the blessedness of His Master's joy, and commended this joy to others. In his epistle to the Philippians more than once he says "My joy," and he exhorted them to "Rejoice in the Lord alway."

On the night of His betrayal the Lord Jesus spoke of many things to His disciples. He warned them of the tribulation they should receive from the world, but He also promised them His joy. He said, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15: 11). From 1 John 1: 1-4 we see that this joy is realised as we learn the reality of eternal life in communion with the Father and the Son. May we truly know His joy in communion with Him.

Cumberland Series

1. An Officer's Faith

2. Brought Down on Reconnaissance

3. A Storm at Sea

4. The Wrong Uniform

An Officer's Faith.

The searchlight of God's gracious dealings with men in this world of darkness allows its beam to pause upon particular incidents in Holy Writ and for the gaze of all holds in its ray God's attitude towards His creature estranged from Himself by sin. So, in the Gospels there are recorded many instances of the Grace of God reaching men through the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ who, as the Vessel of Grace, was alone competent to fulfil such a work. Whether in preaching the Gospel to the poor, healing the broken-hearted, delivering captives, recovering sight to the blind, He is presented in the Gospel of Luke as the Perfect Man in the activity of grace. It is not to call attention to the kind of faith, viz., an officer's, that this incident from Luke 7 has been chosen but to show that in the Scriptures the military forces are not excluded from the many walks of life in which examples of the gift of God (Eph. 2: 8) are found. What marked the unnamed centurion was a faith which surpassed any found amongst a people privileged above all others as to the things of God (v. 9) and which got an answer (v. 10). We do well then to consider this soldier's reaction to faith if we would be pleasing to God (Heb. 11: 6). Here was a man with a deep need but he was in the favourable circumstances whereby he could hear of Jesus (v. 3). His sphere of service as a soldier happened to be cast in the very territory which was graced by those Divine footsteps. How often privileges are taken for granted! How often is the opportunity of hearing of Jesus in this favoured Island Home of ours spurned! But the centurion was not content with simply hearing of Jesus, faith was in exercise, for he approached Him in such a way as to bring out the glory of the Perfect Man which is the particular theme of Luke's Gospel. He thus solicited the aid of the elders of the Jews (v. 3) and clearly indicated the ground of repentance for he took sides with God against himself (v. 6). Moreover, there was the recognition both of the ability (v. 7) and the authority (v. 8) of the One to whom he addressed his appeal in his deep need. It may be that news of the man who was healed of the palsy (Luke 5: 18) had reached the ears of this centurion and, as his servant was suffering from the same complaint (Mat. 8: 6), he had concluded that Jesus might cure him. However, this would only have involved the exercise of natural intelligence. What the Lord recognised and answered was the faith which expressed itself in such a way, the need being felt, as to produce repentance on the part of the centurion and appreciation of the power of the Lord to help him.

Dear reader, may it be yours in all your deep need as a sinner to exercise repentance toward God, i.e., taking sides with God against yourself, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e., bringing in God as He has been pleased to reveal Himself (Acts 20: 21). In this way you may have the assurance of the forgiveness of your sins, which is undoubtedly your deepest need (Acts 13: 38). The One who met the centurion in his extremity is the only One who can meet you in yours. "He is the same yesterday, and to-day and for ever" (Heb. 13: 8). J. Wilson.

Brought Down on Reconnaissance.

The title of this tract will doubtless divert thought into the avenue of aerial activity and to the brave men engaged in the hazardous work suggested, but such is not its aim. The desire is to isolate the principle of ascent, and, through clothing it in a moral garb, show that it originated with Satan himself and which has been manifested ever since by men as fallen creatures. We do not wish to detract from the value of reconnaissance work in the ways of men nor to belittle those who display natural courage, but to stress that in the ways of God the practice by men of ascendency in a moral sense never leads to salvation or blessing; this is the thought of God for all men for "God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2: 3-4). To trace the principle to its source we must go back to the fall of Satan from heaven. God has carefully recorded this incident in Isaiah 14: 13. "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. . . ." As a fallen creature and under the dominion of sin (Rom. 6: 14) man has never ceased to give expression to the rule. In Genesis 11 the Tower of Babel is a monument to the desire and efforts of men to enjoy the atmosphere of heaven in their own way. The confederacy would be the witness to the former and the brick an indication of the latter. Then, as though to guard against the fallacy that the principle had been eradicated either by the passage of time or the transition from the Old to the New Testament, Zacchaeus is introduced in Luke 19. Evidently there was still the desire after what was of God for "he sought to see Jesus who he was" and the efforts to satiate that desire was seen in his own scheming for he climbed into a sycamore tree, noted for the thickness of its foliage; only to find, however, that his own efforts were but taking him farther from the place of blessing. The higher he climbed the greater was the distance he had to come down.

Dear reader, if hitherto you have been seeking to merit salvation by anything you are doing, no matter how commendable it may appear, take warning from what God has recorded in His Word in connection with this little man! "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down" indicated the way of salvation, on the line of his humbling himself before the One who had become Man that He might bring salvation within the reach of men in their lost estate. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51: 17). Moreover, far from being obtained by the efforts of men, the blessing was to be had only on the principle of faith "forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham" and that in the Son of Man who came to create the sense of need in the soul and to satisfy it. Have you humbled yourself before the Saviour in the confession of your lost condition and through the exercise of faith in Himself received the salvation which he waits to impart? If not, learn the lesson taught in the Scriptures of Truth by Zacchaeus who was brought down on reconnaissance to have the word of salvation spoken by the Saviour Himself. J. Wilson.

A Storm at Sea.

In these days when engineering seems to have reached the peak of accomplishment it is difficult to understand the dangers which attended a storm at sea in bygone days. However, history shows that the destinies of nations have been moulded by such an event. For instance, the Spanish Armada was one of the most outstanding events in that connection, but the destiny of a nation pales into insignificance in comparison with an individual soul in the sight of God. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Thus the sea storm described in Matt. 14: 23-33 is concerned largely with the Lord and Peter. In these few verses there is given a beautiful example of the Lord's help to His own in distressing circumstances.

But ere we pass on to develop this a little, let us consider for a moment the character of the one who reaps the benefit of the Lord's gracious support. He, who is presented in Matthew 14 is the same as is dealt with in Luke 5. It is important to grasp this, bearing in mind that Peter's experience in Luke 5 is antecedent to that in Matthew 14, for it clearly shows that the man the Lord was dealing with in the latter instance had judged his sinful condition in His presence. "Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But Peter stayed where he was at the knees of Jesus until the words of peace had been spoken to his conscience. "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." He had made his confession to the only One Who had authority to set his conscience at rest. Peter was to prove the truth of these words on many occasions subsequently; this is one from Matthew 14. But Peter is only taken up representatively to show that the Lord's support can be enjoyed by all who have judged their sinful condition before Him and who have had the word of assurance spoken to the conscience.

The Lord goes up into a mountain to pray, indicating the place of exaltation which He occupies to-day (Heb. 9: 24) on behalf of His own who are left below where the rough seas are encountered. But it is blessed to notice that He is mindful of them in all their toil and comes to them in the fourth and last watch, which suggests that all during the night of His absence, the Lord's own people can count upon Himself. Surely it is a word of encouragement to them to-day for Scripture clearly represents this as having the character of night! (Rom. 13: 12; Rev. 22: 16). But there is One who is able both to succour and to sympathise in connection with all the weakness and infirmity which abound. In spite of all that is calculated to disturb, there is One who moves above these things for the sustenance of His people. Jesus comes to them walking on the sea!

May the Lord give you, dear reader, if you have not already done so, to judge your sinful condition before Him, that when the storms come you may know where to turn for the Pilot! J. Wilson.

The Wrong Uniform.

The wearing of the correct uniform is a matter of prime importance to-day if we would move through our country with impunity. The donning of an enemy uniform would probably lead to immediate enquiry, if not arrest and imprisonment. Care is, therefore, exercised that our clothing is so regulated as not to offend the eyes of men. But how careful we may be sometimes about suiting the eyes of men who, after all, can only touch the body, and forget to consider our suitability to the eyes of God who is concerned with the soul! A consideration of the parable spoken by Jesus in Matt. 22: 1-14, therefore, may help in the latter matter which is infinitely more important as it raises eternal issues.

In the parable we are told of a King who has designs of blessing for His Son and, with this in view, proposes a wedding. The necessary accompaniments which attend such a desire are then considered and the invitations are given verbally by the servants. The result, however, is startling! The would-be guests refuse to accept the King's invitation and are much more concerned with the mundane routine of earthly toil (one went to his farm and another to his merchandise). This is almost unbelievable until we remember that we are considering a parable which portrays the refusal, on the part of the Jews, of all God's overtures of grace. Man's history from the commencement shows that he has always been much more concerned about earthly things than heavenly things! But the King would not be thwarted and we are beautifully introduced into that which God is doing amongst men to-day, by the Gospel, that the wedding may be furnished with guests. God is inviting men and women to-day to the marriage of His Son, a marriage which, as yet, has not taken place (Rev. 19: 7), but the guests must be arrayed suitably. Moreover, they are held individually responsible for being so; the guest in the parable was speechless when questioned for he knew quite well what was required but he evidently thought that his own clothes would do. They may have been ever so nice and well-fitting but they did not meet with the approval of the King and this, after all, was the acid test.

Dear reader, do you think that any righteousness which you may suppose you possess will be suitable clothing for the marriage of His Son to which God now invites you? If so, be warned by what God has recorded here and elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures. "All our righteousness are as filthy rags" (Isa. 64: 6). "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3: 10). The guest who is taken as an example only made one mistake — he failed to avail himself of the wedding garment — but it resulted in "outer darkness." Dear friend, are you garbed in the righteousness of God for of such does the wedding garment speak? If not, turn to Romans 3: 21, 22 and learn that the righteousness of God which has been manifested . . . by faith of Jesus Christ is unto all so that it may be yours but it is only possessed by those who exercise faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is upon all who believe. It is here on earth that the question is settled for we are told in the parable that the servants gathered in both bad and good and there will be certainly no bad connected with heaven and its glory (Rev. 21: 27). J. Wilson.

Preach The Word Series

The Counsel of Peace.

The Cup of Salvation.

An Anchor of the Soul.

No More Conscience of Sins.

Be Reconciled to God.

The Counsel of Peace.

If there is one thing needful for the troubled nations of the world, or for the distressed individual, it is lasting peace. For the world there can be no abiding peace until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to put down all evil, and establish His kingdom in righteousness. Peace was offered to the world when God's Son came into it as the Babe of Bethlehem, even as recorded in the angelic praise, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace." This divine overture was rejected when the world put the Son of God upon the cross; and this shameful rejection is the cause of the world's incurable wounds of sorrow and distress. So far as the individual soul is concerned, peace of conscience and heart are unknown until Christ has His true place in the heart and life. Man is by nature a sinner, and at a distance from God, subject to divine judgment because of his sins, from which he cannot escape by his own efforts. Apart from God's intervention on his behalf, in sovereign mercy, man must perish for ever in his sins; and the thought of this troubles the conscience and distresses the mind of the awakened soul.

We may well thank God for the deep interest He has shown in His erring creature. "The counsel of peace" (Zechariah 6: 13) tells how God and His beloved Son have devised the means for securing the blessing of peace for the repentant sinner. This wonderful plan involved the coming down into this world of God's own Son, so that He might go to the cross to suffer for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3: 18). This great work was completed; peace was made by the blood of His cross; the efficacy of the work is infinite and eternal, and through it, whosoever will may come to God and receive the blessings of the counsel of peace.

So that men might partake of the fruits of the counsel of peace, God has sent forth His gospel. To the Jews, who crucified His Son, and said "His blood be on us and on our children," God offers peace in the gospel; and many of Jacob's troubled sons and daughters have found their rest in this deep peace. This blessed message of peace comes to you and me, poor sinners of the Gentiles, far from God by nature and by practice; a peace that dispels every bit of dread from the heart, and brings the tranquil soul to delight in the presence of God.

Have you peace with God? Do not say that this is impossible to have. We read in Romans 5: 1, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." There is no need for you to continue in doubts and fears if you desire the peace of God. But there is only one way of procuring this inestimable blessing. You must come to God, as a poor sinner, confessing your guilt, and bowing the knee in true repentance before the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him NOW; and hear Him say to you, as He once said to a poor repentant sinner, "Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace" (Luke 7: 50). (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

The Cup of Salvation.

God desires the salvation and blessing of his fallen creature, man; but, like the writer of Psalm 116, we have to be brought low in the presence of God before we are ready to accept the cup of salvation that He offers. Describing the experience through which he had passed, the Psalmist says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow." This was surely a dreadful plight; when in the extremity of human weakness, and beyond all creature aid, the gates of death and hell were open wide before him, ready to receive him. What could he do but throw himself upon the mercy of God? Therefore he says, "Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul."

Man's extremity is verily God's opportunity, as witnesses the Psalmist. After extolling the Lord for His grace, righteousness, and mercy, he can say, Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." And this is also the blessed experience of all who, on being brought low before God, cast themselves upon His mercy. God has no pleasure in the sorrows of men, but in His great mercy and wisdom He often brings them into ways of sorrow and distress, so that they might come to the end of themselves, and trust wholly in Him. We are poor guilty sinners, deserving only death and hell; but God has procured salvation for us through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; and this is the blessing He desires that we should drink from the cup of salvation that He offers.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that this is a "Great salvation," and that it began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him. Do you remember the tragic story of Lot's wife? Salvation was almost hers. She was actually out of the doomed city of Sodom, but on disobeying the divine command, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Salvation may be almost yours, and yet you may miss the blessing. It may be that you mean to be saved; yet you still neglect the great salvation preached to us in the Gospel. Listen to the solemn warning of Scripture, "If the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?"

Perhaps you would like to work for salvation? The word of God tells us, "For by grace are ye saved through faith . . . it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." This clearly shows that we cannot get salvation apart from receiving it as God's free gift. Our Psalmist asked "What shall I render unto the LORD for all His benefits towards me?" His own answer was, "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD." This is the simple way into the blessing. Take then that blessed cup now; for "Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

An Anchor of the Soul.

A wise man, in considering a new position or job, is concerned about its prospects, knowing that it will probably determine how he is to be occupied, and perhaps where he is to reside for the rest of his natural life; but how few give consideration to, or have concern for the prospect beyond the grave. And yet this is a matter of much greater import, involving the eternal destiny of the soul. Many refuse to face the eternal prospect, and if questioned about it, endeavour to evade it, clearly manifesting that they do not have the Christian's hope "As an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast" (Hebrews 6: 19).

God, in His word, has plainly spoken of the judgment awaiting those who have neglected the blessings of the Gospel, or who have refused His grace. This world is guilty of the death of God's Son; and all who form part of the world will share its judgment. When on the cross, the Lord Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do;" and because of this wonderful intercession, God is prepared to treat us as manslayers rather than as murderers. Those who refuse this offer of divine mercy will have to answer to God for the murder of His Son.

The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has "fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us," and this hope is the God-given anchor of the soul. Of old, the manslayer was sheltered in the city of refuge (Numbers 35); and the Christian is sheltered from judgment in Christ, even as we read in Romans 8: 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." God Himself provided the cities of refuge; He would not have the manslayer treated as a murderer; nor will He have you treated as guilty of the murder of His Son, if you flee to Christ, the refuge He has provided in the richness of His mercy. The hope of the manslayer was liberty through the death of the High Priest; those divinely sheltered now have the blessed hope of actually entering God's presence and glory at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alas! many do not realise their need of the refuge God has provided; nor have they the blessed hope that God has given to the believer in Jesus. They may be willing to admit that all are sinners, but say they hope to get to heaven at last because they are no worse than many. There is no place in all their thoughts for the refuge and the hope God has provided. A sure anchor is one properly formed and fashioned, one that can hold. Has your anchor been formed aright? Has it come from God, or is it the creature of your own thoughts and imagination? A stedfast anchor must be holding on proper ground. Is your anchor secure within the vail of heaven, or does it rest on the shifting ground of man's philosophy and false hopes? See to it that you get the anchor that God gives, a hope that will never fail: be sure that your hope for eternal blessing rests on Christ, Who is sitting at God's right hand in heaven. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

No More Conscience of Sins.

Why did Adam hide himself among the trees of the garden of Eden after his sin against God? Was it not because of the sense in his soul that he was guilty? The Scripture tells us that "All have sinned" (Romans 3: 23), and the guilt of our sins resting upon the conscience makes us dread the searching light of God's presence. The very best of men have confessed themselves altogether unfit for the presence of a holy God. At Sinai, Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake" (Hebrews 12: 21); Job, the best man of his day, said "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 1: 8; Job 42: 5-6). Isaiah, who had just been pronouncing woes on evildoers, on entering God's holy presence, said "Woe is me! for I am undone" (Isaiah 6: 5). Before God, Daniel, a truly lovely character, said of himself, "My comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength" (Daniel 10: 8). And how do we compare with these holy men? Are we better than they?

If God has brought our guilt before us, it is not to have us ever conscious of it; but rather that confessing it we might avail ourselves of the wonderful blessing of "No more conscience of sins" (Hebrews 10: 2). To bring this inestimable blessing to men, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's own dear Son, came down from heaven, and on the cross offered Himself a sacrifice for sins. That one offering has glorified God, completely satisfying the claims of His holy and righteous throne; enabling Him to clear the guilty from every charge of sin, if they will but confess their guilt and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So clear can we be, that not one stain remains on the conscience; and we can enter with holy boldness the very presence of the God against whom we had sinned.

In the sacrifices of the Jewish law, God had indicated His desire to take away sins; but such sacrifices could never take sins away; their blood had no intrinsic value, but they pointed forward to the spotless victim, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose precious blood can remove our sins. Let no one be deceived, there is no other way of having "no more conscience of sins," but by resting in that one sacrifice, the death of Jesus.

The time must surely come, when each one of us will leave this world, and appear before God. When your time comes, will you go with the guilt of your sins upon your conscience, or with "no more conscience of sins?" This is a most solemn question, which should be faced without delay. So many put the matter off until it is too late. You may never have warning that your end is near; even if you have, the poor body languishing in pain or sickness may leave you unable to consider this all-important matter. Be wise therefore, and have the question of your sins answered before God while still you have the opportunity, by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

Be Reconciled to God.

There are few who realise that by nature and practice man is far away from God, with very wrong thoughts and feelings of God. In His well-beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God has perfectly expressed His attitude towards poor sinful man, for "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. 5: 19). Alas! instead of receiving the Lord Jesus, men took Him, and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him. But man's crowning sin has not impeded the outflow of divine grace, for God is still sending forth His messengers with the Gospel, bidding men to get right with God. The day rapidly approaches when the glad news of the Gospel will cease, and God will require the blood of His Son at the hands of men and every one who has refused or neglected the message of grace must give account to Him.

When Adam sinned, he not only became guilty of disobedience, but the principle of sin entered into his nature, and he became estranged from God. Every child of Adam inherits his sinful nature with its enmity towards God, and is born in the distance from God. Coming down to Eden, after man's fall, God called to Adam, "Where art thou?" God had not only come to convict the sinner, and to pronounce His righteous judgment, but, in wondrous compassion, to seek the lost ones and rescue them from the consequences of their dreadful sin. Before men can be saved and brought near to God, they must first realise the enormity of sin, and be found in confession and repentance. A just and holy God cannot overlook sin; and the cross shows how God maintains His righteousness and holiness while pardoning the repentant sinner. There, the Lord Jesus Christ became the sin offering, and accomplished the redemption that enables God to offer pardon to every sinner.

Have you availed yourself of this offer of pardon? You will never be right with God unless you do so. You may try to overlook the consequences of your sins: God cannot. God could never fill heaven with unrepentant sinners! Do you remember what happened when King David brought back the unrepentant Absalom? He plotted against his Father, and sought to kill him. If Absalom had confessed his sin, and repented of it, there would not have been enmity in his heart towards David. How could God have sinful men in the heavenly courts of light and love with dark hatred and enmity filling their hearts?

In Luke 15 the Lord Jesus gave a lovely illustration of one truly reconciled. Having learned that the pleasures of sin are but for a season, the Prodigal remembered the goodness of his Father, and this brought him back to ask for a servant's place. Instead, the Father kissed the Prodigal, gave him the best robe, the ring, the shoes, and the fatted calf and rejoiced in receiving the lost one safely home. If you will come to God, like the Prodigal, in true repentance, confessing your sin, God will give you a wonderful reconciliation. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

A Grave Warning and Its Sequel.

1. The Warning.

Some years ago the writer was spending a holiday at one of our large East Coast resorts. There he made the acquaintance of a local resident who kindly offered to conduct him round the town and surrounding district, visiting specially the beauty spots. One place he considered to be particularly charming and a special day was arranged for our visit thereto. We were glad that the day, when it dawned, proved an ideal one as far as the weather was concerned. The sun shone in all its brilliance and on reaching the railway station we observed that others besides ourselves were

apparently bound for the same destination. When we left the train, we found ourselves after a short walk, in a lovely wood. The writer well remembers what a pleasing sight it was to look upon the blue expanse of the North Sea; the view being broken in places by the trunks of fine old trees, whose contrasting colour seemed to enhance the beauty of the sea beyond. But sore disappointment was in store for us. We had not been there long before the sky suddenly became overcast. Darker and darker grew the prospect, and the sea which just a few moments before had gladdened our vision, now reflected and emphasized the threatening aspect of the sky above it. We concluded that a severe storm was about to overtake us, and as neither of us had made any preparation for this unexpected change in weather conditions, we set off with all speed to reach a shelter of which the writer's friend was aware. We were just in time. Already a goodly company had gathered, but there was enough standing room for us to have the protection we so much needed. The rain descended in torrents, the frequent flashes of lightning almost blinding us, and the responding peals of thunder making us feel that the earth trembled beneath our feet. My friend and I were well placed to view the faces of those who had gathered, and we could see that many of them bore the signs of mingled fear and disappointment. A solemn silence prevailed, a silence intensified by the contrasting thunder and the falling rain outside, and one felt that God was speaking silently yet powerfully to the hearts and consciences of the people.

The writer himself was moved by the circumstances of the occasion, and he thought of another storm and another shelter, both of which he felt impelled to speak. Before so doing he prayed to God that a suitable message might be given him for the people, and also courage to proclaim it faithfully and fearlessly. Quicker even than the lightning flash the message came, but before delivering it, he sang the words of a well-known hymn, most suitable for the occasion: —

"The Lord's my Rock, in Him I hide,

A shelter in the time of storm,

Secure whatever ill betide,

A shelter in the time of storm,

Oh! Jesus is a Rock in a weary land

A shelter in the time of storm."

After singing the hymn the speaker was encouraged to find that every one seemed ready to listen to his God-given message. He reminded his audience that the storm which raged around them in all its fury, had overtaken them very suddenly and unexpectedly, and being without protection of any kind, they had all hastened to this welcome refuge. He also suggested that every one present, including himself, must feel in their hearts that they owed a debt of gratitude to those whose kindness had prompted its erection.

These introductory remarks led him to the theme that burdened his heart. This was none other than the solemn fact of the coming storm of God's judgment, and His wonderful and gracious provision for all who desired a shelter from it. It is an appalling fact that there are multitudes to-day who never think of eternity, and consequently have no regard for the welfare of their precious souls, nor of the precious salvation God is offering them through the death of His own beloved Son. Their brief span of life which God's word declares to be "even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4: 14) is so engrossed with the pursuit of pleasure, or wealth, or fashion or one of the many other things wherewith Satan lures his victims to destruction, that all thought of eternity and the all-important matters relating thereto, are quite excluded. The same gross folly was seen in the days of Noah, as Matthew 24: 38-39, states: — "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage . . . and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

How solemn are these words of the Son of God! How strongly they refute the claims of those who maintain that the world is getting better, and that we are on the threshold of a glorious age! Let there be no mistake, this world, far from showing any repentance towards God, is ripening fast for judgment.

Towards the close of his remarks, it was the speaker's joy to turn from the note of warning (necessary though it was to arouse his hearers to a sense of their danger) to the sweet notes of the Gospel. God is holy, He is righteous, He cannot look upon sin, yet He is a God of wondrous love with infinite compassion for His creatures. It is not His will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He provided a shelter for the people in the days of Noah, and such was His long-suffering that He pleaded with that wicked generation for one hundred and twenty years. But all His pleadings were in vain, and His plan for their salvation was rejected. Only Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were saved. Man's only hope of salvation from the flood of judgment was the ark. Man's only hope of Salvation from the future judgment is Christ. Those outside the ark perished when judgment fell, and, just as surely, those outside of Christ, will have no shelter, to which they can flee from the coming storm. Blessed are those who can sing: —

"Death and judgment are behind us,

Grace and glory on before,

All the billows rolled o'er Jesus,

There they spent their utmost power."

Urging his hearers to flee to Christ and to put their trust in Him, and His atoning death, the speaker concluded.

The storm now began to abate and while the clouds were lifting he had much pleasure in speaking to individuals and giving gospel booklets to all before they left. Time and space forbid him to recount all that was said, but it was evident that the message had been appreciated. One dear woman whose heart was filled to overflowing with the love of Christ, and a love for perishing sinners, could not refrain from giving utterance to a song of praise. Sweetly she sang: —

"Jesus, the very thought of Thee,

With sweetness fills the breast,

But sweeter far Thy face to see,

And in Thy presence rest."

On reaching the place where she stood, the writer was privileged to engage in conversation with one of the most devoted Christians he had ever met. She told him that when she arrived at the shelter and observed the disappointed and sad looks on many faces, she prayed silently to God asking Him to send a message of love and warning through the lips of one of His servants, should such be present. At once, she said, I saw you remove your hat and I thanked God, for I knew my prayer was answered. Her parting words were that she would pray for God's blessing on the solemn message, and doubtless the interesting sequel about to be given, is one result of the prayers of this devoted woman.

2. The Sequel.

Holidays were over. The writer returned to home and friends in the North, to whom he related his holiday experiences, including the thunderstorm incident. Some years afterwards, one of these friends was on a train journey to a town in Lancashire. Evening was approaching and he became anxious about reaching his destination before darkness closed in. Two young ladies sat opposite to him in the compartment, and he gathered from their conversation that they were travelling to the same town to which he was going. He ventured to explain to them that he was a stranger to the district and would be glad if they could direct him to a certain street. In reply they informed him that they knew where it was, and they would be pleased to show him the way to it. A most interesting conversation followed.

After warmly thanking them for their kindness, he asked if he could be of any service to them by showing them the way to Heaven. To his great surprise and joy they told him they knew the way. Struck with their ready and happy response, he expressed the desire to know how and when they found the way thither. With keen attention he listened to their story. One of them said that three years before she had gone to S— for a holiday. While visiting a pleasant spot in the district she was overtaken by a severe thunderstorm. She hurried to a place of shelter and while there heard some one singing "The Lord's my Rock in Him I hide, a shelter in the time of storm." (Needless to say, my friend was now most interested, but did not interrupt as she continued her story). After singing the hymn he warned the people of another storm and of the good news that God had provided a shelter which was available, for all. On the Cross Jesus had borne the judgment our sins deserved, and the speaker urged every one to flee to Christ, God's only refuge. She felt that the message was meant for her, and though up to that moment she had trusted in her own good works she found that these were hopeless to afford her soul any protection from the coming judgment. At once she took the advice given, she fled to God's shelter and trusted Jesus as her own personal and precious Saviour. Having finished her story, great was her joy to learn that the man to whom she had been relating the glad news of her Conversion was a personal friend of him who had spoken during the thunderstorm three years previously. As to her companion, it appears that when her friend returned from her holiday looking so bright and happy and testifying to her "Conversion" she was astonished. She could not comprehend why one who was the most zealous of church workers and the most devoted of Sunday School teachers should need to be "Converted." But after a time of misery and doubt, she also confessed her need of a Saviour, and put her whole trust in Jesus and His Salvation.

To the Reader.

Dear Friend! I know not what your opinion is after reading this booklet. Some people, no doubt, will consider the storm, the provided shelter, the company, the speaker, his remarks, the remarkable meeting in the railway train, to be all due to mere chance and unworthy of further consideration. Certainly the happy women my friend met three years afterwards, would entirely disagree, for evidently God ordained everything for their salvation. And, by whatever means this booklet has reached you, please do not attribute your possession of it to mere "chance," for a God of love is seeking your welfare and waiting to bestow on you His richest blessing for time and eternity.

There is a tendency among men to leave everything to chance — even their future destiny. A short time ago five words on a wayside pulpit riveted my attention. They were

"Choice, Not Chance, Determines Destiny."

How solemn! how true their message! They mean nothing less than the fact that it is left to every man, and woman, to fix their own eternal destiny and their decision is final. Christ said to the people

"Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life" (John 5: 40).

In closing, I would urge you to choose your destiny and to do it now. Is it to be with Christ and the myriads of redeemed in Heaven — or in that place of endless remorse where hope and mercy are unknown? Oh! flee to the Saviour, and if words fail you in His holy presence, just repeat the well-known words of Charlotte Elliott —

"Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God! I come."

Robt. B. Wilson.

A Message from the Sea.

As a boy the writer well remembers an incident, recorded in one of his school books, which made such a deep impression on his youthful mind, that the ups and downs of a busy life of over seventy years have not effaced it. The story narrated the loss by fire of a large vessel outward bound from this country to some Eastern port. It had been long overdue, and no one knew what calamity had befallen the gallant ship and her crew and passengers, among whom were several notable people. A bottle, washed up by the waves some time afterwards, revealed the terrible secret. Inside was a piece of paper bearing this brief message: —

"THE SHIP 'EAST INDIAMAN' IS ON FIRE. ELIZABETH, JOANNA AND MYSELF COMMIT OUR SOULS INTO THE HANDS OF OUR BLESSED REDEEMER. HIS GRACE ENABLES US TO BE QUITE COMPOSED IN THE AWFUL PROSPECT OF ENTERING ETERNITY."

This was the only news received from the doomed ship. Many years must have elapsed since this note was penned, and many hearts must have been touched when its pathetic message was read. God grant, that, at this far distant date, many more hearts may be constrained to follow the example set by the writer of the message and his two companions, as they committed their souls into the hands of their blessed Redeemer.

The message is a very brief one, yet surely it merits the most earnest consideration on the part of all who are privileged to read it. Note: —

Firstly. — In the presence of death, their only concern was

Their Souls' Eternal Welfare.

Everything else was apparently forgotten. All their ties with this world were severed. Their friends, their wealth, their pleasures, their ambitions, were no longer of any avail to afford satisfaction to their hearts or occupation for their thoughts in that dread hour.

Reader! In view of the uncertainty of life, a fact which must have been impressed on every one during the late terrible war; when many thousands of people — soldiers and civilians — were launched into eternity without any warning, would you not be well advised to consider your own soul's eternal welfare? King Solomon spoke wisely and solemnly when he said "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth" (Prov. 27: 1).

Do not follow the example of the young man who asked a divinity professor how long before death ought a man to prepare himself for it. "About five minutes," said the professor. The young man turned away with relief, making up his mind to see life, to sow his wild oats, to enjoy the pleasures of the world and then turn to God at the end of his days. "Stop," said the professor, "when are you going to die?" "That I cannot tell," said the young man. "Then you had better prepare for death now, for you may not have five minutes to live."

One can only hope that the young man took to heart the sound advice given to him.

Secondly. — They speak of One whom they knew as

Their Blessed Redeemer.

With no earthly voice to cheer them, no out-stretched arm to save them, and the pitiless waves waiting to engulf them, yet in the company of their Redeemer they awaited their end in perfect calmness of mind and spirit. In the message they cast on the waves, no sign or expression of fear is traceable. The Christian's confidence as expressed in the lines: —

"Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours,

Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers,"

seems to have been theirs in full measure.

How wonderful is the peace which God imparts to His people! The world with all its allurements and attractions knows nothing of it, nor has it anything to compare with it. Not only do they enjoy the companionship of their Saviour throughout life's journey, with its many trials and temptations, but as the end of that journey approaches, the comfort and presence of their Lord, become sweeter and stronger than ever before. Death, that dread monster, whose approach strikes terror into the stoutest heart, has no terror for the believer. To him, death is only his servant, come to usher him into the presence of his Lord.

Now, it is most important to note that the little company on the doomed vessel speak of Christ as their "Redeemer" and not as their "Exemplar." In many religious circles there is the belief that Christ came into the world merely to be our example, and that, if we seek to live as He lived, God will pardon our little short-comings and failures, and that all will be well with our souls for eternity. However pleasing such a doctrine may be in the estimation of men, there is not a verse of Holy Scripture to support it. No man, either of the present day, or of the past, has possessed the power to live as Christ lived, unless indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God only dwells in those, who, like the Apostle Paul freely admit that "in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (Romans 7: 18). Further, they endorse with all their heart the fact, that "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5: 6).

How can any accomplish their own salvation when Scripture declares definitely that they have not the strength to do so? It is utterly impossible. Hence our dire need of a "Redeemer" not an "Exemplar." How true and precious the words: —

"I would not work my soul to save,

That work my Lord has done,

But I would work like any slave,

From love to God's dear Son."

Thirdly. — On the burning ship the little company were sustained by the

Grace of their Redeemer.

Grace is surely one of the sweetest themes that fill with joy the hearts of the redeemed. How they delight to sing: —

"Grace is the sweetest sound,

That ever reached our ears,

When conscience charged and justice frowned,

'Twas grace removed our fears."

"Grace taught our wandering feet,

To tread the heavenly road,

And new supplies each hour we meet,

While travelling home to God."

Grace is heavenly in its origin, it is like a mighty river whose source is the very heart of God. It speaks of God's boundless liberality in contrast to man's utter unworthiness. It was the grace of God that sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world, not because we merited such a glorious visitation, but as another has said "Man's misery, not his merit, was the magnet that drew the Saviour from the skies."

Only those whose hearts have been touched by the love of Christ, and whose knees have been bowed in true repentance at His feet, know anything at all of the beauty and perfection of grace, and of the wondrous gifts it bestows on its humble recipients. One of the greatest of these is the knowledge of salvation, for we read "By grace are ye saved" (Eph. 2: 8), and it is through Christ that grace reaches us for in the Gospel of John 1: 17 we read "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

How beautifully does grace shine forth in all the words and works of the Lord Jesus as recorded for us in the Gospels. Anyone who can read that wonderful story and yet remain unmoved by it must possess a heart of stone. Those who heard Him "wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4: 22). As to His works they had to admit "He hath done all things well" (Mark 7: 37).

But the grace that was manifested so wonderfully during His life could not avail to save us from our sins, nor open wide the gates of Heaven for our admission there. Only His death on the Cross could accomplish that. The tide of grace that flowed so gently, yet so deeply, during His life, was destined to burst forth in a mighty cleansing flood at His death. Yes! for the salvation of mankind, the mighty, the glorious Son of God submitted to an ignominious death upon a cross. Blind unbelief would aver that this is the end of the story. But what meaneth that triumphant cry "It is finished," uttered by Him in the moment of His death, a cry that has brought eternal peace to millions of sin-sick hearts? What means that earthquake, and the rending of the rocks? What means the opening of the tombs, and the appearance of their former occupants in the holy city? What means the rending of the temple veil?

They are all the tokens of a mighty victory over sin, death and the grave; a victory unequalled in its results, in the records of Heaven, earth and hell.

And to think that the first trophy of His victory, — the first of the mighty host of redeemed sinners — was a poor repentant malefactor on a nearby cross. What wonderful grace! Unsearchable in its heights! unfathomable in its depths! Many there are who would reckon such an outcast as the dying thief to be utterly unworthy of the Saviour's saving grace. Suffice it to say in reply "This is the Lord's doing it is marvellous in our eyes."

Fourthly. — It was the knowledge of the Redeemer's grace that enabled them to be

Quite composed in the awful prospect of entering Eternity.

This prospect lies before every member of the human family. The writer, and every reader of this narrative, whoever he or she may be, must enter eternity. There is even the possibility that we may be like the subjects of our story, on the very threshold. The old hymn-writer says: —

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

Bears all its sons away."

Away! Yes! But whither? Is it not a lamentable fact that many of the sons of time are living in ignorance of the awful truth that their heritage is not one of Time only, but also that of Eternity?

What are the fleeting years of time compared to the long ages of eternity? One may well repeat the lament of God's servant in a past day: —

"O that men were wise. . . . that they would consider their latter end."

"I have no time," said the railway guard, as he rudely pushed aside the loving hand that offered him a little gospel tract just as he stepped on to his train. But his foothold was insecure, and in a few moments his mangled and lifeless body lay across the rails. No time for God, no time for Christ, no time, no care for his soul. How terrible his remorse, if he has now a long eternity to mourn his own neglect! Remember the solemn question in Hebrews 2: 3,

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"

In closing, dear Reader, allow me as one who has a care for your soul, to counsel you to get alone into the presence of God, and face the fact of eternity. If you are yet without the knowledge of the Redeemer's grace, the prospect may well make you tremble, yea, it may even produce a state of soul agony. But, thank God, this is often the first step on the way to Heaven, leading you to repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross.

May the calm unruffled peace that filled the hearts of the little company on the "East Indiaman" be yours in the prospect (be it near or distant) of entering eternity. This is the heartfelt wish of the writer for every reader of this true story. Robt. B. Wilson.

STEM Publishing: William Kelly: Gospel Words

Gospel Words.

A Series of 4pp. Gospel Tracts by W.K. for distribution after preaching.

First Series.

1 The gift of God

2 Who it is that saith to thee

3 Living water

4 A Well of water

5 Go call thy husband

6 Worship of the Father

7 The Father seeking

8 Worship in spirit and truth

9 I that speak unto thee am He

10 The Woman then left her waterpot

11 We have heard Him ourselves.

12 The Saviour of the world

Second Series.

1 Justified by faith

2 Peace with God

3 This grace wherein we stand

4 Hope of the glory of God

5 We glory in tribulations also

6 The love of God

7 Christ died for the ungodly

8 God's own love

9 Justified by His blood

10 Reconciled to God

11 We shall be saved

12 We also joy in God

Third Series.

1 God created

2 God said

3 Adam

4 The two Trees

5 Woman

6 The Tempter

7 Eve Tempted

8 The Fall of Man

9 Naked

10 Where art thou?

11 Convicted

12 The woman's Seed

Fourth Series.

1 The Jewish leper

2 The Gentile centurion and his servant

3 Peter's mother-in-law

4 The Paralytic healed

5 The Tempest, and unbelief rebuked

6 The Demoniac delivered

7 The Woman healed and sent away in peace

8 The Daughter of Jairus raised

9 The Healing of the blind in the house

10 The early Haul of fishes

11 The Water made wine

12 . Nobleman's son healed

Fifth Series.

1 The Sower

2 The Darnel of the field

3 The Mustard seed.

4 The Leaven

5 The Treasure hidden in the field

6 One Pearl of great price

7 The Dragnet

8 The merciless Bondman

9 The Labourers hired

10 The two Children

11 The guilty Husbandmen

12 The Marriage feast

Sixth Series.

1 The Fig-tree

2 The Household Servant

3 The Ten Virgins

4 The Talents

5 The Seed left to grow

6 The two Debtors

7 The Samaritan

8 The importunate Appeal

9 The Blasphemy of God's Power in Christ

10 The rich Fool

11 Waiting for the Lord

12 Working for the Lord

Seventh Series.

1 The Wicked Servant

2 . The Fruitless Fig-tree

3 What is God's kingdom like

4 The Uprising of the Housemaster

5 The Guests

6 The Host

7 The Great supper

8 The Lost Sheep

9 The Lost Drachma

10 The Lost son

11 The Prudent Steward

12 The Rich man and Lazarus

Eighth Series

1 Unprofitable Bondmen

2 The Persistent Widow

3 The Pharisee and the Tax-Gatherer

4 Christ returning to Reign

5 The Shepherd of the sheep

6 The Door

7 The Good Shepherd

8 Feet-washing

9 The vine

10 Christ the Bread of Life

11 Eating Christ's flesh, and drinking His blood

12 Christ the corn of Wheat

Ninth Series.

1 The Demoniac Mute

2 The Withered Hand healed

3 The Blind and Dumb

4 The Five Thousand fed

5 Jesus walking on the sea

6 The Canaanite woman

7 The Four Thousand Fed

8 The Transfiguration

9 The Lunatic Son

10 The Fish, and the Temple-tax

11 The Deaf and stammering man

12 The Blind Man of Bethsaida

Tenth Series.

1 The Widow's Son raised

2 The Unclean Demon cast out

3 The woman with a spirit of Infirmity

4 The Dropsical Man Cured

5 The Ten Lepers

6 The Lord at Bethesda

7 The Blind at Siloam

8 Lazarus Raised

9 Blind Bartimaeus

10 The Power and the Grace of  the Name

11 Malchus healed

12 The Unbroken Net

Eleventh Series.

1 Two Masters

2 The Prudent builder

3 The ways, N. and W.

4 The Salt and the Light

5 The Beatitudes

6 Prayer for Disciples

7 Grace in Practice

8 Treasures?

9 Christ come to fulfil

10 The Father in secret

11 The Lamp of the Body

12 Be not anxious.

Twelfth Series.

1 The Kingdom of God

2 Judge not

3 Confidence

4 The Narrow Gate

5 Fruits

6 Bare Profession

7 Christ and the Law

8 Anger

9 Reconciliation

10 Impurity

11 Purity in Divorce

12 Swear not at all

STEM Publishing: C. H. Mackintosh: Glad Tidings

Glad Tidings

C. H. Mackintosh.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3: 16.

There are some passages in Holy Scripture which seem to contain in a line or two, an entire volume of most precious truth. The verse which we have just penned is one of such. It is part of our Lords memorable discourse with Nicodemus, and it embodies, in a condensed form, a very full statement of Gospel truth — a statement which may well be termed "Glad Tidings"

It should ever be born in mind, both by preachers, and those to whom they preach, that one grand object of the gospel is to bring God and the sinner together in such a way as to secure the sinners eternal salvation. It reveals a Saviour God to a lost man. In other words it presents God to the sinner in the very character that the sinner needs. A Saviour is precisely what suits the lost, just as a lifeboat suits a drowning man, or a physician a sick man, or bread a hungry man. They are fitted the one for the other, and when God as a Saviour, and man as a lost sinner, meet together, the whole question is settled for ever. The sinner is saved, because God is a Saviour. He is saved according to the perfection which belongs to God, in every character He wears, in every office He fills, in every relationship He sustains. To raise a question as to the full and everlasting salvation of a believing soul, is to deny that God is a Saviour. So it is in reference to justification. God has revealed Himself as a Justifier, and hence the believer is justified according to the perfection which attaches to God in that character. If a single flaw could be detected in the title of the very weakest believer, it would be a dishonour to God as a Justifier. Grant me but this, that God is my Justifier, and I argue, in the face of every opposer and every accuser, that I am, and must be, perfectly justified.

And, on the same principle, grant me but this, that God has revealed Himself as a Saviour, and I argue, with unclouded confidence and holy boldness, that I am, and must be, perfectly saved. It does not rest upon aught in me, but simply and entirely upon God's revelation of Himself. I know He is perfect in everything; and, therefore, perfect as my Saviour. Hence, I am perfectly saved, inasmuch as the glory of God is involved in my salvation. "There is no God else beside Me: a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside Me." What then? "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." (Isa. 45: 21-22) One believing look from a lost sinner to a just God and a Saviour, secures eternal salvation. "Look!" How simple! It is not "Work” — "Do" — "Pray" — "Feel" — no; it is simply "Look." And what then? Salvation — everlasting life. It must be so, because God is a Saviour; and the precious little word "look" fully implies all this, inasmuch as it expresses the fact that the salvation which I want is found in the One to whom I look. It is all there, ready for me, and one look secures it — secures it forever — secures it for me. It is not a thing of to-day or to-morrow; it is an eternal reality. The bulwarks of salvation behind which the believer retreats have been erected by God Himself — the Saviour-God, on the sure foundation of Christ's atoning work; and no power of earth or hell can ever shake them. "Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief Corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded." (Isa. 28: 16; 1 Peter 2: 6)

But let us now turn directly to the profound and comprehensive passage which forms the special subject of this paper. In it, most assuredly, we listen to the voice of a Saviour-God — the voice of Him who came down from Heaven to reveal God in such a way as He had never been revealed before. It is a marvellously blessed fact that God has been fully revealed in this world — revealed, so that we — the writer and the reader of these lines — may know Him, in all the reality of what He is — know Him, each for himself, with the utmost possible certainty, and have to do with Him, in all the blessed intimacy of personal communion.

Think of this! Think, we beseech you, of this amazing privilege. You may know God for yourself, as your Saviour, your Father, your own very God. You may have to do with Him; you may lean upon Him, cling to Him, walk with Him, live and move and have your being in His own most blessed presence, in the bright sunshine of His loving countenance, under His own immediate eye.

This is life and peace. It is far more than mere theology or systematic divinity. These things have their value, but, be it remembered, a man may be a profound theologian, an able divine, and yet live and die without God and perish eternally. Solemn, awful, overwhelming thought! A man may go down to hell, into the blackness and darkness of an eternal night, with all the dogmas of theology at his fingers' ends. A man may sit in the professor's chair, stand in the pulpit and at the desk; he may be looked up to as a great teacher and an eloquent preacher: hundreds may sit at his feet and learn, thousands may hang on his lips and be enraptured, and, after all, he himself may descend into the pit, and spend a dismal, miserable eternity in company with the most profane and immoral.

Not so, however, with one who knows God as He is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Such a one has gotten life eternal. "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (John 17: 3) It is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.

So also as to mere religiousness. A man may be the greatest devotee in the world. He may most diligently discharge all the offices, and sedulously attend upon all the ordinances of systematic religion; he may fast and pray; hear sermons and say prayers; be most devout and exemplary; and all the while know nothing of God in Christ; yea, he may live and die without God, and sink into hell forever. Look at Nicodemus. Where could you find a better sample of religious human nature than in him? A man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, a master in Israel; one, moreover, who seemed to discern in the miracles of our Lord the clear proofs of His divine mission; and yet the word to him was, "Ye must be born again." We have no need, surely, to go farther than this to prove that a man may be not only religious, but actually a guide and a teacher of others, and yet not have divine life in his soul.

But it is not so with one who knows God in Christ. Such a one has life and an object. He has God Himself for his priceless portion. This is divine. It lies at the very foundation of personal Christianity and true religion. It is above and beyond everything. It is not, we repeat, mere theology, divinity, or religiousness; it is God Himself, known, trusted, and enjoyed. It is a grand, unmistakable reality. It is the soul of theology, the groundwork of divinity, the life of true religion. There is nothing in all this world like it. It is something which must be felt in order to be known. It is acquaintance with God, confidence in Him, and enjoyment of Him.

Now, it may be that the reader is disposed to ask, "How can I possess this priceless treasure? How can I know God for myself, in this living, saving, powerful manner? If it be true that without this personal knowledge of God I must perish eternally, then how am I to obtain it? What am I to do, what am I to be, in order to know God?" The answer is, God has revealed Himself. If He had not, we may say with decision that nothing that we could do, nothing that we could be, nothing in us or of us, could possibly make us acquainted with God. If God had not manifested Himself, we should have remained forever in ignorance of Him and perished in our ignorance. But, seeing that He has come forth from the thick darkness and showed Himself, we may know Him according to the truth of His own revelation, and find, in that knowledge, everlasting life, and a spring of blessedness at which our ransomed souls shall drink throughout the golden ages of eternity.

We know of nothing which so clearly and forcibly proves man's utter incompetency to do aught towards procuring life, as the fact that the possession of that life is based upon the knowledge of God: and this knowledge of God must rest upon the revelation of God. In a word, to know God is life, to be ignorant of Him is death.

But where is He to be known? This is, in very deed, a grave question. Many a one has had to cry out, with Job, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him." Where is God to be found? Am I to look for Him in creation? Doubtless, His hand is visible there; but ah! that will not do for me. A Creator-God will not suit a lost sinner. The hand of power will not avail for a poor, guilty wretch like me. I want a heart of Love. Yes, I want a heart that can love me in all my guilt and misery. Where can I find this? Shall I look into the wide domain of providence — the widely extended sphere of God's government? Has God revealed Himself there in such a way as to meet me, a poor lost one? Will providence and government avail for one who knows himself to be a hell-deserving sinner? Clearly not. If I look at these things, I may see what will perplex and confound me. I am short-sighted and ignorant, and wholly unable to explain the ins and outs, the bearings and issues, the why and the wherefore, of a single event in my own life, or in the history of this world. Am I able to explain all about the loss of The London? Can I account for the fact that a most valuable life is suddenly cut short, and an apparently useless one prolonged? There is a husband and the father of a large family; he seems perfectly indispensable to his domestic circle and yet, all in a moment, he is cut down, and they are left in sorrow and destitution; while, on the other hand, yonder lies a poor bed-ridden creature, who has outlived all her relations, and is dependent on the parish, or on individual benevolence. She has lain there for years, a burden to some, no use to any. Can I account for this? Am I competent to interpret the voice of Providence in this deeply mysterious dispensation? Certainly not. I have nothing in or of myself wherewith to thread my way through the mazes of the labyrinth of what is called providence. I cannot find a Saviour-God there.

Well, then, shall I turn to the law — to the Mosaic economy — the Levitical ceremonial? Shall I find what I want there? Will a Lawgiver, on the top of a fiery mount, wrapped in clouds and thick darkness, sending forth thunders and lightnings, or hidden behind a veil — will such a One avail for me? Alas! I cannot meet Him — I cannot answer His demands nor fulfil the conditions. I am told to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength; but I do not know Him. I am blind and cannot see. I am alienated from the life of God, an enemy by wicked works. Sin has blinded my mind, blunted my conscience, and hardened my heart. The devil has completely perverted my moral being, and led me into a state of positive rebellion against God. I want to be renewed in the very source of my being ere I can do what the law demands. How can I be thus renewed? Only by the knowledge of God. But God is not revealed in the law. Nay, He is hidden — hidden behind an impenetrable cloud, an unrent veil. Hence I cannot know Him there. I am compelled to retire from that fiery mount, and from that unrent veil, and from the whole economy of which these were the characteristic features, the prominent objects, still crying out, "Oh! that I knew where I might find Him." In a word, then, neither in creation, nor in providence, nor in the law, is God revealed as "a just God and a Saviour." I see a God of power in creation: a God of wisdom in providence; a God of justice in the law; a God of love only in the face of Jesus Christ. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." (2 Cor. 5: 19)

To this stupendous fact we call the reader's earnest attention; that is, if he be one who does not yet know the Lord. It is of the very last possible importance that he be clear as to this. Without it there can be nothing right. To know God is the first step. It is not merely knowing some things about God. It is not unrenewed nature turning religious, trying to do better, endeavouring to keep the law. No; it is none of these things. It is God, known in the face of Jesus Christ. "For 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." This is the deep and blessed secret of the whole matter. The reader, so far as his natural condition is concerned, is in a state of darkness. There is not so much as a single ray of spiritual light. He is, spiritually and morally, just what creation was physically before that sublime and commanding utterance fell from the lips of the Almighty Creator, "Let there be light." All is dark and chaotic, for the "god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Cor. 4: 4-6)

Here are two things; namely, the god of this world blinding the mind, and seeking to hinder the inshining of the precious, life-giving beams of the light of God's glory; and, on the other hand, God, in His marvellous grace, shining in the heart, to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Thus all hinges upon the grand reality of the knowledge of God. Is there light? It is because God is known. Is there darkness? It is because God is not known. No doubt there are various measures in the experience and exhibition of this light: but there is light, because there is the knowledge of God. So also there may be various forms of darkness; some more hideous than others; but there is darkness because God is not known. The knowledge of God is light and life. Ignorance of God is darkness and death. A man may enrich himself with all the treasures of science and literature; but if he does not know God, he is in the darkness of primeval night. But, on the other hand, a man may be profoundly ignorant of all human learning; but if he knows God, he walks in broad day-light.

In the passage of Scripture which is engaging our attention, namely, John 3: 16, we have a very remarkable illustration of the character of the entire Gospel of John, and especially the opening chapters. It is impossible to meditate upon it without seizing this interesting fact. In it we are introduced to God Himself, in that wondrous aspect of His character and nature, as loving the world and giving His Son. In it, too, we find, not only the "world" as a whole, but the individual sinner, under that most satisfactory title of "whosoever." Thus God and the sinner are together — God, loving and giving; and the sinner, believing and having. It is not God judging and exacting; but God loving and giving. The former was law; the latter, grace; that was Judaism; this, Christianity. In the one, we see God demanding obedience in order to have life; in the other, we see God giving life as the only basis of obedience. In the one, we see man struggling for life, but never obtaining it; in the other, we see man receiving life as a free gift, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the contrast between the two systems — a contrast which cannot be too deeply pondered. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17)

But let us mark the way in which this is unfolded in our text. "God so loved the world." Here we have the wide aspect of the love of God. It is not confined to any particular nation, tribe, caste, or family. It embraces the whole world. God is love; and, being so, it is not a question of the fitness or worthiness of the object of His love. It is what He is. He is love, and He cannot deny Himself. It is the very energy and activity of His nature. The heart may have many a question, many an exercise as to its state and condition before God, and very right it should have them. The Spirit Himself may produce such exercises and raise such questions; but, after all, the grand truth shines forth in all its lustre, "God is love." Whatever we are, whatever the world is, that is what God is; and we know that the truth as to God forms the deep and rich substratum which underlies the whole system of Christianity. The soul may pass through deep and sore conflict, under the sense of its own wretchedness; there may be many doubts say, and fears; many dark and heavy clouds; weeks, months, or years may be spent under the law, in one's inward self-consciousness, and that, moreover, long after the mere intellect has yielded its assent to the principles and doctrines of evangelical truth. But, after all, we must be brought into direct personal contact with God Himself — with what He is — with His nature and character, as He has revealed Himself in the gospel. We have to acquaint ourselves with Him, and He is love.

Observe, it does not say merely that God is loving, but that He is love. It is not only that love is an attribute of His character, but it is the very activity of His nature. We do not read that God is justice, or holiness; He is just and He is holy; but it would not express the full and blessed truth to say that God is loving; He is much more, He is love itself. Hence, when the sinner — "whosoever" he be, it matters not — is brought to see his own total and absolute ruin, his hopeless wretchedness, his guilt and misery, the utter vanity and worthlessness of all within and around him, (and there is nothing in the whole world that can satisfy his heart, and nothing in his heart that can satisfy God, or satisfy even his own conscience) when these things are opened in any measure to his view, then is he met by this grand substantial truth that "God is love," and that He so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son.

Here is life and rest for the soul. Here is salvation, full, free, and everlasting, for the poor, needy, guilty, lost one; — salvation resting not upon anything in man or of man, upon aught that he is or can be, aught that he has done or can do, but simply upon what God is and has done. God loves and gives, and the sinner believes and has. This is far beyond creation, government, or law. In creation, God spake and it was done. He called worlds into existence by the word of His mouth. But we hear nothing, throughout the entire record of creation, of God loving and giving.

So as to government, we see God ruling in unsearchable wisdom, amid the armies of Heaven, and among the children of men: but we cannot comprehend Him. We can only say as to this subject, that:

God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will.

Finally, as to the law, it is, from beginning to end, a perfect system of command and prohibition — a system perfect in its action as testing man, and making manifest his entire alienation from God. "The law worketh wrath." And again, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." But what could such a system do in a world of sinners? Could it give life? Impossible. Why? Because man could not fulfil its holy requirements. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, then verily, righteousness should have been by the law." But no; the law was a ministration of death and condemnation. (See 2 Cor. 3) The only effect of the law, to anyone who is under it, is the pressure of death upon the soul, and of guilt and condemnation upon the conscience. It cannot possibly be otherwise with an honest soul under the law.

What, then, is needed? Simply this, the knowledge of the love of God, and of the precious gift which that love has bestowed. This is the eternal groundwork of all. Love, and the gift of love. For, be it observed and ever remembered, that God's love could never have reached us save through the medium of that gift. God is holy, and we are sinful. How could we come near Him? How could we dwell in His holy presence? How could sin and holiness ever abide in company? Impossible. Justice demands the condemnation of sin; and if love will save the sinner, it must do so at no less a cost than the gift of the only-begotten Son. Darius loved Daniel, and laboured hard to save him from the lions' den; but his love was powerless because of the unbending law of the Medes and Persians. He spent the night in sorrow and fasting. He could weep at the mouth of the den; but he could not save his friend. His love was not mighty to save. If he had offered himself to the lions instead of his friend, it would have been morally glorious; but he did not. His love told itself forth in unavailing tears and lamentations. The law of the Persian kingdom was more powerful than the love of the Persian king. The law, in its stern majesty, triumphed over an impotent love which had nothing but fruitless tears to bestow upon its object.

But the love of God is not like this — eternal and universal praise to His name! His love is mighty to save. It reigns through righteousness. How is this? Because "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." The law had declared in words of awful solemnity. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Was this law less stern, less majestic, less stringent, than the law of the Medes and Persians? Surely not. How then, was it to be disposed of? It was to be magnified and made honourable, vindicated and established. Not one jot or tittle of the law could ever be set aside. How, then, was the difficulty to be solved? Three things had to be done: the law had to be magnified; sin condemned; the sinner saved. How could these grand results be reached? We have the answer in two bold and vivid lines from one of our own poets:

"On Jesus' cross this record's graved,

Let sin be damned, and sinners saved.

Precious record! May many an anxious sinner read and believe it! Such was the amazing love of God, that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. His love cost Him nothing less than the Son of His bosom. When it was a question of creating worlds, it cost Him but the word of His mouth: but when it was a question of loving a world of sinners, it cost His only-begotten Son. The love of God is a holy love, a righteous love, a love acting in harmony with all the attributes of His nature, and the claims of His throne. "Grace reigns, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Christ Jesus our Lord." The soul can never be set at liberty till this truth be fully laid hold of. There may be certain vague hopes in the mercy of God, and a measure of confidence in the atoning work of Jesus, all true and real so far as it goes; but true liberty of heart cannot possibly be enjoyed until it is seen and understood that God has glorified Himself in the manner of His love toward us. Conscience could never be tranquillised, nor Satan silenced, if sin had not been perfectly judged and put away. But "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." What depth and power in the little word "so"!

It may here be needful to meet a difficulty which often occurs to anxious souls, in reference to the question of appropriation. Thousands have been harassed and perplexed by this question, at some stage or other of their spiritual history; and it is not improbable that many who shall read these pages may be glad of a few words on the subject. Many may feel disposed to ask, "How am I to know that this love, and the gift of love, are intended for me? What warrant have I for believing that 'everlasting life' is for me? I know the plan of salvation; I believe in the all-sufficiency of the atonement of Christ for the forgiveness and justification of all who truly believe. I am convinced of the truth of all that the Bible declares. I believe we are all sinners, and moreover, that we can do nothing to save ourselves — that we need to be washed in the blood of Jesus, and to be taught and led by the Holy Ghost, ere we can please God here, and dwell with Him hereafter. All this I fully believe, and yet I have no assurance that I am saved, and I want to know on what authority I am to believe that my sins are forgiven and that I have everlasting life."

If the foregoing be, in any measure, the language of the reader — if it be, at all, the expression of his difficulty, we would, in the first place, call his attention to two words which occur in our precious text (John 3:16), namely, "world" and "whosoever." It seems utterly impossible for anyone to refuse the application of these two words. For what, let us ask, is the meaning of the term "world"? What does it embrace? or, rather, what does it not embrace? When our Lord declares that "God so loved the world," on what ground can the reader exclude himself from the range, scope, and application of this divine love? On no other ground whatever, unless he can show that he alone belongs not to the world, but to some other sphere of being. If it were declared that "the world" is hopelessly condemned, could anyone making a part of that world avoid the application of the sentence! Could he exclude himself from it? Impossible. How then can he — why should he — exclude himself, when it is a question of God's free love, and of salvation by Christ Jesus?

But, further, we would ask, What is the meaning, what is the force of the familiar word, "whosoever"? Assuredly it means "anybody", and if anybody, why not the reader? It is infinitely better, infinitely surer, and more satisfactory to find the word "whosoever" in the gospel than to find my own name there, inasmuch as there may be a thousand persons in the world of the same name; but "whosoever" applies to me as distinctly as though I were the only sinner on the face of the earth.

Thus, then, the very words of the gospel message — the very terms used to set forth the glad tidings, are such as leave no possible ground for a difficulty as to their application. If we listen to our Lord in the days of His flesh, we hear such words as these: "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." Again, if we listen to Him after His resurrection, we hear these words, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16) And lastly, if we listen to the voice of the Holy Ghost sent from a risen, ascended, and glorified Lord, we hear such words as these: "The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Rom. 10: 12-13)

In all the above-cited passages we have two terms used, one general, the other particular, and both together so presenting the message of salvation as to leave no room whatever for anyone to refuse its application. If "all the world" is the scope, and "every creature" is the object of the precious gospel of Christ, then, on what ground can anyone exclude himself? Where is there authority for any sinner out of hell to say that the glad tidings of salvation are not for him? There is none. Salvation is as free as the air we breathe — free as the dewdrops that refresh the earth — free as the sunbeams that shine upon our pathway; and if any attempt to limit its application, they are neither in harmony with the mind of Christ, nor in sympathy with the heart of God.

But it may be that some of our readers would, at this stage of the subject, feel disposed to ask us, "How do you dispose of the question of election?" We reply, "Very simply, by leaving it where God has placed it, namely, as a landmark in the inheritance of the spiritual Israel, and not as a stumbling-block in the pathway of the anxious inquirer." This we believe to be the true way of dealing with the deeply important doctrine of election. The more we ponder the subject, the more thoroughly are we convinced that it is a mistake on the part of the evangelist or preacher of the gospel to qualify his message, hamper his subject, or perplex his hearers, by the doctrine of election or predestination. He has to do with lost sinners in the discharge of his blessed ministry. He meets men where they are, on the broad ground of our common ruin, our common guilt, our common condemnation. He meets them with a message of full, free, present, personal, and eternal salvation — a message which comes fresh, fervent, and glowing from the very bosom of God. His ministry is, as the Holy Ghost declares in 2 Cor. 5, "a ministry of reconciliation," the glorious characteristics of which are these, "God in Christ" . . . "reconciling the world unto Himself" . . . "not imputing their trespasses"; and the marvellous foundation of which is, that God has made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Does this trench, in the smallest degree, upon the blessed and clearly established truth of election? By no means. It leaves it, in all its integrity and in its full value, as a grand fundamental truth of Holy Scripture exactly where God has placed it; not as a preliminary question to be settled ere the sinner comes to Jesus, but as a most precious consolation and encouragement to him when he has come. This makes all the difference. If the sinner be called upon to settle beforehand the question of his election, how is he to set about it? Whither is he to turn for a solution? Where shall he find a divine warrant for believing that he is one of the elect? Can he find a single line of Scripture on which to base his faith as to his election? He cannot. He can find scores of passages declaring him to be lost, guilty and undone — scores of passages to assure him of his total inability to do aught in the matter of his own salvation — hundreds of passages unfolding the free love of God, the value and efficacy of the atonement of Christ, and assuring him of a hearty welcome to come Just as he is, and make God's blessed salvation his own. But if it be needed for him to settle the prior question of his predestination and election, then is his case hopeless, and he must, in so far as he is in earnest, be plunged in black despair.

And is it not thus with thousands at this moment through the misapplication of the doctrine of election? We fully believe it is, and hence our anxiety to help our readers by setting the matter in what we judge to be the true light before their minds. We believe it to be of the utmost importance for the anxious inquirer to know that the standpoint from which he is called to view the cross of Christ is not the standpoint of election, but of conscious ruin. The grace of God meets him as a lost, dead, guilty sinner; not as an elect one. This is an unspeakable mercy, inasmuch as he knows he is the former, but cannot know that he is the latter until the gospel has come to him in power. "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." How did he know it? "Because our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." (1 Thess. 1: 4-5) Paul preached to the Thessalonians as lost sinners; and when the gospel had laid hold of them as lost, he could write to them as elect.

This puts election in its right place. If the reader will turn for a moment to Acts 17, he will there see how Paul discharged his business as an evangelist amongst the Thessalonians: "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." So, also, in that passage at the opening of 1 Cor. 15: "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures." (ver. 1-4)

From this passage, and many others which might be quoted, we learn that the apostle preached not merely a doctrine, but a person. He did not preach election. He taught it to saints, but never preached it to sinners. This should be the evangelist's model at all times. We never once find the apostles preaching election. They preached Christ — they unfolded the goodness of God — His loving-kindness — His tender mercy — His pardoning love — His gracious readiness to receive all who come in their true character and condition as lost sinners. Such was their mode of preaching, or, rather, such was the mode of the Holy Ghost in them; and such, too, was the mode of the blessed Master Himself. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." (Matt. 11; John 6-7)

Here are no stumbling-blocks in the way of anxious inquirers — no preliminary questions to be settled — no conditions to be fulfilled — no theological difficulties to be solved. No, the sinner is met on his own ground — met as he is — met just now. There is rest for the weary, drink for the thirsty, life for the dead, pardon for the guilty, salvation for the lost. Do these free invitations touch the doctrine of election? Assuredly not. And what is more, the doctrine of election does not touch them. In other words, a full and free gospel leaves perfectly untouched the grand and all-important truth of election; and the truth of election, in its proper place, leaves the gospel of the grace of God on its own broad and blessed base, and in all its divine length, breadth, and fullness. The gospel meets us as lost, and saves us; and then, when we know ourselves as saved, the precious doctrine of election comes in to establish us in the fact that we can never be lost. It never was the purpose of God that poor anxious souls should be harassed with theological questions or points of doctrine. No; blessed forever be His name, it is His gracious desire that the healing balm of His pardoning love, and the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood of Jesus, should be applied to the spiritual wounds of every sin-sick soul. And as to the doctrines of predestination and election, He has unfolded them in His Word to comfort His saints, not to perplex poor sinners. They shine like precious gems on the page of inspiration, but they were never intended to lie as stumbling-blocks in the way of earnest seekers after life and peace. They are deposited in the hand of the teacher to be unfolded in the bosom of the family of God; but they are not intended for the evangelist, whose blessed mission is to the highways and hedges of a lost world. They are designed to feed and comfort the children, not to scare and stumble the sinner. We would say, and that with real earnestness, to all evangelists, Do not hamper your preaching with theological questions of any sort or description. Preach Christ. Unfold the deep and everlasting love of a Saviour-God. Seek to bring the guilty, conscience-smitten sinner into the very presence of a pardoning God. Thunder, if you please, if so led, at the conscience — thunder loud at sin — thunder forth the dread realities of the great white throne, the lake of fire, and everlasting torment; but see that you aim at bringing the guilt-stricken conscience to rest in the atoning virtues of the blood of Christ. Then you can hand over the fruits of your ministry to the divinely qualified, to be instructed in the deeper mysteries of the faith of Christ. You may rest assured that the faithful discharge of your duty as an evangelist will never lead you to trespass on the domain of sound theology.

And to the anxious inquirer we would say with equal earnestness, Let nothing stand in your way in coming this moment to Jesus. Let theology speak as it may, you are to listen to the voice of Jesus, who says, "Come unto Me." Be assured there is no hindrance, no difficulty, no hitch, no question, no condition. You are a lost sinner, and Jesus is a full Saviour. Put your trust in Him, and you are saved forever. Believe in Him, and you will know your place amongst the "elect of God" who are "predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son." Bring your sins to Jesus and He will pardon them, cancel them by His blood, and clothe you in a spotless robe of divine righteousness. May God's Spirit lead you now to cast yourself simply and entirely upon that precious, all-sufficient Saviour!

We will now notice, very briefly, three distinct evils resulting from a wrong application of the doctrine of election, namely:

1. The discouragement of really earnest souls, who ought to be helped on in every possible way. If such persons are repulsed by the question of election, the result must be disastrous in the extreme. If they are told that the glad tidings of salvation are only for the elect — that Christ died only for such, and hence only such can be saved — that unless they are elect they have no right to apply to themselves the benefits of the death of Christ: if, in short, they are turned from Jesus to theology — from the heart of a loving, pardoning God to the cold and withering dogmas of systematic divinity, it is impossible to say where they may end; they may take refuge either in superstition on the one hand, or in infidelity on the other. They may end in high church, broad church, or no church at all. What they really want is Christ, the living, loving, precious, all-sufficient Christ of God. He is the true food for anxious souls.

2. But, in the second place, careless souls are rendered more careless still by a false application of the doctrine of election. Such persons, when pressed as to their state and prospects, will fold their arms and say, "You know I cannot believe unless God give me the power. If I am one of the elect, I must be saved; if not, I cannot. I can do nothing, but must wait God's time." All this false and flimsy reasoning should be exposed and demolished. It will not stand for a moment in the light of the judgement-seat of Christ. Each one will learn there that election furnished no excuse whatever, inasmuch as it never was set up by God as a barrier to the sinner's salvation. The word is "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The very same form of speech and style of language which removes the stumbling-block from the feet of the anxious inquirer snatches the plea from the lips of the careless rejecter. No one is shut out. All are invited. There is neither barrier on the one hand, nor a plea on the other. All are made welcome; and all are responsible. Hence, if any one presumes to excuse himself for refusing God's salvation, which is as clear as a sunbeam, by urging God's decrees, which are entirely hidden, he will find himself fatally mistaken.

3. And now, in the third and last place, we have frequently seen with real sorrow of heart the earnest, loving, large-hearted evangelist damped and crippled by a false application of the truth of election. This should be most carefully avoided. We hold that it is not the business of the evangelist to preach election. If he is rightly instructed, he will hold it; but if he is rightly directed, he will not preach it.

In a word, then, the precious doctrine of election is not to be a stumbling-block to the anxious — a plea for the careless — a damper to the fervent evangelist. May God's Spirit give us to feel the adjusting power of truth!

Having thus briefly endeavoured to clear away any difficulty arising from the misuse of the precious doctrine of election, and to show the reader, "whosoever" he be, that there is no hindrance whatever to his full and hearty acceptance of God's free gift, even the gift of His only-begotten Son, it now only remains for us to consider the result, in every case, of this acceptance, as set forth in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Here, then, we have the result in the case of every one who believes in Jesus. He shall never perish, but possesses everlasting life. But who can attempt to unfold all that is included in this word "perish"? What mortal tongue can set forth the horrors of the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched"? We believe, assuredly, that none but the One who used the Word, in speaking to Nicodemus, can fully expound it to anyone; but we feel called upon to bear our decided and unequivocal testimony as to what He has taught on the solemn truth of eternal punishment. We have occasionally referred to this subject, but we believe it demands a formal notice; and inasmuch as the word "perish" occurs in the passage which has been occupying our thoughts, we cannot do better than call the reader's attention to it.

It is a serious and melancholy fact that the enemy of souls and of the truth of God is leading thousands, both in Europe and America, to call in question the momentous fact of the everlasting punishment of the wicked. This he does on various grounds, and by various arguments, adapted to the habits of thought and moral condition and intellectual standpoint of individuals. Some he seeks to persuade that God is too kind to send anyone to a place of torment. It is contrary to His benevolent mind and His beneficent nature to inflict pain on any of His creatures.

Now, to all who stand, or affect to stand, upon this ground of argument, we would suggest the important inquiry, "What is to be done with the sins of those who die impenitent and unbelieving?" Whatever there may be in the idea that God is too kind to send sinners to hell, it is certain that He is too holy to let sin into Heaven. He is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity." (Hab. 1: 13) God and evil cannot dwell together. This is plain. How, then, is the case to be met? If God cannot let sin into Heaven, what is to be done with the sinner who dies in his sins? He must perish! But what does this mean? Does it mean annihilation — that is, the utter extinction or blotting out of the very existence of body and soul? Nay, this cannot be. Many would like this, no doubt. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," would, alas, suit many thousands of the sons and daughters of pleasure who think only of the present moment, and who roll sin as a sweet morsel under their tongue. There are millions on the surface of the globe who are bartering their eternal happiness for a few hours of guilty pleasure, and the crafty foe of mankind seeks to persuade such that there is no such place as hell, no such thing as the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; and in order to obtain a footing for this fatal suggestion, he bases it upon the plausible and imposing notions of the kindness of God.

Do not believe the arch-deceiver. Remember, God is holy. He cannot let sin into His presence. If you die in your sins you must perish, and this word "perish" involves, according to the clear testimony of Holy Scripture, eternal misery and torment in hell. Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith, in His solemn description of the judgement of the nations: "Then shall the King say also to them on His left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41) And while you harken to these awfully solemn accents, remember that the word translated "everlasting" occurs seventy times in the New Testament, and is applied as follows: "Everlasting fire" — "eternal life" — "everlasting punishment" — "eternal damnation" — "everlasting habitations" — "the everlasting God" — "eternal weight of glory" — "everlasting destruction" — "everlasting consolation" — "eternal glory" — "eternal salvation" — "eternal judgement" — "eternal redemption" — "the eternal Spirit" — "eternal inheritance" — "everlasting kingdom" — "eternal fire."

Now, we ask any candid, thoughtful person, upon what principle can a word be said to mean eternal when applied to the Holy Ghost or to God, and only temporary when applied to hell-fire or the punishment of the wicked? If it means eternal in the one case, why not also in the other? We have just glanced at a Greek concordance, and we should like to ask, Would it be right to mark off some half-dozen passages in which the word "everlasting" occurs, and write opposite to each these words: "Everlasting here only means for a time"? The very thought is monstrous. It would be a daring and blasphemous insult offered to the volume of inspiration. No, be assured of it, you cannot touch the word "everlasting" in one case without touching it also in all the seventy cases in which it occurs. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the Word of the living God. It is infinitely better to bow down under its holy authority. It is worse than useless to seek to avoid the plain meaning and solemn force of that word "perish" as applied to the immortal soul of man. It involves, beyond all question, the awful, the ineffably awful reality of burning forever in the flames of hell. This is what Scripture means by "perishing." The votary of pleasure, or the lover of money, may seek to forget this. They may seek to drown all thought of it in the glass or in the busy mart. The sentimentalist may rave about the divine benevolence; the sceptic may reason about the possibility of eternal fire; but we are intensely anxious that the reader should rise from this paper with the firm and deeply wrought conclusion and hearty belief that the punishment of all who die in their sins will be eternal in hell as surely as the blessedness of all who die in the faith of Christ will be eternal in the heavens. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost would most assuredly have used a different word, when speaking of the former, from that which He applies to the latter. This, we conceive, is beyond all question.

But there is another objection urged against the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is frequently said, "How can we suppose that God would inflict eternal punishment as a penalty for a few short years of sin?" We reply, It is beginning at the wrong end to argue in this way. It is not a question of time as viewed from man's standpoint, but of the gravity of sin itself as looked at from God's standpoint. And how is this question to be solved? Only by looking at the Cross. If you want to know what sin is in God's sight, you must look at what it cost Him to put it away. It is by the standard of Christ's infinite sacrifice, and by that alone, that you can rightly measure sin. Men may compare their few years with God's eternity; they may compare their short span of life with that boundless eternity that stretches beyond; they may seek to put a few years of sin into one scale, and an eternity of woe and torment into the other, and thus attempt to reach a just conclusion: but it will never do to argue thus. The question is, Did it require an infinite atonement to put away sin? If so, the punishment of sin must be eternal. If nothing short of an infinite sacrifice could deliver from the consequences of sin, those consequences must be eternal.

In a word, then, we must look at sin from God's point of view, and measure it by His standard, else we shall never have a just sense of what it is or what it deserves. It is the height of folly for men to attempt to lay down a rule as to the amount or duration of the punishment due to sin. God alone can settle this. And, after all, what was it that produced all the misery and wretchedness, the sickness and sorrow, the death and desolation, of well-nigh six thousand years? Just one act of disobedience — the eating of a forbidden fruit. Can man explain this? Can human reason explain how one act produced such an overwhelming amount of misery? It cannot. Well, then, if it cannot do this, how can it be trusted when it attempts to decide the question as to what is due to sin? Woe be to all those who commit themselves to its guidance on this most momentous point!

Ah, reader, you must see that God alone can estimate sin and its just deserts, and He alone can tell us all about it. And has He not done so? Yes, verily, He has measured sin in the cross of His Son; and there, too, He has set forth in the most impressive manner what it deserves. What, think you, must that be that caused the bitter cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" If God forsook His only-begotten Son when He was made sin, must He not also forsake all who are found in their sins? But how can they ever get rid of them? We believe the conclusion is unavoidable. We consider that the infinite nature of the atonement proves unanswerably the doctrine of eternal punishment. That peerless and precious sacrifice is at once the foundation of our eternal life and of our deliverance from eternal death. It delivers from eternal wrath and introduces to eternal glory. It saves from the endless misery of hell and procures for us the endless bliss of Heaven. Thus, whatever side of the Cross we look at, or from whatever side we view it, we see eternity stamped upon it. If we view it from the gloomy depths of hell or from the sunny heights of Heaven, we see it to be the same infinite, eternal, divine reality. It is by the Cross we must measure both the blessedness of Heaven and the misery of hell. Those who put their trust in that blessed One who died on the cross obtain everlasting life and felicity. Those who reject Him must sink into endless perdition.

We do not by any means pretend to handle this question theologically, or to adduce all the arguments that might be advanced in defence of the doctrine of eternal punishment; but there is one further consideration which we must suggest to the reader as tending to lead him to a sound conclusion and that is the immortality of the soul. "God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." The fall of man in nowise touched the question of the soul's immortality. If, therefore, the soul is immortal, annihilation is impossible. The soul must live forever. Overwhelming thought! Forever! Forever! Forever! The whole moral being sinks under the awful magnitude of the thought. It surpasses all conception and baffles all mental calculation. Human arithmetic can only deal with the finite. It has no figures by which to represent a never-ending eternity. But the writer and the reader must live throughout eternity either in that bright and blessed world above or in that terrible place where hope can never come.

May God's Spirit impress our hearts more and more with the solemnity of eternity, and of immortal souls going down into hell. We are deplorably deficient in feeling as to these weighty realities. We are daily thrown in contact with people, we buy and sell and carry on intercourse in various ways with those who must live forever, and yet how rarely do we seek occasion to press upon them the awfulness of eternity and the appalling condition of all who die without a personal interest in the blood of Christ!

Let us ask God to make us more earnest, more solemn, more faithful, more zealous in pleading with souls, in warning others to flee from the wrath to come. We want to live more in the light of eternity, and then we shall be better able to deal with others.

It only remains for us now to ponder the last clause of the fruitful passage of Scripture which has been under consideration. (John 3: 16) It sets forth the positive result, in every case, of simple faith in the Son of God. It declares, in the simplest and clearest way, the fact that every one who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is a possessor of everlasting life. It is not merely that his sins are blotted out; that is blessedly true. Nor is it merely that he is saved from the consequences of his guilt, which is equally true. But there is more. The believer in Jesus has a new life, and that life is in the Son of God. He is placed upon a new footing altogether. He is no longer looked at in the old Adam condition, but in a risen Christ.

This is an immense truth, and one of deepest possible moment. We earnestly pray the reader's calm and prayerful attention while we seek, in some feeble way, to present to him what we believe to be wrapped up in the last clause of John 3: 16.

There is in the minds of many a very imperfect sense of what we get by faith in Christ. Some seem to view the atoning work of Christ merely as a remedial measure for the sins of our old nature — the payment of debts contracted in our old condition. That it is all this we need not say; blessed be God for the precious truth. But it is much more. It is not merely that the sins are atoned for, but the nature which committed them is condemned and set aside by the cross of Christ, and is to be "reckoned" dead by the believer. It is not merely that the debts contracted in the old condition are cancelled, but the old condition itself is completely ignored by God, and is to be so accounted by the believer.

This great truth is doctrinally unfolded in 2 Cor. 5, where we read, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (ver. 17) The apostle does not say, "If any man be in Christ he is pardoned — his sins are forgiven — his debts paid." All this is divinely true; but the statement just quoted goes very much farther. It declares that a man in Christ is a new creation altogether. It is not the old nature pardoned, but completely set aside, with all its belongings, and a new creation introduced in which there is not a single shred of the old. "All things are become new; and all things are of God."

Now this gives immense relief to the heart. Indeed, we question if any soul can enter into the full liberty of the gospel of Christ until he lay hold, in some measure, of the truth of the "new creation." There may be a looking to Christ for pardon, a vague hope of getting to Heaven at the last, a measure of reliance on the goodness and mercy of God — there may be all this, and yet no just sense of the meaning of "everlasting life," no happy consciousness of being "a new creation" — no understanding of the grand fact that the old Adam nature is entirely set aside, the old condition in which we stood done away in God's sight.

But it is more than probable that some of our readers may be at a loss to know what is meant by such terms as "the old Adam nature" — "the old condition" — "the flesh" — "the old man," and such like. These expressions may fall strangely on the ears of those for whom we specially write; and we certainly wish to avoid shooting over the heads of our readers. As God is our witness, there is one thing we earnestly desire, one object which we would ever keep before our minds, and that is the instruction and edification of our readers; and therefore we would rather run the risk of being tedious than make use of phrases which convey no clear or intelligible idea to the mind. Such terms as "the old man" — "the flesh," and the like, are used in Scripture in manifold places: for example, in Rom. 6 we read, "Our old man is crucified with Him Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." (ver. 6)

Now what does the apostle mean by the "old man"? We believe he means man as in that Adam nature which we inherited from our first parents. And what does he mean by "the body of sin"? We believe he means the whole system or condition in which we stood in our unregenerate, unrenewed, unconverted state. The old Adam, then, is declared to be crucified — the old condition of sin is said to be destroyed (annulled) — by the death of Christ. Hence the soul that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is privileged to know that he — his sinful, guilty self — is looked upon by God as dead and set aside completely. He has no more existence as such before God. He is dead and buried.

Observe, it is not merely that our sins are forgiven, our debts paid, our guilt atoned for; but the man in the nature that committed the sins, contracted the debts, and incurred the guilt, is put forever out of God's sight. It is not God's way to forgive us our sins and yet leave us in the same relations in which we committed them. No; He has, in His marvellous grace and vast plan, condemned and abolished forever, for the believer, the old Adam relationship, with all its belongings, so that it is no longer recognized by Him. We are declared, by the voice of holy Scripture to be "crucified" — "dead" — "buried" — "risen" with Christ. God tells us we are so, and we are to "reckon" ourselves to be so. It is a matter of faith, and not of feeling. If I look at myself from my standpoint, or judge by my feelings, I shall never, can never understand this truth. And why? Because I feel myself to be just the same sinful creature as ever. I feel that there is sin in me; that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing; that my old nature is in nowise changed or improved; that it has the same evil tendencies as ever, and, if not mortified and kept down by the gracious energy of the Holy Spirit, it will break out in its true character.

And it is just here, we doubt not, that so many sincere souls are perplexed and troubled. They are looking at themselves, and reasoning upon what they see and feel, instead of resting in the truth of God, and reckoning themselves to be what God tells them they are. They find it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile what they feel in themselves with what they read in the Word of God — to make their inward self-consciousness harmonise with God's revelation. But we must remember that faith takes God at His Word. It ever thinks with Him on all points. It believes what He says because He says it. Hence, if God tells me that my old man is crucified, that He no longer sees me as in the old Adam state, but in a risen Christ, I am to believe, like a little child, what He tells me, and walk in the faith of it from day to day. If I look in at myself for evidences of the truth of what God says, it is not faith at all. Abraham "considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about an hundred years old; neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb; he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God." (Rom. 4: 19-20)

This is the great principle which underlies the whole Christian system. "Abraham believed God," not something about God, but God Himself. This is faith. It is taking God's thoughts in place of our own. It is, in short allowing God to think for us.

Now, when we apply this to the subject before us, it makes it most simple. He that believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life. Mark, it is not he that believeth something about the Son of God. No, it is he that believeth in Himself. It is a question of simple faith in the person of Christ; and everyone that has this faith is the actual possessor of everlasting life. This is the direct and positive statement of our Lord in the Gospels. It is repeated over and over again. Nor is this all. Not only does the believer thus possess eternal life, but by the further light which the Epistles throw upon this grand question he may see that his old self — that which he was in nature — that which the apostle designates "the old man" — is accounted by God dead and buried. This may be difficult to understand; but the reader must remember he must believe not because he understands, but because it is written in God's Word. It is not said, "Abraham understood God." No; but he "believed God." It is when the heart believes that light is poured in upon the understanding. If I wait till I understand in order to believe, I am leaning to my own understanding, instead of committing myself in childlike faith to God's Word.

Reader, ponder this! You may say you cannot understand how your sinful self can be looked upon as dead and gone while you feel its workings, its heavings, its tossings, its tendencies, continually within you. We reply, or rather God's eternal Word declares, that if your heart believes in Jesus, then is all this true for you, namely, you have eternal life; you are justified from all things; you are a new creation; old things are passed away; all things are become new; and all things are of God. In a word, you are "in Christ," and "as He is, so are you in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

And is not this a great deal more than the mere pardoning of your sins, the cancelling of your debts, or the salvation of your soul from hell? Assuredly it is. And suppose we were to ask you on what authority you believe in the forgiveness of your sins. Is it because you feel, realize, or understand? Nay; but because it is written, "To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins." (Acts 10: 43) "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7) Well, then, upon precisely the same authority you are to believe that your old man has been crucified, that you are not in the flesh, not in the old creation, not in the old Adam relation; but that, on the contrary, you are viewed by God as actually in a risen and glorified Christ — that He looks upon you as He looks upon Christ.

True it is — alas, how true! — the flesh is in you, and you are still here, as to the fact of your condition, in this old world, which is under judgement. But then, hear what your Lord saith, when speaking about you to His Father: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." And again, "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."

Hence, therefore, if you will just bow to God's Word, if you will reason not about what you see in yourself, and feel in yourself, and think of yourself, but simply believe what God says, you will enter into the blessed peace and holy liberty flowing from the fact that you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; not in the old creation, but in the new; not under law, but under grace; not of the world, but of God. You have passed clean off the old platform which you occupied as a child of nature and a member of the first Adam, and you have taken your place on a new platform altogether as a child of God and a member of Christ.

All this is vividly prefigured by the deluge and the ark, in the days of Noah. (See Gen. 6 - 8.) "And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth." Here, then, was, in type, the end of the old creation. All was to pass under the waters of judgement. What then? "Make thee an ark of gopher wood." Here we have set forth a figure of the new thing. That ark, floating peacefully over the dark abyss of waters, was a type of Christ, and the believer in Him. The old world, together with man, was buried beneath the waves of judgement, and the only object that remained was the ark — the vessel of mercy and salvation, riding in safety and triumph over the billows. Thus it is now, in truth and reality. There is nothing before the eye of God but a risen, victorious and glorified Christ, and His people linked with Him. The end of all flesh has come before God. It is not a question of some very gross forms of "flesh" or of nature, of that merely which is "vile and refuse." No; it is "the end of all." Such is the solemn, sweeping verdict; and then — what? A risen Christ. Nothing else. All in Him are seen by God as He is seen. All out of Him are under judgement. It all hinges upon this one question. "Am I in or out of Christ?" What a question!

Are you in Christ? Do you believe in His name? Have you given Him the confidence of your heart? If so, you have "eternal life" — you are "a new creature" — "old things are passed away." God does not see a single shred of the old thing remaining for you. "All things are become new, and all things are of God." You may say you do not feel that old things are all passed away. We reply, God says they are, and it is your happy privilege to believe what He says, and "reckon" yourself to be what He declares you are. God speaks according to that which is true of you in Christ. He does not see you in the flesh, but in Christ. There is absolutely nothing before the eye of God but Christ: and the very weakest believer is viewed as part of Christ, just as your hand is a part of your body. You have no existence before God apart from Christ — no life — no righteousness — no holiness — no wisdom — no power. Apart from Him, you have nothing, and can be nothing. In Him you have all and are all; you are thoroughly identified with Christ. Marvellous fact! Profound mystery! Most glorious truth! It is not a question of attainment or of progress. It is the settled and absolute standing of the feeblest member of the Church of God. True, there are various measures of intelligence, experience, and devotedness; but there is only one life, one standing, one position before God, and that is Christ. There is no such thing as a higher or lower Christian life. Christ is the believer's life, and you cannot speak of a higher or a lower Christ. We can understand the higher stages of Christian life; but there is no spiritual intelligence in speaking of a higher Christian life.

This is a grand truth, and we earnestly pray that God the Spirit may open it fully to the mind of the reader. We feel assured that a clearer understanding thereof would chase away a thousand mists, answer a thousand questions, and solve a thousand difficulties. It would not only have the effect of giving settled peace to the soul, but also of determining the believer's position in the most distinct way. If Christ is my life — if I am in Him and identified with Him, then not only do I share in His acceptance with God, but also in His rejection by this present world. The two things go together. They form the two sides of the one grand question. If I am in Christ and as Christ before God, then I am in Christ and as Christ before the world: and it will never do to accept the result of this union before God and refuse the result of it as regards the world. If we have the one, we must have the other likewise.

All this is fully unfolded in John 17. There we read on the one hand, "The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." (ver. 22-23) And, on the other hand, we read, "I have given them Thy Word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of this world, even as I am not of the world." (ver. 14) This is as plain and positive as anything can be. And be it remembered that, in this wondrous Scripture, our Lord is not speaking merely of the apostles, but, as He says, of "them also who shall believe on Me through their word," that is, of all believers. Hence it follows that all who believe in Jesus are one with Him as accepted above, and one with Him as rejected below. The two things are inseparable. The Head and the members share in one common acceptance in Heaven, and in one common rejection upon earth. Oh that all the Lord's people entered more into the truth and reality of this! Would that we all knew a little more of the meaning of fellowship with a Heaven-accepted, earth-rejected Christ!

STEM Publishing: C. H. Mackintosh: Conversion: What is it?

Conversion: What is it?

C. H. Mackintosh.

"Ye must be born again." — John 3:7

Part  1 — The need of conversion

Part  2 — What this conversion is not

Part  3 — What this conversion is

Part  4 — The nature of conversion

Part  5 — Brought to God

Part  6 — Find all resources in God

Part  7 — Serve the living and true God

Part  8 — To wait for the Son of God from the heavens

Part 1

1 Thessalonians 1 presents a very striking and beautiful picture of what we may truly call genuine conversion. We propose to study the picture in company with the reader. If we are not much mistaken, we shall find the study at once interesting and profitable. It will furnish an answer, distinct and clear, to the question which stands at the head of this article, namely, What is conversion?

Nor is this by any means a small matter. It is well, in days like these, to have a divine answer to such a question. We hear a good deal now-a-days about cases of conversion; and we would heartily bless God for every soul truly converted to Him.

We need hardly say we believe in the absolute, the indispensable, the universal necessity of divine conversion. Let a man be what he may; be he Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, Protestant or Roman Catholic; in short, whatever be his nationality, his ecclesiastical position, or his theological creed, he must be converted else he is on the broad and direct road to an everlasting hell.

There is no one born a Christian, in the true sense of that word. Neither can anyone be educated into Christianity. It is a fatal mistake, a deadly delusion, a deceit of the arch-enemy of souls, for anyone to think that he can be a Christian either by birth or education, or that he can be made a Christian by water baptism, or by any religious ceremony whatsoever. A man becomes a Christian only by being divinely converted. We would earnestly press on the attention of all whom it may concern, the urgent and absolute necessity in every case of true conversion to God.

This cannot be overlooked. It is the height of folly for anyone to attempt to ignore or to make light of it. For an immortal being — one who has a boundless eternity stretching away before him — to neglect the solemn question of his conversion, is the wildest fatuity of which anyone can possibly be guilty. In comparison with this most weighty subject, all other things dwindle into utter insignificance. The various objects that engage the thoughts and absorb the energies of men and women in the busy scene around us, are but as the small dust of the balance in comparison with this one grand, momentous question of the soul's conversion to God. All the speculations of commercial life, all the schemes of money-making, the absorbing question of profitable investment, all the pursuits of the pleasure hunter — the theatre, the concert, the ball-room, the billiard-room, the card-table, the dice-box, the race-course, the hunting-ground, the drinking saloon — all the numberless and nameless things that the poor unsatisfied heart longs after, and grasps at — all are but as the vapour of the morning, the foam on the water, the smoke from the chimney-top, the withered leaf of autumn — all vanish away, and leave an aching void behind. The heart remains unsatisfied, the soul unsaved, because unconverted.

And what then? Tremendous question! What remains at the end of all this scene of commercial excitement, political strife and ambition, money-making and pleasure hunting? Why, then the man has to face death! "It is appointed unto men once to die." There is no getting over this. There is no discharge in this war. All the wealth of the universe could not purchase one moment's respite at the hand of the ruthless foe. All the medical skill which earth affords, all the fond solicitude of affectionate relatives and friends, all their tears, all their sighs, all their entreaties cannot stave off the dreaded moment, or cause the king of terrors to sheathe his terrible sword. Death cannot be disposed of by any art of man. The moment must come when the link is to be snapped which connects the heart with all the fair and fascinating scenes of human life. Fondly loved friends, charming pursuits, coveted objects, all must be given up. A thousand worlds could not avert the stroke. Death must be looked at straight in the face. It is an awful mystery — a tremendous fact — a stern reality. It stands full in front of every unconverted man, woman, and child beneath the canopy of Heaven; and it is merely a question of time — hours, days, months, or years — when the boundary line must be crossed which separates time, with all its empty, vain, shadowy pursuits, from eternity with all its stupendous realities.

And what then? Let Scripture answer. Nothing else can. Men would fain reply according to their own vain notions. They would have us believe that after death comes annihilation. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Empty conceit! Vain delusion! Foolish dream of the human imagination blinded by the god of this world! How could an immortal soul be annihilated? Man, in the garden or Eden, became the possessor of a never-dying spirit. "The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul" — not a dying soul. The soul must live forever. Converted or unconverted, it has eternity before it. Oh, the overpowering weight of this consideration to every thoughtful spirit! No human mind can grasp its immensity. It is beyond our comprehension, but not beyond our belief.

Let us harken to the voice of God. What does Scripture teach? One line of holy Scripture is quite sufficient to sweep away ten thousand arguments and theories of the human mind. Does death annihilate? Nay! "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement."

Mark these words, "After this the judgement." And this applies only to those who die in their sins, only to unbelievers. For the Christian, judgement is passed forever, as Scripture teaches in manifold places. It is important to note this, because men tell us that, inasmuch as there is eternal life only in Christ, therefore all who are out of Christ shall be annihilated.

Not so says the Word of God. There is judgement after death. And what will be the issue of the judgement? Again Scripture speaks in language as clear as it is solemn. "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works.... This is the second death" — the lake of fire. "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20)

All this is as plain as words can make it. There is not the slightest ground for demur or difficulty. For all whose names are in the book of life there is no judgement at all. Those whose names are not in that book shall be judged according to their works. And what then? Annihilation? Nay; but "the lake of fire;" and that forever and forever.

How overwhelming is the thought of this! An unconverted person, whoever and whatever he is, has death, judgement, and the lake of fire before him, and every throb of his pulse brings him nearer and nearer to those awful realities. It is not more sure that the sun shall rise, at a certain moment, to-morrow morning, than that the reader must, ere long, pass into eternity; and if his name is not in the book of life — if he is not converted — if he is not in Christ, he will assuredly be judged according to his works, and the certain issue of that judgement will be the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, and that through the endless ages of a dark and gloomy eternity. Oh! the terrible monotony of hell.

The reader may perhaps marvel at our dwelling at such length on this dreadful theme. He may feel disposed to ask, "Will this convert people?" If it does not convert them, it may lead them to see their need of conversion. It may lead them to see their imminent danger. It may induce them to flee from the wrath to come. Why did the blessed apostle reason with Felix on the subject of "judgement to come"? Surely that he might persuade him to turn from his evil ways and live. Why did our blessed Lord Himself so constantly press upon His hearers the solemn reality of eternity? Why did He so often speak of the deathless worm and the unquenchable fire? Surely it was for the purpose of rousing them to a sense of their danger, that they might flee for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them.

Are we wiser than He? Are we more tender? Have we found out some better mode of converting people? Are we to be afraid of pressing upon our readers the same solemn theme which our Lord so pressed upon the men of His time? Are we to shrink from offending polite ears by the plain declaration that all who die unconverted must inevitably stand before the great white throne, and pass into the lake of fire? God forbid! It must not be. We solemnly call upon the unconverted reader to give his undivided attention to the all-important question of his soul's salvation. Let nothing induce him to neglect it. Let neither cares, pleasures, nor duties so occupy him as to hide from his view the magnitude and deep seriousness of this matter. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Oh! reader, if thou art unsaved, unconverted, let us earnestly entreat thee to ponder these things, and rouse thee to a sense of thy need of being savingly converted to God. This is the only way of entering His kingdom. So our Lord Christ distinctly tells us; and we trust you know this at least, that not one jot or tittle of His holy sayings can ever pass away. Heaven and earth shall pass away; but His Word can never pass away. All the power of earth and hell, men and devils, cannot make void the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Either of two things for thee —  conversion here, or eternal damnation hereafter.

Thus it stands, if we are to be guided by the Word of God; and, in view of this, is it possible for us to be too earnest, too vehement, too importunate in urging upon every unconverted soul with whom we may come in contact, either with voice or pen, the indispensable necessity, this very moment, of fleeing from the wrath to come, fleeing to that blessed Saviour who died on the cross for our salvation; who stands with open arms to receive all who come; and who declares in His own sweet and precious grace, "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out"?

Part 2

In our previous paper, we have sought to set forth the absolute need, in every case, of conversion. Scripture establishes this point in such a way as to leave no possible ground of doubt for anyone who bows to its holy authority. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18: 3)

This applies, in all its moral force and deep solemnity, to every son and daughter of fallen Adam. There is not so much as a solitary exception, throughout the thousand millions that people this globe. Without conversion, there is — there can be — no entrance into the kingdom of God. Every unconverted soul is outside the kingdom of God. It matters not, in the smallest degree, who I am, or what I am; if I am unconverted, I am in "the kingdom of darkness," under the power of Satan, in my sins, and on the way to hell.

I may be a person of blameless morals; of spotless reputation; a high professor of religion; a worker in the vineyard; a Sunday-school teacher; an office-bearer in some branch of the professing church; an ordained minister; a deacon, elder, pastor or bishop; a most charitable individual; a munificent donor to religious and benevolent institutions; looked up to, sought after, and reverenced by all because of my personal worth and moral influence. I may be all this and more; I may be, and I may have, all that it is possible for a human being to be or to have, and yet be unconverted, and hence outside the kingdom of God, and in the kingdom of Satan, in my guilt, and on the broad road that leads straight down to the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

Such is the plain and obvious meaning and force of our Lord's words in Matt. 18: 3. There is no possibility of evading it. The words are as clear as a sunbeam. We cannot get over them. They bear down, with what we may truly call tremendous solemnity, upon every unconverted soul on the face of the earth. "Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." This applies, with equal force, to the degraded drunkard that rolls along the street, worse than a beast, and to the unconverted Good Templar or teetotaler who prides himself on his sobriety, and is perpetually boasting of the number of days, weeks, months, or years during which he has refrained from all intoxicating drink. They are both alike outside the kingdom of God; both in their sins; both on the way to eternal destruction.

True it is that the one has been converted from drunkenness to sobriety — a very great blessing indeed, in a moral and social point of view — but conversion from drunkenness to a temperance society is not conversion to God; it is not turning from darkness to light, it is not entering the kingdom of God's dear Son. There is just this difference between the two, that the teetotaler may be building upon his temperance, pluming himself upon his morality, and thus deceiving himself into the vain notion that he is all right, whereas, in reality, he is not. The drunkard is palpably and unmistakably wrong. Everybody knows that no drunkard can inherit the kingdom of God; but neither can an unconverted teetotaler. Both are outside. Conversion to God is absolutely indispensable for the one as well as the other; and the same may be said of all classes, all grades, all shades, all castes and conditions of men under the sun. There is no difference as to this great question. It holds good as to all alike, be their outward character or social status what it may — "Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

How important, then — yea, how momentous the question for each one, "Am I converted?" It is not possible for human language to set forth the magnitude and solemnity of this inquiry. For any one to think of going on, from day to day, and year to year, without a clear and thorough settlement of this most weighty question, can only be regarded as the most egregious folly of which a human being can be guilty. If a man were to leave his earthly affairs in an uncertain, unsettled condition, he would lay himself open to the charge of the grossest and most culpable neglect and carelessness. But what are the most urgent and weighty temporal affairs when compared with the salvation of the soul? All the concerns of time are but as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, when compared with the interests of the immortal soul — the grand realities of eternity.

Hence it is, in the very highest degree, irrational for any one to rest for a single hour without a clear and settled assurance that he is truly converted to God. A converted soul has crossed the boundary line that separates the saved from the unsaved — the children of light from the children of darkness — the Church of God from this present evil world. The converted soul has death and judgement behind him, and glory before. He can be as sure of Heaven as though he were already there; indeed as a man in Christ he belongs there already. He has a title without a blot, and a prospect without a cloud. He knows Christ as his Saviour and Lord; God as his Father and Friend; the Holy Ghost as his blessed Comforter, Guide, and Teacher; Heaven as his bright and happy home. Oh! the unspeakable blessedness of being converted. Who can utter it? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us [believers] by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." (1 Cor. 2: 9-10)

And now let us inquire what this conversion is, whereof we speak. Well, indeed, will it be for us to be divinely instructed as to this. An error here will prove disastrous in proportion to the interests at stake.

Many are the mistaken notions in reference to conversion. Indeed we might conclude, from the very fact of the vast importance of the subject, that the great enemy of our souls and of the Christ of God would seek, in every possible way, to plunge us into error respecting it. If he cannot succeed in keeping people in utter carelessness as to the subject of conversion, he will endeavour to blind their eyes as to its true nature. If, for example, a person has been roused, by some means or other, to a sense of the utter vanity and unsatisfactoriness of worldly amusements, and the urgent necessity of a change of life, the arch-deceiver will seek to persuade such an one to become religious, to busy himself with ordinances, rites and ceremonies, to give up balls and parties, theatres and concerts, drinking, gambling, hunting and horse-racing; in a word, to give up all sorts of gaiety and amusement, and engage in what is called a religious life, to be diligent in attending the public ordinances of religion, to read the Bible, say prayers, and give alms, to contribute to the support of the great religious and benevolent institutions of the country.

Now, this is not conversion. A person may do all this, and yet be wholly unconverted. A religious devotee whose whole life is spent in vigils, fastings, prayers, self-mortifications and alms deeds, may be as thoroughly unconverted, as far from the kingdom of God as the thoughtless pleasure hunter, whose whole life is spent in the pursuit of objects as worthless as the withered leaf or the faded flower. The two characters, no doubt, differ widely — as widely perhaps, as any two could differ. But they are both unconverted, both outside the blessed circle of God's salvation, both in their sins. True, the one is engaged in "wicked works and the other in "dead works;" they are both out of Christ; they are unsaved; they are on the way to hopeless, endless misery. The one, just as surely as the other, if not savingly converted, will find his portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.

Again, conversion is not a turning from one religious system to another. A man may turn from Judaism, Paganism, Mahometanism, or Popery, to Protestantism, and yet be wholly unconverted. No doubt, looked at from a social, moral, or intellectual standpoint, it is much better to be a Protestant than a Mahometan; but as regards our present thesis, they are both on one common platform, both unconverted. Of one, just as truly as the other, it can be said, unless he is converted, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Conversion is not joining a religious system, be that system ever so pure, ever so sound, ever so orthodox. A man may be a member of the most respectable religious body in Christendom, and yet be an unconverted, unsaved man, on his way to eternal perdition.

So also as to the theological creeds. A man may subscribe to any of the great standards of religious belief, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Westminister Confession, John Wesley's sermons, Fox and Barclay, or any other creed, and yet be wholly unconverted, dead in trespasses and sins, and on his way to that place where a single ray of hope can never break in upon the awful gloom of eternity.

Of what use, we may lawfully inquire, is a religious system or a theological creed to a man who has not a single spark of divine life? Systems and creeds cannot quicken, cannot save, cannot give eternal life. A man may work on in religious machinery like a horse in a mill, going round and round, from one year's end to another, leaving off just where he began, in a dreary monotony of dead works. What is it all worth? what does it all come to? where does it all end? Death! Yes; and what then? Ah! that is the question. Would to God the weight and seriousness of this question were more fully realized! But further, Christianity itself, in all its full-orbed light, may be embraced as a system of religious belief. A person may be intellectually delighted — almost entranced with the glorious doctrines of grace, a full, free gospel, salvation without works, justification by faith; in short, all that goes to make up our glorious New Testament Christianity. A person may profess to believe and delight in this; he may even become a powerful writer in defence of Christian doctrine, an earnest eloquent preacher of the gospel. All this may be true, and yet the man be wholly unconverted, dead in trespasses and sins, hardened, deceived and destroyed by his very familiarity with the precious truths of the gospel-truths that have never gone beyond the region of his understanding — never reached his conscience, never touched his heart, never converted his soul.

This is about the most appalling case of all. Nothing can be more awful, more terrible, than the case of a man professing to believe and delight in, yea, actually preaching the gospel of God, and teaching all the grand characteristic truths of Christianity, and yet wholly unconverted, unsaved, and on his way to an eternity of ineffable misery — misery which must needs be intensified to the very highest degree, by the remembrance of the fact that he once professed to believe, and actually undertook to preach the most glorious tidings that ever fell on mortal ears.

O! reader, whoever thou art, do, we entreat of thee, give thy fixed attention to these things. Rest not, for one hour, until thou art assured of thy genuine, unmistakable conversion to God.

Part 3

Having thus far seen the absolute necessity, in every case, of conversion, and having, in some measure, sought to point out what conversion is not, we have now to inquire what it is. And here we must keep close to the veritable teaching of holy Scripture. We can accept nothing less, nothing different.

It is greatly to be feared that very much of what passes, now-a-days, for conversion is not conversion at all. Many so-called cases of conversion are published and talked of, which cannot stand the test of the Word of God. Many profess to be converted, and are accredited as such, who prove to be merely stony-ground hearers. There is no depth of spiritual work in the heart, no real action of the truth of God on the conscience, no thorough breaking with the world. It may be the feelings are wrought upon by human influence, and certain evangelical sentiments take possession of the mind; but self is not judged; there is a clinging to earth and nature; a lack of that deep-toned earnestness and genuine reality which so remarkably characterise the conversions recorded in the New Testament, and for which we may always look where the work of conversion is divine.

We do not here attempt to account for all these superficial cases; we merely refer to them in order that all who are engaged in the blessed work of evangelization may be led to consider the matter in the light of holy Scripture, and to see how far their own mode of working may call for holy correction. It may be there is too much of the merely human element in our work. We do not leave the Spirit of God to act. We are deficient in faith, in the power and efficacy of the simple work of Christ itself. There may be too much effort to work on the feelings, too much of the emotional and the sensational. Perhaps, too, in our desire to reach results — a desire which may be right enough in itself — we are too ready to accredit and announce, as cases of conversion, many which, alas! are merely ephemeral.

All this demands our serious attention. It is of the very last possible importance that we allow the Spirit of God to work and to display — as He most assuredly will — the fruit of His work. All that He does is well done, and it will speak for itself in due time. There is no necessity for us to blaze around our cases of conversion. All that is divinely real will shine out to the praise of Him to whom all praise is due; and then the workman will have his own deep and holy joy. He will see the results of his work, and think of them in adoring homage and worship at his Masters feet — the only safe and happy place to think of them.

Will this lessen our earnestness? The very reverse; it will intensify our earnestness immensely. We shall be more earnest in pleading with God in secret, and in pleading with our fellows in public.

We shall feel more deeply the divine seriousness of the work, and our own utter insufficiency. We shall ever cherish the wholesome conviction that the work must be of God from first to last. This will keep us in our right place, that of self-emptied dependence upon God, who is the Doer of all the works that are done upon the earth. We shall be more on our faces before the mercy-seat, both in the closet and in the assembly, in reference to the glorious work of conversion; and then, when the golden sheaves and mellow clusters appear, when genuine cases of conversion turn up — cases which speak for themselves, and carry their own credentials with them to all who are capable of judging — then verily shall our hearts be filled with praise to the God of all grace who has magnified the name of His Son Jesus Christ in the salvation of precious souls.

How much better is this than to have our poor hearts puffed up with pride and self-complacency by reckoning up our cases of conversion! How much better, safer and happier to be bowed in worship before the throne, than to have our names heralded to the ends of the earth as great preachers and wonderful evangelists! No comparison, in the judgement of a truly spiritual person. The dignity, reality, and seriousness of the work will be realized; the happiness, the moral security, and the real usefulness of the workman will be promoted; and the glory of God secured and maintained.

Let us see how all this is illustrated in 1 Thessalonians 1. "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers: remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labour of love, and patience of hope" — the grand elements of true Christianity — "in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election." How did he know it? By the clear and unquestionable evidence afforded in their practical life — the only way in which the election of any one can be known. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake."

The blessed apostle was, in his daily life, the exponent of the gospel which he preached. He lived the gospel. He did not demand or exact aught of them. He was not burdensome to them. He preached unto them the precious gospel of God freely; and in order that he might do so, he wrought with labour and travail, night and day. He was as a loving, tender nurse, going in and out among them. There were with him no high-sounding words about himself, or his office, or his authority, or his gifts, or his preaching, or his wonderful doings in other places. He was the loving, lowly, unpretending, earnest, devoted workman, whose work spoke for itself, and whose whole life, his spirit, style, deportment, and habits, were in lovely harmony with his preaching.

How needful for all workmen to ponder these things! We may depend upon it that very much of the shallowness of our work is the fruit of the shallowness of the workman. Where is the power? Where is the demonstration of the Spirit? Where is the "much assurance"? Is there not a terrible lack of these things in our preaching? There may be a vast amount of fluent talking; a great deal of so-called cleverness; and much that may tickle the ear, act on the imagination, awaken a temporary interest, and minister to mere curiosity. But oh! where is the holy unction, the living earnestness, the profound seriousness? And then the living exponent in the daily life and habits — where is this? May the Lord revive His work in the hearts of His workmen, and then we may look for more of the results of the work.

Do we mean to teach that the work of conversion depends upon the workman? Far away be the monstrous notion! The work depends wholly and absolutely on the power of the Holy Ghost, as the very chapter now lying open before us proves beyond all question. It must ever hold good, in every department and every stage of the work, that it is "not by might nor by power; but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."

But what kind of instrument does the Spirit ordinarily use? Is not this a weighty question for us workmen? What sort of vessels are "meet for the Master's use"? Empty vessels — clean vessels. Are we such? Are we emptied of ourselves? Are we cured of our deplorable self-occupation? Are we "clean"? Have we clean hands? Are our associations, our ways, our circumstances, clean? If not, how can the Master use us in His holy service? May we all have grace to weigh these questions in the divine presence! May the Lord stir us all up, and make us more and more vessels such as He can use for His glory!

We shall now proceed with our quotation. The whole passage is full of power. The character of the workman on the one hand, and of the work on the other, demands our most serious attention.

"And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that ye were ensamples [or models] to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you."

This was real work. It carried its own credentials with it. There was nothing vague or unsatisfactory about it — no occasion for any reserve in forming or expressing a judgement respecting it. It was clear, distinct, and unmistakable. It bore the stamp of the Master's hand, and carried conviction to every mind capable of weighing the evidence. The work of conversion was wrought, and the fruits of conversion followed in delightful profusion. The testimony went forth far and wide, so that the workman had no need to speak about his work. There was no occasion for him to reckon up and publish the number of conversions at Thessalonica. All was divinely real. It was a thorough work of God's Spirit as to which there could be no possible mistake, and about which it was superfluous to speak.

The apostle had simply preached the Word in the power of the Holy Ghost, in much assurance. There was nothing vague, nothing doubtful about his testimony. He preached as one who fully believed and thoroughly entered into what he was preaching about. It was not the mere fluent utterance of certain known and acknowledged truths — not the cut and dry statement of certain barren dogmas. No; it was the living outpouring of the glorious gospel of God, coming from a heart that felt profoundly every utterance, and falling upon hearts prepared by God's Spirit for its reception.

Such was the work at Thessalonica — a blessed divine work — all real, the genuine fruit of God's Spirit. It was no mere religious excitement, nothing sensational, no high pressure, no attempt to "get up a revival." All was beautifully calm. The workman, as we are told in Acts 17, "came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews; and as his manner was, he went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures" — Precious, powerful reasoning! would to God we had more of it in our midst! — "opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ."

How simple! Preaching Jesus out of the Scriptures! Yes, here lay the grand secret of Paul's preaching. He preached a living Person, in living power, on the authority of a living Word, and this preaching was received in living faith, and brought forth living fruit, in the lives of the converts. This is the preaching that God has ordained and uses. It is not sermonising, not religious talk, but the preaching of Christ by the Holy Ghost speaking through men who are themselves under the power of what they are preaching. God grant us more of this!

Part 4

The last two verses of our chapter (1 Thess. 1) demand our very special attention. They furnish a remarkable statement of the real nature of conversion. They show, very distinctly, the depth, clearness, fullness, and reality of the work of God's Spirit in those Thessalonian converts. There was no mistaking it. It carried its own credentials with it. It was no uncertain work. It did not call for any careful examination ere it could be accredited. It was a manifest, unmistakable work of God, the fruits of which were apparent to all. "They themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." (vers. 9-10)

Here, then, we have a divine definition of conversion — brief, but comprehensive. It is a turning from and a turning to. They turned from idols. There was a complete break with the past, a turning of the back, once and forever, on their former life and habits; a thorough surrender of all those objects that had ruled their hearts and commanded their energies.

Those dear Thessalonians were led to judge, in the light of divine truth, their whole previous course, and not only to judge it, but to abandon it unreservedly. It was no half-and-half work. There was nothing vague or equivocal about it. It was a marked epoch in their history — a grand turning-point in their moral and practical career. It was not a mere change of opinion, or the reception of a new set of principles, a certain alteration in their intellectual views. It was far more than any or all of these things. It was the solemn discovery that their whole past career had been one great, dark, monstrous lie. It was the real heart conviction of this. Divine light had broken in upon their souls, and in the power of that light they judged themselves and the entire of their previous history. There was an out-and-out surrender of that world which had hitherto ruled their hearts' affections; not a shred of it was to be spared.

And what, we may ask, produced this marvellous change? Simply the Word of God brought home to their souls in the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. We have referred to the inspired account of the apostle's visit to Thessalonica. We are told that "he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." He sought to bring their souls into direct contact with the living and eternal Word of God. There was no effort to act on their feelings and imagination. All this the blessed workman judged to be utterly valueless. He had no confidence whatever in it. His confidence was in the Word and Spirit of God. He assured the Thessalonians of this very thing in the most touching manner, in 1 Thess. 2: "For this cause," he says, "thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."

This is what we may call a vital and cardinal point. The Word of God, and that alone, in the mighty hand of the Holy Ghost, produced these grand results in the case of the Thessalonians, which filled the heart of the beloved apostle with unfeigned thanksgiving to God. He rejoiced that they were not linked on to him, but to the living God Himself, by means of His Word. This is an imperishable link. It is as enduring as the Word which forms it. The word of man is as perishable as himself; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever. The apostle, as a true workman, understood and felt all this, and hence his holy jealousy, in all his ministry, lest the souls to whom he preached should, in any way, lean upon him instead of on the One whose messenger and minister he was.

Hear what he says to the Corinthians: "And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, saving Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (1 Cor. 2: 1-5)

Here we have true ministry — "the testimony of God," and "the demonstration of the Spirit" — the Word and the Holy Ghost. Nothing else is of any value. All mere human influence, human power, and the results produced by human wisdom or energy, are perfectly worthless — yea, positively mischievous. The workman is puffed up by the apparent results of his work paraded and talked of, and the poor souls that are acted upon by this false influence are deceived, and led into an utterly false position and false profession. In a word, the whole thing is disastrous in the extreme.

Not so when the Word of God, in its mighty moral power, and the energy of the Holy Ghost, are brought to bear on the heart and conscience. Then it is we see divine results, as in the case of the Thessalonians. Then indeed it is made apparent, beyond all question, who is the workman. It is not Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, but God Himself, whose work accredits itself, and shall stand forever; all homage to His holy name! The apostle had no need to reckon up and publish the results of his work at Thessalonica, or rather God's work by his means. It spoke for itself. It was genuine. It bore, with unmistakable distinctness, the stamp of God upon it, and this was quite enough for Paul; and it is quite enough for every true-hearted, self-emptied workman. Paul preached the Word, and that Word was brought home, in the quickening energy of the Holy Ghost, to the hearts of the Thessalonians. It fell into good ground, took root, and brought fruit in abundance.

And let us mark the fruit. "Ye turned from idols." Here we have, in one word, the whole life of every unconverted man, woman, or child on the face of the earth. It is all wrapped up and presented to our view in the one expression, "idols." It is not by any means necessary to bow down to a stock or a stone in order to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol; the yielding of the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who so yields it is an idolater. Such is the plain, solemn truth in this matter, however unpalatable it may be to the proud human heart. Take that one great, crying, universal sin of "covetousness." What does the inspired apostle call it? He calls it "idolatry." How many hearts are commanded by money! How many worshipers bow down before the idol of gold! What is covetousness? Either a desire to get more, or the love of what we have. We have both forms in the New Testament. The Greek has a word to represent both. But whether it be the desire to grasp, or the desire to hoard, in either case it is idolatry.

And yet the two things may be very unlike in their outward development. The former, that is, the desire to get more, may often be found in connection with a readiness to spend; the latter, on the contrary, is generally linked with an intense spirit of hoarding. There, for example, is a man of great business capacity — a thorough commercial genius — in whose hand everything seems to prosper. He has a real zest for business, an unquenchable thirst for making money. His one object is to get more, to add thousand to thousand, to strengthen his commercial foundation, and enlarge his sphere. He lives, thrives, and revels in the atmosphere of commerce.

He started on his career with a few pence in his pocket, and he has risen to the proud position of a merchant prince. He is not a miser. He is as ready to scatter as to obtain. He fares sumptuously, entertains with a splendid hospitality, gives munificently to manifold public objects. He is looked up to and respected by all classes of society.

But he loves to get more. He is a covetous man — an idolater. True, he despises the poor miser who spends his nights over his money-bags, "holding strange communion with his gold"; delighting his heart and feasting his eyes with the very sight of the fascinating dust, refusing himself and his family the common necessaries of life; going about in rags and wretchedness, rather than spend a penny of the precious hoard; who loves money, not for what it can get or give, but simply for its own sake; who loves to accumulate, not that he may spend, but that he may hoard; whose one ruling desire is to die worth so much wretched dust — strange, contemptible desire!

Now these two are apparently very different, but they meet in one point; they stand on one common platform; they are both covetous, and they are both idolaters. [The two Greek words to which we have alluded in the text: are, (pleonexia — the desire to get more), and (philarguria — the love of money). Now it is the former that occurs in Col. 3: 5 — "Covetousness, which is idolatry"; and there it stands in the terrible category with some of the very vilest sins that stain the pages of human history.] This may sound harsh and severe, but it is the truth of God, and we must bow down before its holy authority. True it is that nothing is apparently more difficult to bring home to the conscience than the sin of covetousness — that very sin which the Holy Ghost declares to be idolatry. Thousands might see it in the case of the poor degraded miser, who nevertheless would be shocked by its application to a merchant prince.

It is one thing to see it in others, and quite another to judge it in ourselves. The fact is, that nothing but the light of the Word of God shining in upon the soul, and penetrating every chamber of our moral being, can enable us to detect the hateful sin of covetousness. The pursuit of gain — the desire to have more — the spirit of commerce — the ability to make money — the desire to get on — all this is so "highly esteemed amongst men," that very few, comparatively, are prepared to see that it is positively "an abomination in the sight of God." The natural heart is formed by the thoughts of men. It loves, adores and worships the objects that it finds in this world; and each heart has its own idol. One worships gold, another worships pleasure, another worships power. Every unconverted man is an idolater; and even converted men are not beyond the reach of idolatrous influences, as is evident from the warning note raised by the venerable apostle, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (1 John 5: 21)

Reader, will you permit us to put a plain, pointed question to you, ere we proceed further? Are you converted? Do you profess to be so? Do you take the ground of being a Christian? If so, have you turned from idols? Have you really broken with the world, and with your former self? Has the living Word of God entered your heart, and led you to judge the whole of your past life, whether it has been a life of gayety and thoughtless folly, a life of busy money-making, a life of abominable vice and wickedness, or a life of mere religious routine — Christless, faithless, worthless religion?

Say, how is it? Be thoroughly in earnest. Be assured there is an urgent demand for out-and-out earnestness in this matter. We cannot hide from you the fact that we are painfully conscious of the sad lack of thorough decision amongst us. We have not, with sufficient emphasis or distinctness, "turned from idols." Old habits are retained; former lusts and objects rule the heart. The temper, style, spirit and deportment do not bespeak conversion. We are sadly too like our former selves — too like the openly and confessedly worldly people around us.

All this is really terrible. We fear it is a sad hindrance to the progress of the gospel and the salvation of souls. The testimony falls powerless on the ears of those to whom we speak, because we do not seem as though we ourselves really believe what we are talking about. The apostle could not say to us, as he said to his dear Thessalonian converts, "From you sounded out the word of the Lord . . . so that we need not to speak anything." There is a want of depth, power and markedness in our conversion. The change is not sufficiently apparent. Even where there is a work, there is a tameness, feebleness and vagueness about it truly deplorable and discouraging.

Part 5

We are now called to consider what we may term the positive side of the great subject of conversion. We have seen that it is a turning from idols — a turning from all those objects which ruled our hearts and engaged our affections — the vanities and follies, the lusts and pleasures which made up the whole of our existence in the days of our darkness and blindness. It is, as we read in Acts 26: 18, a turning from darkness, and from the power of Satan; and, as we read in Gal. 1: 4, a turning from this present evil world.

But conversion is much more than all this. It would, in one sense, be but a poor thing if it were merely a turning "from sin, the world, and Satan." No doubt it is a signal mercy to be delivered, once and forever, from all the wretchedness and moral degradation of our former life; from the terrible thraldom of the god and prince of this world; from all the hollowness and vanity of a world that lieth in the arms of the wicked one; and from the love and practice of sin — the vile affections which once held sway over us. We cannot be too thankful for all that is included in this side of the question.

But, we repeat, there is very much more than this. The heart may feel disposed to inquire, "What have we gotten in lieu of all we have given up? Is Christianity merely a system of negations? If we have broken with the world and self — if we have given up our former pleasures and amusements — if, in short, we have turned our back upon what goes to make up life in this world, what have we instead?"

1 Thessalonians 1: 9 furnishes, in one word, the answer to all these inquiries — an answer full, clear, distinct, and comprehensive. it is — "Ye turned to God."

Precious answer! Yes, unspeakably precious to all who know aught of its meaning. What have I got instead of my former "idols"? God! Instead of this world's vain and sinful pleasures? God! Instead of its riches, honours, and distinctions? God! Oh, blessed, glorious, perfect Substitute! What had the prodigal instead of the rags of the far country? The best robe in the father's house! Instead of the swine's husks? The fatted calf of the father's providing! Instead of the degrading servitude of the far country? The father's welcome, his bosom, and his table!

Reader, is not this a blessed exchange? Have we not, in the familiar, but ever charming history of the prodigal a most touching and impressive illustration of true conversion in both its sides? May we not well exclaim, as we gaze on the inimitable picture, "What a conversion! What a turning from and turning to!" Who can utter it? What human tongue can adequately set forth the feelings of the returned wanderer when pressed to the father's bosom and bathed in the light and love of the father's house? The rags, the husks, the swine, the slavery, the cold selfishness, the destitution, the famine, the misery, the moral degradation — all gone, and gone forever; and instead thereof the ineffable delight of that bright and happy home, and, above all, the exquisite feeling that all that festive joy which surrounded him was wakened up by the very fact of his return — that it made the father glad to get him back!

But we shall, perhaps, be told that this is but a figure. Yes; but a figure of what? Of a precious, a divine reality; a figure of what takes place in every instance of true conversion, if only it be looked at from a heavenly standpoint. It is not a mere surrender of the world, with its thousand and one vanities and follies. It is this, no doubt; but it is very much more. It is being brought to God, brought home, brought to the Father's bosom, brought into the family; made — not in the language of a barren formulary, but in the power of the Spirit, and by the mighty action of the Word — a child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of the kingdom.

This, and nothing less, is conversion. Let the reader see that he thoroughly understands it. Let him not be satisfied with anything short of this grand reality — this turning from darkness to light, from the power of Satan, and from the worship of idols, to God. The Christian is, in one sense, as really brought to God now as if he were actually in Heaven. This may seem strong, but it is blessedly true. Hear what the apostle Peter says as to this point: "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to" — what? Heaven when we die? Nay; but "to bring us to God" now. So, also, in Rom. 5 we read, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life! And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation. "

This is an immense principle. It is not within the compass of human language to set forth all that is involved in being "turned," or "brought to God." Our adorable Lord Jesus Christ brings all who believe in His name into God's presence, in all His own perfect acceptability. They come in all the credit, and virtue, and value of the blood of Jesus, and in all the fragrance of His most excellent name. He brings us into the very same position with Himself. He links us with Himself, and shares with us all He has, and all He is, save His Deity, which is incommunicable. We are perfectly identified with Him.

"Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also." Again, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you."

So, also, in that marvellous prayer in John 17, we read, "I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them." "I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."

"And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me. Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me; for thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me. And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

Now it is utterly impossible to conceive anything higher or more blessed than this. To be so thoroughly identified with the Son of God, to be so wholly one with Him as to share in the very same love wherewith He is loved by the Father, to partake of His peace, His joy, His glory — all this involves the very highest possible measure and character of blessing with which any creature could be endowed. To be saved from the everlasting horrors of the pit of hell; to be pardoned, washed, and justified; to be reinstated in all that Adam lost; to be let into Heaven on any ground or in any character whatsoever, would be marvellous mercy, goodness, and loving-kindness; but to be brought to God in all the love and favour of His own beloved Son, to be intimately associated with Him in all His position before God — His acceptability now — His glory by and by — this, truly, is something which only the heart of God could think of, and only His mighty power accomplish.

Well, all this is involved in the conversion whereof we speak. Such is the magnificent grace of God, such the love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, enemies in our minds by wicked works, serving divers lusts and pleasures, worshipping idols, the blind, degraded slaves of sin and Satan, children of wrath, and going straight to hell.

And the best of it all is, that it both glorifies the name and gratifies the heart of God to bring us into this place of inconceivable blessedness, love, and glory. It would not satisfy the love of His heart to give us any lower place than that of His own Son. Well might the inspired apostle exclaim, in view of all this stupendous grace, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." (Eph. 1)

What depth of love, what fullness of blessing, have we here! It is the purpose of God to glorify Himself, throughout the countless ages of eternity, in His dealings with us. He will display, in view of all created intelligences, the riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us, by Christ Jesus. Our forgiveness, our justification, our perfect deliverance, our acceptance — all the blessings bestowed upon us in Christ — are for the display of the divine glory throughout the vast universe forever. It would not meet the claims of God's glory, or answer the affections of His heart, to have us in any other position but that of His own well-beloved and only begotten Son.

All this is marvellous. It seems too good to be true. But it is worthy of God, and it is His good pleasure so to act toward us. This is enough for us. It may be, and most assuredly is, too good for us to get, but it is not too good for God to give. He acts toward us according to the love of His heart, and on the ground of the worthiness of Christ. The prodigal might ask to be made as one of the hired servants, but this could not be. It would not be according to the Father's heart to have him in the house as a servant. It must be as a son or not at all. If it were a question of desert, we do not deserve the place of a servant any more than that of a son. But, blessed be God, it is not according to our deserts at all, but according to the boundless love of His heart, and to the glory of His holy name.

This, then, is conversion. Thus we are brought to God. Nothing short of this. We are not merely turned from our idols, whatever they were, but we are actually brought into the very presence of God, to find our delight in Him, to joy in Him, to walk with Him, to find all our springs in Him, to draw upon His exhaustless resources, to find in Him a perfect answer to all our necessities, so that our souls are satisfied, and that for ever.

Do we want to go back to the idols? Never! Have we any hankering after our former objects? Not if our hearts are realising our place and portion in Christ. Had the prodigal any longings after the husks and the swine when folded in the father's bosom, clothed in the father's house, and seated at the father's table? We do not, and cannot, believe it. We cannot imagine his heaving a single sigh after the far country when once he found himself within the hallowed circle of that bright and blissful home of love.

We speak according to the divine standard. Alas! many profess to be converted, and seem to go on for a season; but ere long they begin to grow cold, and get weary and dissatisfied. The work was not real. They were not really brought to God. Idols may have been given up for a time, but God Himself was never reached. They never found in Him a satisfying portion for their hearts — never knew the real meaning of communion with Him — never tasted heart-satisfaction, heart-rest, in Christ. Hence, in process of time, the poor heart began to long once more for the world, and back they went, and plunged into its follies and vanities with greater avidity than ever.

Such cases are very sad, very disappointing. They bring great reproach on the cause of Christ, and are used as a plea for the enemy, and as a stumbling-block for anxious inquirers. But they leave the question of divine conversion just where it was. The soul that is truly converted is one who has not merely been turned from this present evil world, and all its promises and pretensions, but who has been led by the precious ministry of the Holy Ghost to find in the living God, and in His Son Jesus Christ, all he can possibly want for time and eternity. Such an one has divinely done with the world. He has broken with it forever. He has had his eyes opened to see, through and through, the whole thing. He has judged it in the light of the presence of God. He has measured it by the standard of the cross of Christ. He has weighed it in the balances of the sanctuary, and turned his back upon it forever, to find an absorbing and a commanding object in the Person of that blessed One who was nailed to the accursed tree, in order to deliver him, not only from everlasting burnings, but also from this present evil world.

Part 6

The more we dwell on 1 Thess. 1: 9, the more we are struck with its marvellous depth, fullness, and power. It seems like sinking a shaft into an inexhaustible mine. We have dwelt a little on that very fruitful and suggestive clause, "Turned to God from idols." How much is wrapped up in it! Do we really understand the force and fullness of it? It is a wonderful thing for the soul to be brought to God — to know Him now as our resource in all our weakness and need — the spring of all our joys — our strength and shield — our Guide and Counselor — our all in all — to be absolutely and completely shut up to Him, wholly dependent upon Him.

Reader, do you know the deep blessedness of all this in your own soul? If you are a child of God, a truly converted soul, then it is your happy privilege to know it, and you ought not to be satisfied without it. If we are "turned to God," what is it for but to find in Him all we can possibly want for time and eternity? Nothing can ever satisfy the human soul but God Himself. It is not within the compass of earth to meet the cravings of the heart. If we had the wealth of the universe, and all that wealth could procure, the heart would still want more; there would still be an aching void which nothing under the sun could fill.

Look at the history of Solomon. Hear him recording his own experience. "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem; and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

"For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. I said in my heart, Go to, now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what doeth it? I sought in my heart to give myself to wine, yet acquainting my heart with wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits, I made me pools of water, to water there with the wood that bringeth forth trees. I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also, I had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were in Jerusalem before me. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also, my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." (Ecc. 1 — 2)

Such is the withering commentary upon all earth's resources as given by the pen of one who had all that earth could give — of one who was allowed to drain to the very dregs every cup of human and earthly pleasure. And what was it all? "Vanity and vexation of spirit." "All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." The poor human heart can never be satisfied with the resources of earth. Creature streams can never quench the thirst of the immortal soul. Material things cannot possibly make us truly happy, even if they were permanent. "All is vanity and vexation of spirit."

The truth of this must be proved by every human heart. Sooner or later all must find it out. Men may turn a deaf ear to it now; they may refuse to listen to the Spirit's warning voice; they may vainly imagine that this poor world can yield them substantial comfort and happiness; they may eagerly grasp at its riches, its honours, its distinctions, its pleasures, its material comforts; but they will find out their mistake. And oh, how dreadful to find it out too late! How terrible to open one's eyes in hell, like the rich man in the parable! What human language can set forth the horrors of a soul shut out forever from the presence of God, and consigned to outer darkness, to the place of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? It is overwhelming to think of it. What will it be to realize it? What will it be to find oneself in the tormenting flames of hell, at the other side of that impassable gulf where a single ray of hope can never break through the deep gloom of eternity?

Oh that men would think of all this in time! that they might flee from the wrath to come, and lay hold on the blessed hope set before them in the gospel; that they might "turn to God." But alas! the god of this world blinds their minds, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them. He engrosses them with present things — business, money-making, pleasures, cares, lusts, anything and everything but the one thing, in comparison with which all earthly things are but as the small dust of the balance.

But we have digressed from our special theme, to which we must return.

We are particularly anxious to press upon the Christian reader the immense importance of seeking to find all his resources in the living God. We have only for a moment turned aside from this point, in order to sound a warning note in the ear of any unconverted, careless one who may happen to take up this paper. We earnestly entreat the latter to turn to God. We entreat the former to seek a deeper acquaintance with the One to whom, by grace, he has turned. We have the two things before us in penning these papers on the great subject of "conversion." We can truly say, we long to see precious souls converted to God, and we long to see converted souls happy in God.

We are increasingly convinced of the practical importance of Christians proving in their daily life that they have found thorough rest of heart in God. It has immense weight with worldly people. It is a grand point gained when we are able, through grace, to tell the world that we are independent of it; and the only way to do this is to live in the abiding sense of what we have in God. This would impart a moral elevation to our entire course and character. It would deliver us completely from that strong tendency to lean on human props and to betake ourselves to creature streams which we have all more or less to lament, and which assuredly issue in disappointment to us and dishonour to God.

How prone we are on all occasions to look to our fellow-men for sympathy, succour and counsel instead of looking directly and exclusively to God! This is a serious mistake. It is in principle to forsake the Fountain of living waters, and hew out for ourselves broken cisterns which can hold no water. What can we expect? What must be the issue? Barrenness and desolation. Our God, in very faithfulness to us, will cause our fellow-man to fail us, in order that we may learn the folly of leaning upon an arm of flesh.

Hear what the prophet says on this great practical question: "Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited."

But mark the contrast. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." (Jer. 17)

Oh! reader, it is a grand reality to lean on the arm of the living God — to find in Him our relief and our resource at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. He never fails a trusting heart. He will never disappoint us. He may see fit to keep us waiting for an answer to our call, but the time we spend in waiting is well spent, and when the answer comes our hearts are filled with praise, and we are able to say, "Oh, how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men." (Ps. 31: 19)

It is a great thing to be able to trust God before the sons of men, to confess His sufficiency for our every exigency. But it must be a reality, and not mere profession. It is no use to talk of leaning on God while at the same time we are, in one way or another, looking to some poor mortal to help us. This is a sad delusion. But, alas! how often we fall under its power! We adopt the language of dependence upon God, but in reality we are looking to man, and letting him know our wants. We deceive ourselves and dishonour God and the end is disappointment and confusion of face.

Reader, let us look closely and honestly at this matter. Let us see to it that we understand the meaning of those precious words, "Turned to God." They contain the very essence of true happiness and true holiness. When the heart is really turned to God it has found the true, the divine secret of peace, rest and full satisfaction; it finds its all in God, and has no occasion whatever to turn to the creature. Am I in any perplexity? I can look to God for guidance. He has promised to guide me with His eye. What perfect guidance! Can man do better for me? Surely not. God sees the end from the beginning. He knows all the bearings, all the belongings, all the roots and issues of my case. He is an infallible guide. His wisdom is unerring, and, moreover, He loves me perfectly. Where could I find a better guide?

Am I in want? I can go to God about it. He is the Possessor of heaven and earth. The treasures of the universe are at His disposal. He can help me if He sees it to be good for me; and if not, the pressure will be much better for me than the relief. "My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus." Is not this enough? Why look to a creature stream? Why turn from such a God and go with our wants to a human being? It is in reality giving up, so far, the ground of faith, the life of simple dependence on God. It is actually dishonouring our Father.

If I apply to my fellow for help, it is tantamount to saying that God has failed me. It is really betraying my loving Father who has taken me up, body, soul, and spirit, to do for me for time and eternity. He has pledged Himself to provide for all my wants, be they ever so many, ever so great, ever so varied. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all things?"

But we sometimes hear people say that, the Lord has told them, or laid upon their hearts, to apply to some human resource. This is very questionable indeed. It is not at all likely that our God would ever lead us to forsake the fountain of living waters, and betake ourselves to some broken cistern. His Word is, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me."

True, God uses the creature to meet our need; but this is a totally different matter. The blessed apostle could say, "God who comforteth those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus." Paul was looking to God for comfort, and God sent Titus to comfort him. Had Paul been looking to Titus, he would have been disappointed.

Thus it is in every case. Our immediate and exclusive reference must be to God in all our need. "We have turned to God from idols," and hence in every exigency He is our sure resource. We can go to Him for counsel, for succour, for guidance, for sympathy, for all. "My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be moved."

Will this most blessed habit of looking only to God lead us to undervalue the channels through which His precious grace flows to us? The very reverse. How could I undervalue one who comes to me directly from God, as His manifest instrument, to meet my need? Impossible. But I value him as a channel, instead of applying to him as a source. This makes all the difference. We must never forget that true conversion means our being brought to God; and most surely, if we are brought to God, it is in order that we should find in Him a perfect covering for our eyes, a perfect object for the heart, a perfect resource in all our exigencies, from first to last. A truly converted soul is one who is turned from all creature confidences, human hopes, and earthly expectations, to find all he wants in the living and true God, and that forever.

Part 7

We are now called to consider a deeply practical point in our subject. It is contained in the clause, "To serve the living and true God." This is full of interest to every truly converted soul, every true Christian. We are called "to serve." Our whole life, from the moment of our conversion to the close of our earthly career, should be characterised by a spirit of true, earnest, intelligent service. This is our high privilege, not to say our hallowed duty. It matters not what our sphere of action may be, what our line of life, or what our calling; when we are converted, we have just got one thing to do, namely, to serve God. If there be anything in our calling which is contrary to the revealed will of God — contrary to the direct teaching of His Word — then we must at once abandon it, cost what it may. The very first step of an obedient servant is to step out of a false position.

Suppose for example the owner of a public house is converted to God. What is he to do? Can he go on with such a business? Can he abide in such a calling with God? Can he continue in the sale of that which entails ruin, misery, degradation, death and perdition on thousands and hundreds of thousands? Can he possibly serve the living and true God in the bar of a public house?

We cannot believe it. We may be deemed harsh, severe and narrow, in writing thus. We cannot help that. We must write what we believe to be the truth. We are persuaded that the very first act of a converted public house keeper should be to shut up his shop, and turn his back, with stern decision on such a Godless and horrible calling. To talk of serving God in such an occupation, is, in our judgement, a miserable delusion.

No doubt the same may be said about many other callings, and the reader may be disposed to ask, "What is a Christian supposed to do? How can he get on?" Our answer is simply this; We are called to serve God, and everything must be tried by this standard. The Christian has to ask himself this one question, "Can I fulfil the duties of this situation to the glory of God?" If not, he must abandon it. If we cannot connect the name of God with our calling in life, then, assuredly, if we want to walk with God, if we aim at serving Him, if it be our one desire to be found well-pleasing in His sight, then we must give up that calling and look to Him to open some path for us in which we can walk to His praise.

This He will do, blessed be His name. He never fails a trusting soul. All we have to do is to cleave to Him with purpose of heart, and He will make the way plain before us. It may seem difficult at first. The path may appear narrow, rough, lonely; but our simple business is to stand for God, and not to continue for one hour in connection with anything contrary to His revealed will. A tender conscience, a single eye, a devoted heart, will settle many a question, solve many a difficulty, remove many a barrier. Indeed, the very instincts of the divine nature, if only they be allowed to act, will guide in many a perplexity. "The light of the body is the eye; therefore, when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light."

When the purpose of the heart is true to Christ, true to His name and cause, true to the service of God, the Holy Spirit opens up the precious treasures of divine revelation to the soul, and pours a flood of living light upon the understanding, so that we see the path of service as clear as a sunbeam before us, and we have only got to tread it with a firm step.

But we must never, for one moment, lose sight of the grand fact that we are converted to the service of God. The outcome of the life which we possess must ever take the form of service to the living and true God. In our unconverted days we worshipped idols, and served divers lusts and pleasures; now, on the contrary, we worship God in the Spirit, and we are called to serve Him with all our ransomed powers. We have turned to God, to find in Him our perfect rest and satisfaction. There is not a single thing in the entire range of a creature's necessities, for time and eternity, that we cannot find in our own most gracious God and Father. He has treasured up in Christ, the Son of His love, all that can satisfy the desires of the new life in us. It is our privilege to have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, and to be so rooted and grounded in love as to be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Thus filled, satisfied, and strengthened, we are called to dedicate ourselves, spirit, soul, and body, to the service of Christ; to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We should have nothing else to do in this world. Whatever cannot be done as service to Christ ought not to be done at all. This simplifies the matter amazingly. It is our sweet privilege to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and to the glory of God. We sometimes hear people speak of "a secular calling," as contrasted with what is "sacred." We question the correctness of such a distinction. Paul made tents and planted churches, but in both he served the Lord Christ.

All that a Christian does ought to be sacred, because it is done as service to God. If this were borne in mind, it would enable us to connect the very simplest duties of daily life with the Lord Himself, and to bring Him into them in such a way as to impart a holy dignity and interest to all that we have to do, from morning till night. In this way, instead of finding the duties of our calling a hindrance to our communion with God, we should actually make them an occasion of waiting on Him for wisdom and grace to discharge them aright, so that His holy name might be glorified in the most minute details of practical life.

The fact is that the service of God is a much simpler matter than some of us imagine. It does not consist in doing some wonderful things beyond the bounds of our divinely appointed sphere of action. Take the case of a domestic servant. How can she serve the living and true God? She cannot go about visiting and talking. Her sphere of action lies in the shade and retirement of her master's house. Were she to run about from house to house, she would be actually neglecting her proper work, her divinely appointed business. Harken to the following sound and wholesome words: "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again: not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." (Titus 2: 9-10)

Here we see that the servant, by obedience, humility, and honesty can adorn the doctrine of God just as effectually, according to her measure, as an evangelist ranging the world over in the discharge of his high and holy commission.

Again, we read, "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." (Eph. 6)

How lovely is all this! What a fine field of service is opened up for us here! How beautiful this "fear and trembling"! Where do we see it nowadays? Where is the holy subjection to authority? Where the singleness of eye? Where the willing-hearted service? Alas! we see headiness and high-mindedness, self-will, self-pleasing, and self-interest. How must all these things dishonour the Lord, and grieve His Holy Spirit! How needful that our souls should be roused to a sense of what becomes us as those who are called to serve the living and true God! Is it not a signal mercy to every true Christian to know that he can serve and glorify God in the most commonplace domestic duties? If it were not so, what would become of ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians?

We have taken up the case of an ordinary domestic servant in order to illustrate that special line of practical truth now under our consideration. Is it not most blessed for us to know that our God graciously condescends to connect His name and His glory with the very humblest duties that can devolve upon us in our ordinary domestic life? It is this which imparts dignity, interest and freshness to every little act, from morning till night. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men." Here lies the precious secret of the whole matter. It is not working for wages, but serving the Lord Christ, and looking to Him to receive the reward of the inheritance.

Oh that all this were more fully realized and illustrated amongst us! What moral elevation it would give to the entire Christian life! What a triumphant answer it would furnish to the infidel! What a withering rebuke to all his sneers and cavils! Better by far than ten thousand learned arguments. There is no argument so forcible as an earnest, devoted, holy, happy, self-sacrificing Christian life, and this life can be displayed by one whose sphere of action is bounded by the four walls of a kitchen.

{It is remarkable that both in Eph. 6 and Col. 3 the address to servants is far more elaborate than to any of the other classes. In Titus 2 servants are specially singled out. There is no address to husbands, none to masters, none to children. We do not attempt to account for this, but we cannot help noticing it as a very interesting fact; and most assuredly it teaches us what a very important place is assigned in Christianity to one who, in those early days of the Church's history, occupied the place of a slave. The Holy Ghost took special pains to instruct such an one as to how he was to carry himself in his most trying sphere of work. The poor slave might think himself shut out from the service of God. So far from this, he is sweetly taught that by simply doing his duty as in the sight of God he could adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour, and bring glory to the name of Jesus. Nothing can exceed the grace that shines in this.}

And not only does the practical life of a true Christian afford the very best possible answer to the sceptic and the infidel, but it also meets in a most satisfactory manner the objections of those who talk about works, and insist upon putting Christians under the law, in order to teach them how to live. When people challenge us as to our not preaching up works, we simply ask them, "For what should we preach works?" The unconverted man cannot do any works, save "wicked works," or "dead works." "They that are in the flesh" — unconverted people — "cannot please God." Of what possible use can it be to preach works to such? It can only cast dust in their eyes, blind their minds, deceive their hearts, and send them down to hell with a lie in their right hand.

There must be a genuine conversion to God. This is a divine work from first to last. And what has the converted man got to do? He certainly has not to work for life, because he has it, even life eternal, as God's free gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not to work for salvation, because he is saved already — "saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." What, then, is he called to do? "To serve the living and true God." How? When? Where? In everything; at all times, and in all places. The converted man has nothing else to do but to serve God. If he does anything else, he is positively untrue, unfaithful to that blessed Lord and Master who, ere ever He called him to serve, endowed him with the life, and the grace, and the power, whereby alone the service can be rendered.

Yes, the Christian is called to serve. Let us never forget this. He is privileged to "present his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is his reasonable [his intelligent] service." This settles the whole question. It removes all difficulties; it silences all objections; it puts everything in its right place. It is not a question of what I am doing, but how I do it — not where I am, but how I conduct myself. Christianity as displayed in the New Testament is the outcome of the life of Christ in the believer; it is Christ reproduced in the Christian's daily life, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Everything the Christian touches, everything he does, everything he says, his whole practical life, from Lord's day morning till Saturday night, should bear the impress and breathe the spirit of that great practical clause on which we have been dwelling — "serving the living and true God." May it be so more and more! May all the Lord's beloved people, everywhere, be really stirred up to seek more earnest, out-and-out, whole-hearted devotedness to Christ and His precious service!

Part 8

The last words of our chapter — 1 Thess. 1 — now claim our attention. They furnish a very striking and forcible proof of the clearness, fullness, depth and comprehensiveness of the apostle's testimony at Thessalonica, and also of the brightness and reality of the work in the young converts in that place. It was not only that they turned from idols to God, to serve the living and true God. This, through grace, they did; and that, too, with uncommon power, freshness, and fervour.

But there was something more; and we may assert, with all possible confidence, that there would have been a grand defect in the conversion and in the Christianity of those beloved disciples if that had been lacking. They were converted "to wait for the Son of God from the heavens."

Let the reader give to this very weighty fact his most devout attention. The bright and blessed hope of the Lord's coming formed an integral part of the gospel which Paul preached, and of the Christianity of those who were converted by his ministry. That blessed servant preached a full gospel. He not only declared that the Son of God had come into the world to accomplish the great work of redemption, and lay the everlasting foundation of the divine glory and counsels, but that He had gone back to the heavens, and taken His seat as the victorious, exalted and glorified Man, at the right hand of the throne of God; and that He is coming again; first, to receive His people to Himself, and conduct them into the very innermost circle of His Father's house — the place prepared for them: and then to come forth with them, to execute judgement upon His enemies — gather out of His kingdom all that offend, and all that do iniquity, and set up His glorious dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

All this was included in the precious gospel which Paul preached, and which the Thessalonian converts received. We find an indirect but very interesting intimation of this in a passage in Acts 17, where the inspired writer records what the infidel Jews thought and said about the apostle's preaching. "But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus."

Such were the ideas which these poor, ignorant, prejudiced unbelievers gathered from the preaching of the Lord's beloved servants; and we can see in them the elements of great and solemn truths — the complete upturning of the present system of things, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." (Ezek. 21: 27)

But not only did the Lord's coming and kingdom occupy a prominent place in the preaching of the apostle, it also shines brilliantly forth in all his teaching. Not only were the Thessalonians converted to this blessed hope, they were built up, established, and led on in it. They were taught to live in the brightness of it every hour of the day. It was not a dry, barren dogma, to be received and held as part of a powerless, worthless creed; it was a living reality, a mighty moral power in the soul — a precious, purifying, sanctifying, elevating hope, detaching the heart completely from present things, and causing it to look out, moment by moment — yes, we repeat it with emphasis, moment by moment — for the return of our beloved Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who loved us, and gave Himself for us.

It is interesting to notice that in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians there is far more allusion to the Lord's coming than in all the other Epistles put together. This is all the more remarkable inasmuch as they were the very earliest of Paul's Epistles, and they were written to an assembly very young in the faith.

If the reader will just glance rapidly through these two most precious writings, he will find the hope of the Lord's return introduced in every one of the eight chapters, and in connection with all sorts of subjects. For example, in 1 Thess. 1 we have it presented as the grand object to be ever kept before the Christian's heart, let his position or his relationship be what it may — the brilliant light shining at the end of his long pilgrimage through this dark and toilsome world. "Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for" — what? The time of their death? No such thing, no allusion to such a thing. Death, for the believer, is abolished, and is never presented as the object of his hope. For what, then, were the Thessalonian disciples taught to wait? "For God's Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead."

And then mark the beauteous addition! "Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." This is the Person for whom we are waiting; our precious Saviour; our great Deliverer; the One who undertook our desperate case; who took, on our behalf, the cup of wrath from the hand of infinite Justice and exhausted it forever; who cleared the prospect of every cloud, so that we can gaze upward into Heaven, and onward into eternity, and see nothing but the brightness and blessedness of His own love and glory, as our happy home throughout the everlasting ages.

Oh, how blessed to be looking out, morning, noon, eventide, and midnight, for the coming of our gracious Deliverer! What a holy reality to be ever waiting for the return of our own loving and beloved Saviour and Lord! How separating and elevating, as we arise each morning to start on our daily course of duty — whatever that duty may be, whether the scrubbing of a floor or the preaching of the gospel — to cherish the bright and blessed hope that, ere the shades of evening gather round us, we may be summoned to ascend in the folds of the cloud of glory to meet our coming Lord!

Is this the dream of a wild fanatic or a visionary enthusiast? Nay, it is an imperishable truth, resting on the very same foundation that sustains the entire fabric of our most glorious Christianity. Is it true that the Son of God has trod this earth of ours in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? Is it true that He lived and laboured here, amid the sins and sorrows of poor, fallen humanity? Is it true that He sighed, and wept, and groaned, under the sense of the widespread desolation which sin had wrought in this world?

Is it true that He went to the cross, and there offered Himself without spot to God, in order to vindicate the Divine Majesty; to answer all the claims of the throne of God; to destroy all the works of the devil; to make a public show of all the powers of hell; to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; to bear the sins of all those who, from the beginning to the end of time, should, through grace, believe in His name?

Is it true that He lay for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and on the first day of the week rose triumphant from the grave, as the Head of the new creation, and ascended into the heavens, after He had been seen by at least five hundred witnesses?

Is it true that fifty days after His resurrection He sent down the Holy Ghost, in order to fill and fit His apostles to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth? Is it true that from the day of Pentecost to this very hour He has been acting on His people's behalf as an Advocate with the Father, a great High Priest with God; interceding for us in all our failures, sins, and shortcomings, and sympathising with us in all our infirmities and in all our sorrows; and presenting continually our sacrifices of prayer and praise, in all the fragrance of His own glorious Person?

Are all these things true? Yes, thank God, they are all divinely true, all set forth in the pages of the New Testament, with most marvellous fullness, clearness, depth, and power; all rest on the solid foundation of Holy Scripture — a foundation which not all the powers of earth and hell, men and devils, can ever touch.

Well, then, the blessed hope of the Lord's coming rests on precisely the same authority. It is not more true that our Lord Jesus Christ lay as a babe in a manger of Bethlehem, that He grew up to man's estate, that He went about doing good, that he was nailed to the cross and laid in the tomb, that He is now seated on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, than that He will come again to receive His people to Himself. He may come tonight. No one can tell when He will come, but at any moment He may come. The only thing that detains Him is His long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. For eighteen long centuries has He waited in lingering love, mercy, and compassion; and during all that time salvation has been ready to be revealed, and God has been ready to judge; but He has waited, and He still waits, in long-suffering grace and patience.

But He will come, and we should ever live in the hope of His coming. Thus the apostle taught his beloved Thessalonians to live. Thus he lived himself. The blessed hope was intimately bound up with all the habits and feelings of his daily life. Was it a question of reaping the fruit of his labours? Hear what he says: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown or rejoicing? Are not even ye, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at His coming?" He would see them all then and there. No enemy will be allowed to hinder that meeting.

"We would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us." Very wonderful! Very mysterious! Yet so it was. Satan hindered an angel of God in the discharge of his business in the days of Daniel; and he hindered an apostle of Christ in the accomplishment of his loving desire to see his brethren at Thessalonica. But, thanks be to God, he will not be able to hinder the joyful meeting of Christ and His saints for which we wait. What a moment that will be! What precious reunions! What sweet recognitions! What affectionate greetings of dear old friends! But, far above all, Himself! His smile! His welcome! His soul-stirring "Well done!"

What a precious, soul-sustaining hope! Need we wonder at the prominent place it occupied in the thoughts and the teachings of the blessed apostle? He recurs to it on all occasions, and in connection with every subject. Is it a question of progress in the divine life and practical godliness? Thus he puts it: "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you; to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."

Let the reader specially mark the last clause of this touching and beautiful quotation. "With all His saints." What admirable wisdom shines here! The apostle was about to touch directly upon an error into which the Thessalonian believers had fallen in reference to their departed friends. They feared that those who had fallen asleep would not participate in the joy of the Lord's coming. This error is completely demolished by that brief sentence, "with all His saints." Not one will be absent from that joyous meeting, that festive scene. Blessed assurance! Triumphant answer to all who would have us believe that none will share the joy of our Lord's coming save those who see this, that, and the other! "With all his saints," spite of their ignorance and their errors, their wanderings and their stumblings, their shortcomings and their failures. Our blessed Saviour, the everlasting Lover of our souls, will not shut any of us out at that blissful moment.

Is all this matchless grace to make us careless? God Forbid! Nay, it is the abiding sense of it which alone can keep us alive to our holy responsibility to judge everything in us and in our ways which is contrary to the mind of Christ. And not only so, but the hope of our Lord's return, if it be kept bright and fresh in the heart, must purify, sanctify and elevate our entire character and course as nothing else can. "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."

It is morally impossible for any one to live in the hope of seeing his Lord at any moment and yet have his heart set upon worldly things — upon money-making, self-indulgence, pleasure, vanity, folly. Let us not deceive ourselves. If we are daily looking out for the Son of God from Heaven, we must sit loose to the things of time and sense.

We may hold the doctrine of the Lord's coming as a mere dogma in the intellect; we may have the entire range of prophetic truth mapped out before our mind's eye, without its producing the smallest effect upon the heart, the character, or the practical life. But it is another thing altogether to have the whole moral being, the entire practical career, governed by the bright and blessed hope of seeing the One who loveth us and hath washed us from our sins in His own most precious blood.

Would there were more of this amongst us! It is to be feared that many of us have lost the freshness and power of our true and proper hope. The truth of the Lord's coming has become so familiar as a mere doctrine that we can flippantly speak of it, and discuss various points in connection with it, and argue with people about it, and all the while our ways, our deportment, our spirit and temper give the lie to what we profess to hold.

But we shall not pursue this sad and humbling side of the subject. May the Lord look upon us, and graciously heal, restore and lift up our souls! May He revive in the hearts of all His beloved people the proper Christian hope — the hope of seeing the bright and Morning Star. May the utterance of the whole heart and the utterance of the whole life be, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

Here we must close this paper. We had hoped to turn through the two Epistles to the Thessalonians in company with our readers, in order to prove and illustrate the statement that the hope of the Lord's return was bound up in the heart of the apostle, with all the scenes, circumstances, and associations of Christian life. But we must allow the reader to do this for himself. Sufficient, we trust, has been said to show that true conversion, according to apostolic teaching, cannot stop short of the blessed hope of the Lord's coming.

A truly converted person is one who has turned from idols — has broken with the world — broken with his former self — turned to God, to find in Him all he can possibly want for time and eternity, to serve Him, and Him only — and, finally, "to wait for the Son of God from heaven." Such we conceive to be the true and proper answer to the question, "What is conversion?"

Reader, art thou converted? If not, what then? If thou art, does thy life declare it?

STEM Publishing: C. H. Mackintosh: Decision for Christ.

Decision for Christ.

C. H. Mackintosh.

In approaching the subject of "Decision for Christ," there are two or three obstacles which lie in our way — two or three difficulties which hang around the question, which we would fain remove, if possible, in order that the reader may be able to view the matter on its own proper ground, and in its own proper bearings.

In the first place, we encounter a serious difficulty in the fact that very few of us, comparatively, are in a condition of soul to appreciate the subject, or to suffer a word of exhortation thereon. We are, for the most part, so occupied with the question of our soul's salvation — so taken up with matters affecting ourselves, our peace, our liberty, our comfort, our deliverance from the wrath to come, our interest in Christ, that we have but little heart for ought that purely concerns Christ Himself — His Name — His Person — His cause — His glory.

There are, we may say, two things which lie at the foundation of all true decision for Christ, namely, a conscience purged by the blood of Jesus, and a heart that bows with reverent submission to the authority of His word, in all things. Now we do not mean to dwell upon these things in this paper; first, because we are anxious to get, at once, to our immediate theme; and, secondly, because we have so often dwelt on the subject of establishing the conscience in the peace of the gospel, and in setting before the heart the paramount claims of the word of God. We merely refer to them here for the purpose of reminding the reader that they are absolutely essential materials in forming the basis of decision for Christ. If my conscience is ill at ease, if I am in doubt as to my salvation, if I am filled with "anxious thought" as to whether I am a child of God or not, decision for Christ is out of the question. I must know that Christ died for me, before I can, intelligently and happily, live for Him.

So also, if there be any reserve in the heart as to my entire subjection to the authority of Christ as my Lord and Master; if I am keeping some chamber of my heart, be it ever so remote, ever so small, closed against the light of His word, it must, of necessity, hinder my whole-hearted decision for Him in this world. In a word, I must know that Christ is mine and I am His, ere my course down here can be one of unswerving, uncompromising decision for Him. If the reader hesitates as to this, if he is still in doubt and darkness, let him pause, and turn directly to the cross of the Son of God, and hearken to what the Holy Spirit declares as to all those who simply put their trust therein. Let him drink into his inmost soul these words, "Be it known unto you, therefore, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Yes, reader, these are the glad tidings for you. "All from all," by faith in a crucified and risen Lord.

But we see another difficulty in the way of our subject. We greatly fear, that while we speak of decision for Christ, some of our readers may suppose that we are contending for some notion or set of notions of our own; that we are pressing some peculiar views or principles to which we vainly and foolishly venture to apply the imposing title of "Decision for Christ." All this we do most solemnly disclaim. The words which stand at the head of this paper are the simple expression of our thesis. We do not contend for mere attachment to sect, party, or denomination, for adherence to the doctrines or commandments of men. We write in the immediate presence of Him who searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men, and we distinctly avow that our one object is to urge upon the Christian reader the necessity of decision for Christ. We would not, if we know ourselves, pen a single line to swell the ranks of a party, or draw over adherents to any particular doctrinal creed, or any special form of church polity. We are impressed with the conviction that where Christ has His right place in the heart, all will be right; and that, where He has not, there will be nothing right. And, further, we believe that nothing but plain decision for Christ can effectually preserve the soul from the fatal influences that are at work around us in the professing Church. Mere orthodoxy cannot preserve us. Attachment to religious forms will not avail in the present fearful struggle. It is, we feel persuaded, a simple question of Christ as our life, and Christ as our object. May the Spirit of God now enable us to ponder aright the subject of "Decision for Christ!"

It is well to bear in mind that there are certain great truths — certain immutable principles — which underlie all the dispensations of God from age to age, and which remain untouched by all the failure, the folly, and the sin of man. It is on these great moral truths, these foundation principles, that faith lays hold, and in them finds its strength and its sustenance. Dispensations change and pass away — men prove unfaithful in their varied positions of stewardship and responsibility; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. It never changes, never fails. "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." And, again, "Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name." Nothing can touch the eternal truth of God, and, therefore, what we want, at all times, is to give that truth its proper place in our hearts; to let it act on our conscience, form our character, and shape our way. "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord." This is true security. Here lies the real secret of decision for Christ. What God has spoken must govern us in the most absolute manner, ere our path can be said to be one of plain decision. There may be tenacious adherence to our own notions, obstinate attachment to the prejudices of the age, a blind devotion to certain doctrines and practices resting on a traditional foundation, certain opinions which we have received to hold without ever enquiring as to whether or not there be any authority whatever for such opinions in holy scripture. There may be all this, and much more, and yet not one atom of genuine decision for Christ.

Now we feel we cannot do better than furnish our readers with an example or two drawn from the page of inspired history, which will do more to illustrate and enforce our theme than aught that we could possibly advance. And first, then, let us turn to the book of Esther, and there contemplate, for a few moments, the instructive history of

"MORDECAI THE JEW."

This very remarkable man lived at a time in which the Jewish economy had failed through the unfaithfulness and disobedience of the Jewish people. The Gentile was in power. The relationship between Jehovah and Israel could no longer be publicly acknowledged. The faithful Jew had but to hang his harp on the willows, and sigh over the faded light of other days. The chosen seed were in exile; the city and temple where their fathers worshipped were in ruins, and the vessels of the Lord's house were in a strange land. Such was the outward condition of things in the day in which Mordecai's lot was cast. But, in addition to this, there was a man, very near the throne, occupying only the second place in the empire, sitting beside the very fountain-head of authority, possessing princely wealth, and wielding almost boundless influence. To this great man, strange to say, the poor exiled Jew sternly refuses to bow. Nothing will induce him to yield a single mark of respect to the second man in the kingdom. He will save the life of Ahasuerus; but he will not bow to Haman.

Reader, why was this? Was this blind obstinacy or bold decision — which? In order to determine this we must enquire as to the real root or principle of Mordecai's acting. If, indeed, there was no authority for his conduct in the law of God, then must we at once pronounce it to have been blind obstinacy, foolish pride, or, it may be, envy of a man in power. But if, on the other hand, there be within the covers of the five inspired books of Moses, a plain authority for Mordecai's deportment in this matter, then must we, without hesitation, pronounce his conduct to have been the rare and exquisite fruit of attachment to the law of his God, and uncompromising decision for Him and His holy authority.

This makes all the difference. If it be merely a matter of private opinion — a question concerning which each one may lawfully adopt his own view — then, verily, might such a line of conduct be justly termed the most narrow-minded bigotry. We hear a great deal, now-a-days, about narrow-mindedness on the one hand, and large-heartedness on the other. But, as a Roman orator, over two thousand years ago, exclaimed in the senate-house of Rome, "Conscript Fathers, long since, indeed, we have lost the true names of things;" so may we, in the bosom of the professing Church, at the close of the nineteenth century, repeat, with far greater force, "Long since we have lost the true names of things." For what do men now call bigotry and narrow-mindedness? A faithful clinging to, and carrying out of, "Thus saith the Lord." And what do they designate large-heartedness? A readiness to sacrifice truth on the altar of politeness and civility.

Reader, be thou fully assured that thus it is at this solemn moment. We do not want to be sour or cynical, morose or gloomy. But we must speak the truth, if we are to speak at all. We desire that the tongue may be hushed in silence, and the pen may drop from the hand, if we could basely cushion the plain bold, unvarnished truth, through fear of scattering my readers, or to avoid the sneer of the infidel. We cannot shut our eyes to the solemn fact that God's truth is being trampled in the dust; that the Name of Jesus is despised and rejected. We have only to pass from city to city, and from town to town, of highly-favoured England, and read upon the walls the melancholy proofs of the truth of our assertions. Truth is flung aside, in cold contempt. The Name of Jesus is little set by. On the other hand, man is exalted, his reason deified, his will indulged. Where must all this end? "In the blackness of darkness for ever."

How refreshing, in the face of all this, to ponder the history of Mordecai the Jew! It is very plain that he knew little and cared less about the thoughts of men on the question of narrow-mindedness. He obeyed the word of the Lord, and this we must be allowed to call real breadth of mind — true largeness of heart. For what, after all, is a narrow mind? A narrow mind we hold to be a mind which refuses to open itself to admit the truth of God. And what, on the contrary, is a large and liberal heart? A heart expanded by the truth and grace of God. Let us not be scared away from the path of plain decision, by the scornful epithets which men have bestowed upon that path. It is a path of peace and purity, a path where the light of an approving conscience is enjoyed, and upon which the beams of divine favour ever pour themselves in undimmed lustre.

But why did Mordecai refuse to bow to Haman? Was there any great principle at stake? Was it merely a whim of his own? Had he a "Thus saith the Lord" for his warrant in refusing a single nod of the head to the proud Amalekite? Yes. Let us turn to the seventeenth chapter of the book of Exodus, and there we read, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi; for he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

[It is deeply interesting to note that neither the Jews' best Friend, nor their worst enemy is once formally named in the Book of Esther; but faith could recognize both the one and the other.]

Here, then, was Mordecai's authority for not bowing to Haman the Agagite. A faithful Jew could not do reverence to one with whom Jehovah was at war. The heart might plead a thousand excuses and urge a thousand reasons. It might seek an easy path for itself on the plea that the Jewish system was in ruins, and the Amalekite in power, and that therefore it was worse than useless, yea, it was positively absurd, to maintain such lofty ground when the glory of Israel was gone, and the Amalekite was in the place of authority. "Of what use," it might be argued, "can it be to hold up the standard when all is gone to pieces? You are only making your degradation more remarkable by the pertinacious refusal to bow your head. Would it not be better to give just one nod? That will settle the matter. Haman will be satisfied, and you and your people will be safe. Do not be obstinate. Show a tendency to be courteous. Do not stand up, in that dogged way, for a thing so manifestly non-essential. Besides, you should remember that the command in Exodus 17 was only to be rehearsed in the ears of Joshua, and only had its true application in his bright and palmy days. It was never meant for the ears of an exile, never intended to apply in the days of Israel's desolation."

All this, and much beside, might have been urged on Mordecai; but, ah! the answer was simple: "God hath spoken. This is enough for Me. True, we are a scattered people; but the word of the Lord is not scattered. He has not reversed His word about Amalek, nor entered into a treaty of peace with him. Jehovah and Amalek are still at war, and Amalek stands before me in the person of this haughty Agagite. How can I bow to one with whom Jehovah is at war? How can I do homage to a man whom the faithful Samuel would hew in pieces before the Lord?" "Well, then," it might be further urged upon this devoted Jew, "you will all be destroyed. You must either bow or perish." The answer is still most simple: "I have nothing to do with consequences. They are in the hand of God. Obedience is my path, the results are with Him. It is better to die with a good conscience than live with a bad one. It is better to go to heaven with an uncondemning heart, than remain upon earth with a heart that would make me a coward. God has spoken. I can do no otherwise. May the Lord help me! Amen."

Oh! how well we can understand the mode in which this faithful Jew would be assaulted by the enemy. Nothing but the grace of God can ever enable any one to maintain a deportment of unflinching decision, at a moment in which everything within and around is against us. True it is, we know that it is better to suffer anything than deny our Lord, or fly in the face of His commandments; but yet how little are some of us prepared to endure a single sneer, a single scornful look, a single contemptuous expression, for Christ's sake. And, perhaps, there are few things harder, for some of us at least, to bear than to be reproached on the ground of narrow-mindedness and bigotry. We naturally like to be thought large-hearted and liberal. We like to be accounted men of enlightened mind, sound judgement, and comprehensive grasp. But we must remember that we have no right to be liberal at our Master's expense. We have simply to obey.

Thus it was with Mordecai. He stood like a rock and allowed the whole tide of difficulty and opposition to roll over him. He would not bow to the Amalekite, let the consequence be what it might. Obedience was his path. The results were with God. And look at the result! In one moment, the tide was turned. The proud Amalekite fell from his lofty eminence, and the exiled Jew was lifted from his sackcloth and ashes and placed next the throne. Haman exchanged his wealth and dignities for a gallows; Mordecai exchanged his sackcloth for a royal robe.

Now it may not always happen that the reward of simple obedience will be as speedy and as signal as in Mordecai's case. And, moreover, we may say that we are not Mordecais, nor are we placed in his position. But the principle holds good whoever and wherever we are. There is not one of us, however obscure or insignificant, that has not a sphere within which our influence is felt for good or for evil. And, besides, independent altogether of our circumstances and the apparent results of our conduct, we are called upon to obey implicitly the word of the Lord — to have His word hidden in our hearts — to refuse, with unswerving decision, to do or to say aught that the word of the living God condemns. "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" This should be the language, whether it be the question of a child tempted to steal a lump of sugar, or the most momentous step in evil that one can be tempted to take. The strength and moral security of Mordecai's position lay in this fact, that he had the word of God for his authority. Had it not been so, his conduct would have been senseless in the extreme. To have refused the usual expression of respect to one in high authority, without some weighty reason, could only be regarded as the most unmeaning obstinacy. But the moment you introduce a "Thus saith the Lord," the matter is entirely changed. The word of the Lord endureth for ever. The divine testimonies do not fade away or change with the times and seasons. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle of what our God hath spoken shall never pass away. Hence, what had been rehearsed in the ears of Joshua, as he rested in triumph under the banner of Jehovah, was designed to govern the conduct of Mordecai, though clothed in sackcloth as an exile, in the city of Shushan. Ages and generations had passed away; the days of the Judges and the days of the Kings had run their course; but the commandment of the Lord with respect to Amalek had lost — could lose — none of its force. "The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek;" not merely in the days of Joshua, nor in the days of the Judges, nor in the days of the Kings, but "from generation to generation." Such was the record — the imperishable and immutable record of God, and such was the plain, solid and unquestionable foundation of Mordecai's conduct.

And here let us say a few words as to the immense importance of entire submission to the word of God. We live in a day which is plainly marked by strong self-will. Man's reason, man's will, and man's interest are working together, with appalling success to ignore the authority of holy scripture. So long as the statements of the word of God chime in with man's reason, so long as they do not run counter to His will, and are not subversive of his interests, so long he will tolerate them, or it may be he will quote them with a measure of respect, or, at least, with self-complacency; but the moment it becomes a question of Scripture versus reason, will, or interest, the former is either silently ignored or contemptuously rejected. This is a very marked and solemn feature of the days that are now passing over our heads. It behoves Christians to be aware of it, and to be on their watchtower. We fear that very few comparatively are truly alive to the real state of the moral atmosphere which enwraps the religious world. We do not refer here so much to the bold attacks of infidel writers. To these we have alluded elsewhere. What we have now before us is rather the cool indifference, on the part of professing Christians, as to scripture; the little power which pure truth wields over the conscience; the way in which the edge of scripture is blunted or turned aside. You quote passage after passage from the inspired Volume, but it seems like the pattering of rain upon the window; the reason is at work, the will is dominant, interest is at stake, human opinions bear sway, God's truth is practically, if not in so many words, set aside.

All this is deeply solemn. We know of few things more dangerous than intellectual familiarity with the letter of Scripture where the spirit of it does not govern the conscience, form the character, and shape the way. We want to tremble at the word of God, to bow down, in reverential submission, to its holy authority, in all things. A single line of scripture ought to be sufficient for our souls, on any point, even though, in carrying it out, we should have to move athwart the opinions of the highest and best of men. May the Lord raise up many faithful and true-hearted witnesses in these last days — men like the faithful Mordecai, who would rather ascend a gallows than bow to an Amalekite.

For the further illustration of our theme, we shall ask the reader to turn to the sixth chapter of the book of Daniel. There is a special charm and interest in the history of these living examples presented to us in the Holy Scriptures. They tell us how the truth of God was acted upon, in other days, by men of like passions with ourselves; they prove to us that in every age there have been men who so prized the truth, so reverenced the word of the living God, that they would rather face death, in its most appalling forms, than depart one hair's breadth from the narrow line laid down by the authoritative voice of their Lord and Master. It is healthful to be brought in contact with such men — healthful at all times, but peculiarly so in days like the present, when there is so much laxity and easy-going profession — so much of mere theory — when every one is allowed to go his own way, and hold his own opinion, provided always that he does not interfere with the opinions of his neighbour — when the commandments of God seem to have so little weight, so little power over the heart and conscience. Tradition will get a hearing; public opinion will be respected; anything and everything, in short, but the plain and positive statements of the word of God, will get a place in the thoughts and opinions of men. At such a time, it is we repeat, at once healthful and edifying to muse over the history of men like Mordecai the Jew, and Daniel the prophet, and scores of others, in whose estimation a single line of holy scripture rose far above all the thoughts of men, the decrees of governors, and the statutes of kings, and who declared plainly that they had nothing whatever to do with consequences where the word of the Lord was concerned. Absolute submission to the divine command is that which alone becomes the creature.

It is not, be it observed and well remembered, that any man or any number of men have any right to demand subjection to their decisions or decrees; this would be most strongly deprecated. No man has any right to enforce his opinions upon his fellow. This is plain enough, and we have to bless God for the inestimable privilege of civil and religious liberty, as enjoyed under the government of England. But what we urge upon our readers, just now, is plain decision for Christ, and implicit subjection to His authority, irrespective of everything, and regardless of consequences. This is what we do most earnestly desire for ourselves and for all the people of God, in these last days. We long for that condition of soul, that attitude of heart, that quality of conscience, which shall lead us to bow down in implicit subjection to the commandments of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. No doubt there are difficulties, stumbling blocks, and hostile influences to be encountered. It may be said, for instance, that "It is very difficult for one, now-a-days, to know what is really true and right. There are so many opinions and so many ways, and good men differ so in judgement about the simplest and plainest matters, and yet they all profess to own the Bible as the only standard of appeal; and, moreover, they all declare that their one desire is to do what is right, and to serve the Lord, in their day and generation. How, then, is one to know what is true or what is false, seeing that you will find the very best of men ranged on opposite sides of the same question?"

The answer to all this is very simple. "If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light." But most assuredly my eye is not single if I am looking at men, and reasoning on what I see in them. A single eye rests simply on the Lord and His word. Men differ, no doubt — they have differed, and they ever will differ; but I am to hearken to the voice of my Lord and do His will. His word is to be my light and my authority, the girdle of my loins in action, the strength of my heart in service, my only warrant for moving hither and thither, the stable foundation of all my ways. If I were to attempt to shape my way according to the thoughts of men, where should I be? How uncertain and unsatisfactory would my course be! Thank God, He has made it all plain — so plain that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein; and all I want is a single eye, a subject will, a teachable spirit, to be led aright. If I really want to be guided aright, my God will surely guide me; but if I am looking to men, if I am governed by mixed motives, if I am seeking my own ends and interests, if I am seeking to please my fellows, then, undoubtedly, my body shall be full of darkness, heavy clouds shall settle down upon my pathway, and uncertainty mark all my goings.

Christian reader, think of these things. Think deeply upon them. Depend upon it, they have a just claim upon your attention. Do you earnestly desire to follow your Lord? Do you really aim at something beyond mere empty profession, cold orthodoxy, or mechanical religiousness? Do you sigh for reality, depth, energy, fervour, and whole heartedness? Then make Christ your one object, His word your rule, His glory your aim. Oh! that thus it may be with the writer and the reader of these lines. Alas! alas! how we have failed in these things, God only knows. But, blessed be His Name, there is full forgiveness with Him, and He giveth more grace, so that we can count upon Him to restore our souls, to revive His work in our hearts, and grant us a closer walk with Him than we have ever known before. May the blessed Spirit be pleased to use for the furtherance of these ends our meditation on the interesting narrative of

"DANIEL THE PROPHET."

"It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three presidents, of whom Daniel was first; that the princes might give accounts unto them and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion or fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." (Dan. 6: 1-4)

What a testimony! How truly refreshing to the heart! "No error or fault!" Even his most bitter enemies could not put their finger upon a single blemish in his character, or a flaw in his practical career. Truly this was a rare and admirable character — a bright witness for the God of Israel, even in the dark days of the Babylonish captivity — an unanswerable proof of the fact that no matter where we are situated, or how we are circumstanced, no matter how unfavourable our position, or how dark the day in which our lot is cast, it is our happy privilege so to carry ourselves, in all the details of daily life, as to give no occasion to the enemy to speak reproachfully.

How sad when it is otherwise! How humiliating when those who make a high profession are found constantly breaking down in the most commonplace affairs of domestic and commercial life! There are few things which more tend to discourage the heart than to hear — as, alas! one so often does — that Christians, so-called, are the most unsatisfactory persons to have any dealings with — that they are bad masters, or bad servants, or bad tradesmen — that they do not attend to their business, that they charge higher prices and give worse value than those who make no profession at all. It is most deplorable when any just ground is afforded for such statements.

No doubt worldly people are only too ready to find occasion against those who profess the Name of Jesus; and, further, we have to remember that there are two sides to every question, and that, very frequently, a broad margin must be left for exaggeration, high colouring, and false impressions. But still, it is the Christian's plain duty so to walk in every position and relationship of life, as that "no error or fault" may be found in him. We should not make any excuses for ourselves. The duties of our situation, whatever it may happen to be, should be scrupulously performed. A careless manner, a slovenly habit, an unprincipled mode of acting, on the part of a Christian, is a serious damage to the cause of Christ, and a dishonour to His holy name. And, on the other hand, diligence, earnestness, punctuality, and fidelity, bring glory to that Name. And this should ever be the Christian's object. He should not aim at his own interest, his own reputation, or his own progress, in seeking to carry himself aright in his family and in his calling in life. True, it will promote his interest, establish his reputation, and further his progress, to be upright and diligent in all his ways; but none of these things should ever be his motive. He is to be ever and only governed by the one thing, namely, to please and honour his Lord and Master. The standard which the Holy Ghost has set before us, as to all these things, is furnished in the words of the epistle to the Philippians: "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world." We should not be satisfied with anything less than this. "They could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." Noble testimony! Would that it were more called forth, in this our day, by the deportment, the habits, the temper, and ways of all those who profess and call themselves Christians.

But there was one point in which Daniel's enemies felt they could lay hold of him. "Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Here was a something in the which occasion might be found to ruin this beloved and honoured servant of God. It appears that Daniel had been in the habit of praying three times a day, with his window open toward Jerusalem. This fact was well known, and was speedily laid hold of, and turned to account. "Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, king Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree."

Here, then, was a deep plot, a subtle snare, laid for the blameless and harmless Daniel. How would he act in the face of all this? Would he not feel it right to lower the standard? Well, if the standard were something of his own, he might surely lower it, and perhaps he ought. But if it were something divine — if his conduct were based upon the truth of God, then clearly it was his place to hold it up as high as ever, regardless of statutes, decrees, and writings established, signed, and countersigned. The whole question hinged upon this. Just as in the case of Mordecai the Jew, the question hinged upon the one point of whether he had any divine warrant for refusing to bow to Haman; so, in the case of Daniel the prophet, the question was, had he any divine authority for praying toward Jerusalem. It certainly seemed strange and odd. Many might have felt disposed to say to him, "Why persist in this practice? What need is there for opening your window and praying toward Jerusalem, in such a public manner? Can you not wait until night has drawn her sable curtain around you, and your closet door has shut you in, and then pour out your heart to your God? This would be prudent, judicious, and expedient. And, surely, your God does not exact this of you. He does not regard time, place, or attitude. All times and places are alike to Him. Are you wise — are you right, in persisting in such a line of action, under such circumstances? It was all well enough before this decree was signed, when you could pray when and as you thought right; but now it does seem like the most culpable fatuity and blind obstinacy to persevere; it is as though you really courted martyrdom."

All this, and much more we may easily conceive, might be suggested to the mind of the faithful Jew; but still the grand question remained, "What saith the scripture?" Was there any divine reason for Daniel's praying toward Jerusalem? Assuredly there was! In the first place, Jehovah had said to Solomon, in reference to the temple at Jerusalem, "Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually." Jerusalem was God's centre. It was, it is, and ever shall be. True, it was in ruins — the temple was in ruins; but God's word was not in ruins, and here is faith's simple but solid warrant. King Solomon had said, at the dedication of the temple, hundreds of years before Daniel's time, "If thy people sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captive unto a land far off or near. Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee, in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly; if they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captive, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name: then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling-place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee." (2 Chr. 6: 36-39)

Now this was precisely what Daniel was doing — this was the ground he took. He was a captive exile, but his heart was at Jerusalem, and his eyes followed his heart. If he could not sing the songs of Zion, he could at least breathe his prayers toward Zion's hill. If his harp was on the willows at Babylon, his fond affections turned toward the city of God, now a heap of ruins, but ere long to be an eternal excellency, the joy of the whole earth. It mattered not to him that a decree had been signed by earth's greatest monarch, forbidding him to pray toward the city of his fathers and to his fathers' God. It mattered not to him that the lions' den was yawning to receive him, and the lions' jaws ready to devour him. Like his brother Mordecai, he had nothing to do with consequences. Mordecai would rather mount the gallows than bow to Haman, and Daniel would rather descend to the lions' den than cease to pray to Jehovah. These, surely, were the worthies — the spiritual giants of other days. They were men of the right stamp — real, downright, thorough-going men — men whose hearts and consciences were governed absolutely by the word of God. The world may dub them bigots and fools; but, oh! how the heart does long for such bigots and fools, in these days of false liberality and wisdom!

It might have been said to Mordecai and Daniel that they were contending for mere trifles — for things wholly indifferent and non-essential. This is an argument often used; but, ah! it has no weight with an honest and a devoted heart. Indeed there is nothing more contemptible, in the judgement of every true lover of Jesus, than the principle that regulates the standard as to essentials and non-essentials. For, what is it? Simply this, "All that concerns my salvation is essential; all that merely affects the glory of Christ is nonessential." How terrible is this! Reader, dost thou not utterly abhor it? What! shall we accept salvation as the fruit of our Lord's death, and deem aught that concerns Him non-essential? God forbid. Yea; rather let us entirely reverse the matter, and regard all that concerns the honour and glory of the Name of Jesus, the truth of His word, and the integrity of His cause, as vital, essential, and fundamental; and all that merely concerns ourselves as non-essential and indifferent. May God grant us this mind! May nothing be deemed trivial by us which has for its foundation the word of the living God!

Thus it was with those devoted men whose history we have been glancing at. Mordecai would not bow his head, and Daniel would not close his window. Blessed men! The Lord be praised for such, and for the inspired record of their actings. Mordecai would rather surrender life than diverge from the truth of God, and Daniel would rather do the same than turn away from God's centre. Jehovah had said that He would have war with Amalek from generation to generation, and therefore Mordecai would not bow. Jehovah had said of Jerusalem, "Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually;" therefore Daniel would not cease to pray toward that blessed centre. The word of the Lord endureth for ever, and faith takes its stand on that imperishable foundation. There is an eternal freshness about every word that has come forth from the Lord. His truth holds good throughout all generations; its bloom can never be brushed away, its light can never fade, its edge can never be blunted. All praise be to His holy name!

But let us look, for a moment, at the result of Daniel's faithfulness. The king was plunged into the deepest grief when he discovered his mistake. "He was sore displeased with himself." So well he might. He had fallen into a snare; but Daniel was in good keeping. It was all right with him. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." It matters not whether it be a lion's den at Babylon or a prison at Philippi, faith and a good conscience can make a man happy in either. We question if Daniel ever spent a happier night on this earth, than the night which he spent in the lions' den. He was there for God, and God was there with him. He was there with an approving conscience and an uncondemning heart. He could look up from the very bottom of that den straight into heaven, yea, that den was heaven upon earth to his happy spirit. Who would not rather be Daniel in the den than Darius in the palace? The one, happy in God, the other "sore displeased with himself." Darius would have every one pray to him; Daniel would pray to none but God. Darius was bound by his own rash decree; Daniel was bound only by the word of the living God. What a contrast!

And then see in the end what signal honour was put upon Daniel. He stood publicly identified with the one living and true God. "O Daniel," cried the king, "servant of the living God." Truly he had earned this title for himself. He was, unquestionably, a devoted and decided servant of God. He had seen his three brethren cast into a furnace because they would worship only the true God, and he had been cast into the lions' den because he would pray only to Him; but the Lord had appeared for them and him, and given them a glorious triumph. He had allowed them to realize that precious promise made of old to their fathers, that they should be the head and their enemies the tail; that they should be above and their enemies below. Nothing could be more marked — nothing could more forcibly illustrate the value which God puts upon plain decision and true-hearted devotedness, no matter where, when, or by whom exhibited.

Oh! for an earnest heart in this day of lukewarmness! O Lord, revive thy work!

STEM Publishing: J. G. Bellett: Different Conversions.

Different Conversions.

J. G. Bellett.

It is sweet to inspect the way in which the light of God approaches and enters the soul. Sometimes it is gentle, sometimes it is full of force and rapidity; sometimes it intimates a work more fully on the heart; and sometimes a work more on the conscience or understanding. But it is always God's work, that we know, though the material operated upon may be various, and the mode of operation various.

Look at Acts 8: 9, 10. The Eunuch was evidently in the hand of God ere Philip met him – he was under the drawings of the Father (John 6: 44). And that his heart was deeply engaged is evident, because he forgot the common order, as I may say, of the world, when he bid Philip come up to him in his chariot. He waited for no introduction. The stranger was no stranger, since he referred to that subject which at that moment was everything to his heart. He was another Zaccheus, who forgot his place in society, and pressed through the crowd after Jesus.

Look at Saul. He was full of religious zeal – the zeal of an inquisitor. Look at Cornelius. He was full of religious devotion – gentle, benevolent, disposed (instead of persecuting others) to judge that all others were better than himself.

Here were different materials, and the mode of operation on them was different. The work was carried on in Saul's soul with characteristic force – that in Cornelius's with like gentleness and grace. But both of them equally needed Jesus. There was no life in either or for either, but through Jesus.

So the jailer and Lydia in Acts 16, Lydia was something of a female Cornelius. She was devout, and gentle, and gracious, and the Lord, by a very gentle operation, opened her heart. The jailer was a kind of Saul, at least in his apprenticeship; he was beginning to practise his hand in that work of persecution with which Saul had been long familiar. But as far as he had gone, he had learnt his art well, and the operation on him, like that on Saul of Tarsus, was in characteristic force. An earthquake accompanied the unlocking of the bars of his strong and iron heart, as "the still small voice" had done the business with Lydia's.

But again; neither the gentle Lydia nor the fiery jailer could do without Jesus. Till Lydia knew Jesus, Paul could teach her; but he did not worship with her, though she was a devout woman. (See vv. 13, 16).

May the souls of sinners be precious in our sight! and these witnesses of the grace of God, and of the power of the Spirit, be acceptable to our hearts.

STEM Publishing: Norman Anderson: "The Gospel of God"

"The Gospel of God"

Romans 1: 1 to 5: 2.

N. Anderson.

The Roman epistle is the epistle for the teaching of the gospel. It is the gospel of God. How wonderful it is that God has been pleased to speak to man in the way of glad tidings, for that is what gospel means. These glad tidings have a focal point. Coming as they do from the heart of God they focus our attention upon a real living Person. This immediately distinguishes the gospel from everything which makes a bid for the ears of men. It is "concerning His Son." The Son is quickly identified for us, being "Jesus Christ." As the Son of God is the theme of the gospel we may expect some unfolding of the love of God, and we later read that "God commendeth His love towards us." Who more able to make known the heart of God than the Son who has ever subsisted in the sweetness and love of eternal relationship?

"Jesus" is His personal name. Given to Him in His incarnation, bringing before us thoughts of His lowliness and humility; at the same time bespeaking His glory and grace, for JESUS means Jehovah the Saviour.

"Christ" is an official title. He is God's anointed Man. As such He shall give effect to the will of God by so establishing His righteousness that blessing might freely flow to those who deserve only eternal judgment. The gospel then concerns  "His Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

I wonder if we are all united in owning His as "our Lord"? Is He your Lord? Is He my Lord? Thank God, through grace I do truly say He is my Lord. Later in the epistle (Romans 10: 9) a well known verse — would to God its truth and power were as familiar as the words — "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Yes, saved, by the grace of God! The Saviour in His incarnation came of David's royal line. This made Him available to all that are of Israel, thus the note is sounded forth — "to the Jew first."

Then the declaration has been made that He is Son of God. We are not all of Israel but we are all, because of sin, under the power of death, hence the Son of God is available for all, and the declaration is to the effect that He is — "Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from (of) the dead."

How unlike the first man! Christ's life and ways were all marked by holiness as the first man had been marked by sin. Death is the king of terrors and defeats us all. The Son of God has again and again demonstrated His death-conquering power. For instance at the tomb of Lazarus — "Come forth, and he that was dead came forth."

We learn in Romans that death came in by sin, and we are now introduced to Him who is able to deliver from death because He has dealt with the sin question.

The gospel then concerns this One who has made known the love of God and has brought life in where death had reigned.

The gospel which thus presents Him brings before us the fact that man has been on trial for long centuries and has been proved guilty, helpless, hopeless, sinful wreck, absolutely incapable of extricating himself from the position in which sin had enslaved him, incapable too, of expiating his guilt. The law has come in and can only accuse and condemn, and no flesh is justified by the deeds of the law. This is the crowning conclusion of Romans 1 and 2 with the first half of Romans 3. Man is indicted before God, and the whole world is brought in guilty! Well, if we cannot deal with our guilt what is to be done? We can do nothing! The sooner we accept this the better for us. If anything needs to be done the only One who can do it is the One against whom we have sinned.

Thank God, there is in the gospel the revelation of righteousness of God. He has established His right to bless and justify those who, by sinning, had established their right to be forever damned. And He has done it on a righteous basis, and that the finished work of Christ on the cross. God has manifested His righteousness apart from the law and it is not by works but "by the faith of Jesus Christ," and it is "unto all" — this is the scope of the gospel. All have a common need for "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Truly "There is no difference." All are guilty before God. How large-hearted He is, His righteousness is "unto all." To the Jew who thought he was religiously near, and to the Gentile who was "afar off," whether he knew it or cared about it or not. But His righteousness is only "upon all them that believe."

This is the application of it. Only those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are in the benefit of the gospel. How blessed then is the fact that God has revealed His righteousness in the gospel. He has a right to judge us; what we have done by sinning against Him affords Him the right to banish us for ever. But wonder of wonders, He has established His right to bless us by what Christ has done. What we never could have done for ourselves in an eternity of endeavour God has done for us through that one act of sacrifice at the cross. The application of this through the gospel is to "him which believeth in Jesus." If then we have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Saviour we stand before God in righteousness; we are justified and have been cleared from every charge of sinning that could be levelled against us — indeed God Himself could not charge us for He has cleared us! In Romans 3 we learn on what ground God has done this. Let it be emphasised that we have not merited it, for "all have sinned."

This then is said of those who have believed the gospel, "Being justified freely" nothing to pay. Had we been asked to pay we should have been lost for ever. We read in the parable of the two debtors in Luke 7, "and when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both." It is all the free-giving of God — "by His grace."

But there was a price to be paid, however much beyond men. Jesus has paid it all — yes, "all to Him I owe." The matter of our guilt has been thoroughly dealt with, God has not closed His eyes to it, His grace which reaches out to justify the guilty does so on a stable, incontrovertible foundation, the righteous basis of Christ's finished work. So it is "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation (or, a Mercy Seat) through faith in His blood."

In the tabernacle in the wilderness the Mercy Seat was the throne of God. There His claims were met by the blood of sacrifice which was sprinkled upon and before the Mercy Seat. There was the righteous meeting place between God and the mediator of the Old Covenant, Moses. Christ, the Mercy Seat, is the meeting place now for God and the sinner. God has set Him forth in this way, "through faith in His blood."

His life has been given in sacrifice that the claims of God may be fully met and that men might be enabled to meet Him in righteousness. On this ground is God's righteousness in forgiving guilty sinners declared. "To declare His righteousness: for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

This teaches that every sin forgiven in Old Testament times was so, prospectively, in anticipation of the finished work of Christ; and  "at this time" refers to this present time since Christ was crucified. Those who now trust the Saviour are justified — made right with and by God who is righteous — right in everything He does. Christ's precious blood has opened a righteous way back to God for guilty sinners. Let us thank God for such amazing grace to the guilty and take our place with all who believe the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

NOV/DEC 1973

As we travel through this wonderful epistle we learn from Romans 4 that two examples are adduced by the Spirit of God to demonstrate the truth of justification by faith. Abraham, the father of all who believe, came to God in faith, and "his faith was counted for righteousness."

As to David, the second example, he was the fountain head of the kingdom; as Abraham was the fountain head of promise. David describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works. This, of course, is the great theme of this chapter — being made righteous before God without works, on the principle of faith alone. David said, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Abraham illustrates the blessing of "him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly."

He and David, both pillars in the history of God's earthly people, emphasise the blessedness of those who come to God pleading no merit of their own. We conclude then that a man is justified by faith without works at all, without law works or any other works. This is a divinely formed conclusion, taught in the Word of God, and exemplified by none less than these two figureheads in God's ways with Israel. God who puts righteousness to the account of the believer in Jesus will never put sin to his account. Again let it be most strenuously affirmed that man can of himself do nothing towards this blessing, all is of the sovereign mercy of God. Again in Romans 4, when Abraham had realised his incapability of implementing the promise of God he found strength in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Abraham accepted that when he could do nothing God would do everything, and that is just what he proved. Notice, God is able. We are utterly unable — God is completely able. This is where faith rests. There is this difference between Abraham and ourselves — he believed what God would do; we believe what God has done, for "we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

In the death of Jesus our sins have all been dealt with. He has borne them sacrificially, even as the apostle Peter elsewhere says, "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 24).

Let us then thank God, as we take account of our Lord Jesus Christ who went in death on our behalf at Calvary and is now out of death in resurrection, and gladly acknowledge that as Christ is absolutely clear from everything with which He had charged Himself in dying, so all who believe the gospel are as clear from every charge of guilt as He is, now risen from among the dead.

The blessed result of His death, the conclusion of the matter, for faith, is detailed in Romans 5.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We may now look back over our guilty past and say, "we have peace with God." As to present standing we say, by Him, "we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." As to the future, "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

How blessed is the confidence that we shall eventually be at home where all is suitable to the God who will bring us there. How marvellously He has wrought that we should delight to be there, and that He should delight to have us there. Thus as to the past — peace with God; as to the present — we stand in grace; as to the future — we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Praise be to God for having so acted towards us in gospel blessing. He has done so righteously, He has acted in perfect consistency with all that He is, for — "The work that Thine own Son has wrought, has brought us back in peace and free."

From this point in Romans 5, we progress in the knowledge of Himself. Verses 3 to 5 give us, in a sense, experience in circumstances of trial and contrariety — in other words, wilderness experience. What marks a wilderness is barrenness, no sustenance. In the spiritual counterpart of this the believer learns that there is no support for him in the world through which he passes. Yet, in the good of verses 1 and 2, he says, "and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also."

This obviously cuts across the natural course of things — "glory in tribulations"? Yes, because we know that tribulation is used to form us as we go through it in communion with God. The moral quality of "patience" (endurance) is acquired in the face of trial. We are morally strengthened to stand against the storm just as the tree bending to the wind strikes its roots deeper. This endurance works experience, for we are brought to the conscious knowledge of the faithfulness and support of God. We learn to distrust ourselves, for we are just as incapable of sustaining ourselves in the path of faith as we were of justifying ourselves. So we learn God when things are seemingly against us. Blessed experience that gives us to trust Him unreservedly!

And experience works Hope. This makes the light of the coming glory shine more brightly before us, cheering us on our heavenly way, detaching us more distinctly from the world and conforming us more to God's world. While being helped through the circumstances of this godless world we keep the goal in view, looking forward to those circumstances of glory which shall be ours with our blessed Lord where He is. Praise God, there is an end to the tribulation and the testing, but may we learn the lessons that God would teach us in it. There certainly is spiritual and moral gain for us now, for as we read later in the epistle, "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose."

"And hope maketh not ashamed" — it is certain of realisation. While we hope, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." While hope looks to the future we now have that which is a pledge of all that God has given and promised. The Spirit, by His poser, gives us the consciousness of the love of God. We are enabled now to know and enjoy that which shall be our eternal portion. This is language applicable to all who form the Christian company — "the Holy Ghost which is given to us."

May we then go in for the knowledge of God, the enjoyment of the love of God as expressed in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." The cross is the lesson book of the love of God! Verses 7 and 8 definitely contrast the love of God with the love of man to man, "but God commendeth His love toward us."

For sinners — the unworthy, the undeserving — indeed those deserving only of eternal wrath, for such Christ died! Let us ever remember that the full expression of the love of God was in Christ's death. Blessed as our enjoyment of God's love is, our enjoyment, ebbing and flowing as it is, is not the measure of the love of God. The Scripture ever directs us to look out from ourselves to that which perfectly displayed the love of God — the death of Christ.

So while we were neither righteous nor good, while we were yet sinners, God gave Christ to die for us and we can now most surely say, "much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." He gave his life for those who by sin had forfeited their right to live and this being so judgment will never touch those who believe. Then, too, "if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by (in the power of) His life." That is to say, present, day to day, practical salvation through every pressure and trial of the way, is assured to us because Christ lives in the power of an endless life at the right hand of God. He administers to us all that we need to lead us triumphantly through this life of responsibility and experience. We shall be saved, all the way by Him. This is a touch on the priestly service of our Lord Jesus Christ in His ministry of succour, sympathy, and salvation toward His own until they join Him where there is no care nor testing.

We come now to the last verse of this first section of the Epistle to the Romans — "And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement (the reconciliation)." As reconciled to God all distance is gone, no hatred remaining, all enmity has been slain in the cross of Christ, we are brought near to God:

"So near, so very near to God,

We could not nearer be;

For in the Person of the Son,

We are as near as He."

How wonderful these results of the gracious operation of God! We find our joy in God — the God against whom we had sinned, whose judgment we had justly incurred, the God who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, the God who has blessed us for ever, the God who will surely set us in glory with Christ, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — we joy in Him. Our hearts rise to Him giving Him His worthy praise. We worship Him in the power of the Spirit of God whom He has given to us. This is the peak of the epistle, for God has blessed men who once were at a distance from Him and they, now brought near, praise, worship and adore!

Let us praise Him again and again for His grace in which He has abounded toward us in "the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

STEM Publishing : Edward Dennett : Fundamental Truths of Salvation

Fundamental Truths of Salvation

Edward Dennett

Preface

The following pages are designed to meet the need of those who have been awakened and quickened by the Spirit of God; and therefore the writer has sought to explain "the way of salvation" as simply and as clearly as possible. On this account he has not been anxious to avoid repetition, if in this way he could succeed in simplifying his subject. But he has not been satisfied alone with directing the soul to "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world"; but, as the table of contents will show, has added instruction upon some of the fundamental teachings of the Scriptures — such elementary instruction as is needful for babes in Christ. It may occur to some that other subjects might have been included. The writer also thought so; but upon further consideration was led to judge otherwise, especially as there are numbers of books already in existence which deal with more advanced truth.

His desire is, that those who read these pages may compare every statement made with the Scriptures; and that while reading they may be enabled by the Spirit of God to "receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save their souls" (James 1: 21); and it is his prayer, that the Lord may condescend to use them for His own glory, for without His blessing it will have been written, and will be read, in vain.

E. Dennett, Blackheath, December, 1875.

Contents

Chapter 1  Soul-Anxiety

Chapter 2  Man's State Before God

Chapter 3  The Blood of Christ

Chapter 4  Ye Must be Born Again

Chapter 5  Peace With God

Chapter 6  "What Must I do to be Saved?"

Chapter 7  Difficulties

Chapter 8  Deliverance

Chapter 9  The Indwelling Spirit

Chapter 10  Standing and Responsibility

Chapter 11  The Coming of the Lord

Chapter 12  The Judgment

Chapter 1  Soul-Anxiety

WE desire in these pages to meet the need of those who have been awakened out of the torpor of spiritual death, and whose chief concern is to know how to obtain peace with God. Their state may be best described as one of soul-anxiety. There are always numbers in this condition, and especially now, when the gospel of the grace of God is so widely preached on every hand. It is not only those who are so wrought upon as to be compelled to cry, "What must we do to be saved?" but there are many others also who, under an outwardly calm and placid demeanour, hide severe distress of soul. The depth and intensity of feeling will vary in different people and under different circumstances. With some it will be anxiety, and nothing more; with others there will be a real distress of mind and heart; while in other cases there will be positive anguish of soul. But whatever the depth of the feeling — be it more or less — if there be any conviction of alienation from or guilt before God; if there be any sorrow for sin, together with even but the faintest desire for pardon and reconciliation with God; if, in other words, there be any bowing before God in the place of self-judgment, there is that real spiritual anxiety of which we speak; for such a state of mind can only be produced by the Spirit of God.

The instrumentality employed to bring about this state of soul is, in one form or another, the word of God. This may not be always apparent; for sometimes a hymn, sometimes a simple question from another, sometimes the recollection of a prayer, sometimes the appeal of a preacher of the gospel, may be used as the arrow of conviction; but in all these cases it is really the word of God, embodied in these several forms, which the Holy Spirit wields to awaken the careless soul. His own word is, as far as we know, the only weapon which God uses for this end; for He is pleased "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1: 21); and hence the apostle says, "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1: 23, 24).

Several illustrations of this may be collected from the Acts of the Apostles. On the day of Pentecost we find Peter presenting, in preaching, Christ crucified, risen, and exalted, and charging his hearers with the sin of rejecting and crucifying Him whom God had raised from the dead. "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men [and] brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2: 36, 37). The apostle Paul was humbled at the feet of the Saviour in a special and extraordinary way; but it was also by the presentation of Christ, though in revelation, and not in the preaching of the word. Take the case also of Felix. We are told that when the apostle reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled; and though the effect in this instance seems to have been but transient, it yet shows us the power of the word of God over the soul. The Philippian jailer might seem at first sight to be an exception to the rule; but there can be little doubt that the supernatural occurrences of that eventful night, when Paul and Silas were in his charge and custody, were but the occasion of his soul-distress — the means of fastening upon his heart and conscience the gospel message which he must have previously heard. It is often so now. Sudden sickness or danger, bringing an immediate prospect of death, will frequently give effect, under the power of the Spirit, to the previously unheeded and neglected messages and warnings of the gospel; and, filling the souls of men with guilty fears, with apprehensions of God's wrath against them, will constrain them to cry aloud for mercy.

Wherever therefore we see soul-anxiety — that soul-anxiety of which we have spoken — we may be sure that it has been wrought by the Holy Spirit through the word of God. And it is to those that are the subjects of this anxiety that we desire to speak. Beloved reader, are you in this condition of concern for salvation? Have you been convicted of sin, and is it the desire of your soul to know the way of peace with God? If such is your state, beware of turning a deaf ear to the voice of the Spirit of God, of trifling with, or seeking to hush or to drown the convictions which He has wrought. Beware also, we entreat you, of delay. God is striving in grace with you. For you, therefore, it is especially true, that "now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6: 2). Beware, too, of healing the wounds of your soul with other remedies than those of the gospel, lest you be led to cry "Peace" when there is no peace. Your case is full of hope. For He who has awakened your desires after salvation sends this message to you, "Be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5: 20); and His own word says, that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Let me then beseech you, as before God, to read, both carefully and prayerfully, the ensuing pages, that you may learn the way of salvation as revealed in the Scriptures. And may God Himself teach you, and guide you into peace, through believing in Christ!

Chapter 2  Man's State Before God

THE very first thing that anxious souls need to learn is their place and condition before God; i.e., to understand in what light they are regarded by God Himself. For as long as they continue deceived and ignorant of their own condition, so long will they be unwilling to be saved by God's grace. Hence, until they apprehend and receive His testimony about themselves, they will not receive His testimony about His Son. For the gospel is for sinners, and therefore can only be proclaimed to sinners. I would press this point very earnestly upon all who are the subjects of soul anxiety; for many are kept for months, and even years, in doubt and distress, because they search their own hearts, instead of God's word, to ascertain their real condition, and because therefore they never take the place before God which He assigns to them. "The heart is deceitful above all things" (Jer. 17: 9); but God's word is truth (John 17: 17); and hence it is to it alone that we must appeal.

What then is God's testimony concerning you — concerning all men? Be prepared for the worst. It is, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5: 12). Again, "There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one," etc. (Rom. 3: 10-19). Once more, "There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (vv. 22, 23). "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin" (Gal. 3: 22). Such is the testimony of the Scriptures, according to which all men are sinners before God. Do you accept it as true of yourself?

I do not ask if you assent to it in a general way; for many will do this who will yet seek, by comparison with others, either to excuse themselves or to draw conclusions to their own advantage. The point is this, God places all men on the same footing before Him; He declares that all are sinners; that there is no question with Him of degrees of sinfulness or of guilt, but that there is no difference; that all, whatever their station, character, or repute, are sinners, sinners without excuse, without a single ground of hope in themselves, inasmuch as all lie under the same condemnation; for death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6: 23). Again I ask you, Do you accept this testimony of God as true of yourself? Do you bow in self-judgment before God, acknowledging that you are a sinner under His just judgment against sin?

If you do not, then I entreat you to pause and consider the hopelessness of your case; for the Lord Jesus Himself said, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9: 13). There is therefore no Christ, no Saviour, except for sinners; and hence, as long as you hesitate or refuse to take the lost sinner's place, you are out, side the pale of God's grace and mercy in the gospel. But if you do accept the testimony of the Scriptures as. to your state, we can then tell of One who "bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 24); "who was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities" (Isa. 53: 5); of One "whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood" (Rom. 3: 25); of Him, indeed, who has taken the sinner's place, borne the sinner's judgment, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life (2 Cor. 5: 21; John 3: 26).

But the whole truth has not yet been told. It is not only that you are sinners, but the Scriptures teach also that all who are unsaved are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2: 1). The Lord Jesus thus says that the believer "is passed from death unto life" (John 5: 24), showing plainly that the previous condition of the believer was death, spiritual death. The sinner therefore is both under the condemnation of sin, and is dead in sins. It is not meant of course that he has no life at all; for it is very palpable that he has physical life. But what is asserted is, that through sin the sinner is separated from God, cut off from the source of life (for God is the Fountain of life), and consequently that the sinner is in a state of spiritual death, having no life, and no power of life towards God. The whole dealings of God with men, from Israel downwards, do but prove the truth of His word; and hence I have to ask you again, Do you accept this further testimony concerning yourself?

Beloved reader, you will never know the hopelessness of your condition until you subscribe also to this verdict. Men say, "While there is life there is hope." How often have such words sustained the hearts of those who have been watching by the bedside of a sick relative. Hoping against hope, they refused to believe that the end was near, and not until the last beat of the pulse, together with the last breath, would they believe that they stood in the presence of death. So also is it oftentimes with sinners; yea, even with awakened and anxious souls. They may not doubt that they are sinners, and sinners under judgment; but they cannot believe that their case is hopeless, that they have no power of life within themselves, no power of recovery, restoration, and hence they will not take the place of being utterly undone, lost, "dead in trespasses and sins." Ah! thereby they effectually shut themselves out from blessing, and turn back, it may be, to years of weary wanderings and conflicts because they believed their own hearts (and he that trusteth his own heart is a fool — Prov. 28: 26) rather than God. But we should resolutely close our eyes against everything but the testimony of the Scriptures; for it is not what I think, feel, or believe, but what God declares, that determines my condition in His sight. He is the sole Judge; and hence, if He tells the sinner that he is dead in trespasses and sins, it is incumbent upon the sinner to acknowledge that God is true though every man be a liar (Rom. 3: 4).

Do you then now believe that having no life you have no hope? If not, accept God's verdict at once; for as soon as you take the sinner's place, owning the truth of God's word about you, confessing that you are under the just judgment of sin, so soon are you in the place of blessing; the place in which God, in all His infinite grace, can meet you; the place in which you can claim the sinner's Saviour. Bow therefore before God at once, and receive the unspeakable gift of His love — His own Son, as your Saviour, Redeemer, and Lord.

Chapter 3  The Blood of Christ

SUPPOSING now that those of whom we speak — 'anxious ones' — have bowed to the judgment of God upon their condition, their immediate concern will be to know by what means they can obtain the pardon of their sins. The blood of Christ is the only way by which the guilt of sin can be removed. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9: 22). Herein lies the necessity for the death of Christ; the need, in fact, for the whole work of redemption. And hence it is of the first importance that this truth should be rightly understood.

We have already pointed out that death has "passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5: 12). Adam first incurred the penalty through his disobedience to God. He had been warned not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2: 16, 17). Adam disregarded the divine command, and fell under the awful sentence of death — the penalty which God had annexed to disobedience. Thus "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5: 12). There is therefore no difference; all alike are sinners; and hence every child of Adam's race is subject to the penalty of sin, which is death. Yea, death already reigns (see Rom. 5: 13-21) over the whole human family: every individual member of it (saving those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ) being under the righteous judgment of death, because of sin. "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5: 8). He "so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Being rich in mercy, He sent His own Son to die, "the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18). Just as when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to be offered up in his stead, that Isaac might be rescued and live (Gen. 22), so God has provided a Lamb to be offered up in the sinner's room and stead" — the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29). This is the secret and meaning, in this aspect, of the death of Christ. He died as the sinner's substitute, bore the sinner's judgment, expiated the sinner's guilt.

The marvelous efficacy of the blood of Christ, as meeting the sinner's need, flows from the character of His person and the nature of His death. His blood is the symbol of His death, of His life poured out; for the life is in the blood (see Lev. 17: 10-14), and hence His blood cleanses from sin, because of the value of His death before God in the sinner's place and behalf. God has condescended to teach us this by type and illustration, as well as by direct statement. Look at the Israelites in the land of Egypt on the passover night. God was about to execute judgment upon the land of Egypt; and when once He began to deal in righteousness, Israel was as much amenable to the penalty of sin as the Egyptians. How then spare the former when the latter were to be judged? "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt" (Ex. 12: 12, 13; also vv. 21-23). The only ground (mark it well) of difference on this night between Israel and Egypt was THE BLOOD. It was not what Israel was in comparison with the Egyptians, but it was the blood that stayed the destroyer's hand — the blood on the outside of their houses; for the Lord had said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you. The blood of the lamb — for the lamb had been slain — cleansed them typically from guilt, so that God could righteously spare Israel while He righteously destroyed Egypt. The same lesson is taught by the great day of atonement, of which we have the record in Leviticus 16. For Aaron was directed to sprinkle the blood of the bullock, and of the goat of the sin-offerings, both upon the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat, where God dwelt between the cherubim; "for on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord" (Lev. 16: 30). All these things were but shadows of the efficacy of the blood of Christ. Thus we read: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. 5: 7); and again, "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, 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?" (Heb. 9: 12-14). Accordingly we are taught, that "the blood of Jesus Christ His (God's) Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1: 7).

We may, then, now point out distinctly the teaching of Scripture as to the blood of Christ in relation to sin.

1. It is the only means of cleansing from guilt. This is the divinely appointed and the divinely given way. It is therefore exclusive of all other methods. "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God" (Jer. 2: 22). "If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me" (Job 9: 30, 31). It is only the blood of Christ which can make the sinner whiter than snow.

2. It is the blood in and by itself alone which possesses this efficacy. There cannot be any addition to it. It is not the blood and something else. Add to it in any way, whether by feelings, prayers, penitence (all of which have their proper place), and you mar its cleansing power.

3. God has provided the blood. It is He who has delivered up His Son to death. This provision for the sinner's need is one therefore entirely of God's grace, and consequently a provision outside of the sinner altogether. God in His infinite mercy, and because He so loved the world, provided the Lamb for the sacrifice; and now the precious blood of that Lamb avails for every one who believes (John 3: 16). There is no limit whatever in its application, excepting in the sinner's unbelief. It is provided for all, and everyone may be the subject of its blessed cleansing power through faith.

Beloved reader, you have confessed your need of cleansing, and God has provided that which alone can meet your need. Do you ask, But how am I to obtain the application of the blood to myself? Solely and entirely by the obedience of faith. Let us go back to the Passover night (Ex. 12). It was not enough that the lamb was slain, and that the blood was in the basin; but the Israelite was directed to sprinkle the blood for himself upon the lintel and the two side-posts of his door. With the bunch of hyssop in his hand, the sign of his humiliation before the righteous judgment of God, he sprinkled the blood, thereby confessing his own desert of death, and his faith in the blood as the means to avert the stroke of the destroyer, of sheltering him from the wrath of the Righteous Judge. So now. The Lamb has been provided, and slain; His blood has been shed. But the fact of His blood-shedding does not secure your safety. The question is, Are you under the shelter of the blood? Do you again ask, How can this be? By bowing in humiliation, like the Israelite, before the judgment which God has pronounced against sin; that is, by taking the place of a sinner, and by looking to the blood of Christ to secure you from the righteous doom and meed of sin. The moment you do this, the blood of Christ is upon you in all its value, between you and judgment, sheltering you completely and for ever from the consequences of sin; for the blood has met and satisfied all the claims that a holy God had against you. For God hath set forth Christ a propitiation through faith in His blood (Rom. 3: 25). There is therefore absolutely nothing for you to do; not even have you to gather the hyssop and sprinkle the blood. You have simply to believe the word of God, to look in faith to the blood already shed, as the only means of protection from death and judgment, and God instantly sees you as covered with all its efficacy and value — cleansed from guilt, and whiter than snow. Delay not, then, to seek the protection of the precious blood of Christ. At midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt; and as suddenly and unexpectedly will judgment overtake the rejecter of Christ, for when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, and they shall not escape (1 Thess. 5: 3). To-day, then, hear the entreating voice of the love of God, which bids you to flee from the wrath to come, and to "behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1: 29).

Chapter 4  Ye Must be Born Again

When Nicodemus went to our Lord for instruction, he was met instantly by the solemn word, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3: 3). It behoves therefore every anxious soul to consider this searching divine word; because we at once learn, that whatever the anxiety of soul — earnest desires, profession of faith — if there has not been wrought this great change, the "new birth," there is no life in the soul, and consequently no salvation.

Who was it then to whom the Lord addressed these words? We only learn half the truth when we answer, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; for, in fact, this tells us nothing beyond his name and official rank, and these things have no weight before God, and no significance for the seeking soul. It is in the connection of the third chapter with the second that we shall find the real answer to our question. We read, "Now when He [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast-day, many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for He knew what was in man. But" (as it should be read) "there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews," etc. (John 2: 23-25; John 3: 1, etc.). There was thus a number of Jews who believed on Jesus when they saw His miracles, and Nicodemus was one of that number. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew what was in man; because, in fact, their faith was nothing more than a natural conviction, wrought by the evidence of the miracles, of the truth of the claims of Jesus. There was no bowing of heart before God in all this; there was nothing more than a natural or intellectual belief in the name of Christ. When therefore Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, no doubt in quest of something more, and expressed this belief, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him," Jesus answered him at once by stating the necessity of being born again. It was as if He had said, "You may believe in me as a divine teacher, and yet be lost. You must be born again before you can enter into the kingdom of God."

We thus get a most solemn warning, as well as a needed caution. The warning is, "Beware of being satisfied with a profession of belief in Christ." The caution is, "Never forget that everything is useless if you have not been born again. You may be most earnest, most religious, a model of activity, in high repute for sanctity of life, or for works of usefulness, and yet be a lost soul; for unless you are born again, you cannot even see the kingdom of God."

Why then must a man be born again? The answer to this question brings us to a most important part of our subject. We have already shown that all men are sinners; but it is not only that they are sinners, but they have an evil, corrupt, depraved nature; and this incurably corrupt nature is the tree which produces all the evil fruits of sin. The acts of sin reveal the character of the nature; and this nature is totally unfit for God's presence. This is the purport of our Lord's words in this chapter, "That which is born of flesh is flesh" (v. 6). All therefore that we are as natural men, as children of Adam, is flesh; and in this flesh there dwelleth no good thing (Rom. 7: 18).

"Are we to understand that all men, without exception, are thus totally corrupt, hopelessly evil?"

"Yes. Such is the verdict of God upon human nature. 'That which is born of flesh is flesh.'"

"But is it possible, for example, that all the noble deeds recorded in history, or all the kind, generous, and beneficent actions which we meet with in daily life, are all these done by those who have a totally depraved nature? Surely there must be a difference — degrees in our natural condition; for how is it possible to class such actions with open and flagrant sins?"

It matters not what may be the outward character of the actions of men, whether such as will elicit the applause or draw down *tim* condemnation of their fellows; for as long as they proceed from men who have not been born again, they are nothing but evil in the sight of God, "for a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes" (Luke 6: 43, 44). The word of God is most explicit on this question. "The carnal mind" (the mind of the flesh) "is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8: 7, 8). It is thus, as Luther said, not a question of doing, but of being; not a question of the character of actions, but a question of nature, and this nature God declares to be flesh, and the flesh is nothing but evil in His sight, and consequently "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Cor. 15: 50).

Herein therefore lies the necessity of being born again; "That which is born of the flesh is flesh. . . . Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3: 6, 7). This necessity is universal in its application. It concerns every one born into this world, the dutiful, obedient child as much as the prodigal son; the active, zealous philanthropist as much as the convict in his cell. For the flesh is flesh, and cannot enter the kingdom of God. There must therefore be a new nature and a new life; for if there be not these, whatever a man's moral repute, he will be for ever outside of the kingdom of God.

How then must a man be born again? This, in substance, was the question of Nicodemus. "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John 3: 4). This question rigidly construed means undoubtedly, How is it possible for a man to be born again? But our Lord, in His answer, does not notice it in this form, but points out the way in which a man is born again. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (v. 5).

(1) Water. Much difficulty has been occasioned by special attempts to wrest the meaning of this symbol. Ritualists of many shades have persistently endeavoured to support their false teaching of baptismal regeneration from this passage. But if we confine ourselves to the Scriptures, we shall find that the difficulty will disappear. Now it is very evident that Nicodemus should have understood what our Lord meant; and if he did not, that he was expected to understand. For when he replied, "How can these things be? Jesus answered and said, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" (John 3: 9, 10). And if we turn to one of the prophets (with whose writings Nicodemus, as one of Israel's teachers, should have been well acquainted), we shall find a distinct foreshadowing of this teaching of our Lord. Speaking of the future restoration of Israel, the prophet says, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them" (Ezek. 36: 25-27). Here we have the same conjunction of the water and the Spirit, and a radical change following upon its application; for nothing less than this can be implied by "a new heart." Not only so, but the water in this passage is used in the most familiar of all senses to the Israelites, in connection with cleansing.

With this passage then before us, what, we ask, is the import of the water? Turn to Psalm 119, and we get this question: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." We read also in the New Testament of "the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5: 26); again, "Now ye are clean through" (or because of) "the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15: 3; read also John 13: 5-11). The water therefore is a well-known symbol for the word of God. Hence we find the Word constantly associated in other passages with the new birth. "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth" (James 1: 18) "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1: 23-25). The apostle Paul makes an allusion to the same thing when he says to the Corinthians, "In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4: 15). The Word of God, preached in the gospel, is the *tint* means of the new birth which our Lord here sets forth under the type of water.

(2) And [of] the Spirit. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth" (John 6: 63). "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3: 6). The Spirit acting in and through the word of God quickens dead souls, and they are born again. The Word cannot do this in and by itself nor does the Spirit of God act alone, but He wields the Word as the instrument, so that by it He may bring souls out of death into life, producing in them both a new nature and a new life. Many illustrations of this might be collected from the Scriptures. Take the most prominent of all — that afforded by the day of Pentecost. The crucifiers of the Lord Jesus were gathered round about Peter and the other apostles. Peter proclaimed the word of God to them, and said, "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2: 36). At the beginning of the chapter we read of the descent of the Holy Spirit; and it is said of the apostles that "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Peter was therefore speaking in the power of the Spirit, and that same Spirit clothed the word of God with mighty power, and the effect was that a multitude were born again, the change wrought upon them being indicated by the fact that "they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men [and] brethren, what shall we do?" (v. 37). So it is now when men are born again. It is always through the Word, by the Spirit of God. There is no other way.

(3) We may, however, with our Lord's own teaching before us, define more exactly. In the ninth verse Nicodemus asks, "How can these things be?" Our Lord first of all rebukes, though with all tenderness, both his ignorance (v. 10) and his unbelief (vv. 11, 12), and then proceeds to vouchsafe a full reply to the question he had put. It falls into three parts, and together they reveal the whole mystery which was perplexing the mind of Nicodemus.

(a) The Person of the Son of man. This is the foundation of all in that word of God — the gospel — by which, through the Spirit of God, souls are born again. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, [even] the Son of man which is in heaven" (v. 13). We have here the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. He was in heaven, but He "came down from heaven," was born of a woman, and became the Son of man on earth, who yet while He spake to Nicodemus could say of Himself, "Who is in heaven." It is the God-man — true man, and true God, who is here revealed in the Person of the Son of man. And it is this wondrous dignity of the Person of Christ which gives such infinite efficacy to His work; and hence the necessity of guarding with such jealous care the true doctrine of the Person of our Lord, of repudiating, refusing all teachings which seek to degrade either His human or divine natures. For whatever militates against the Person of Christ, militates against the cross, against His atoning sacrifice. The Person of Christ lies at the foundation of, gives its blessed character to, the gospel of the grace of God. "For 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).

(b) The Work of Christ. In this we have the second of the divine "musts." "Ye," said our Lord, "must be born again"; and now He says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so MUST THE SON OF MAN BE LIFTED UP: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 14, 15). But why must the Son of man be lifted up — crucified? It was a moral necessity; for without the shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb. 9: 22); because, as taking the sinner's place, He must be "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities" (Isa. 53: 5); because, inasmuch as we were under the judgment and condemnation of sin, He must die in our stead; for He "bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 24). It was, in a word, as the sinner's substitute that He must be "lifted up." The object of His being lifted up is, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (v. 15). He thus becomes the source of life, yea, in resurrection He is the life of every believer (Col. 3: 3, 4); for it is in being born again that this life is communicated through the power of the quickening Spirit. But He is the life of those who believe, because of the character of His death, because He was the sinner's substitute on the cross; for it was in death that He expiated, made atonement for our sins, and thereby removed every barrier out of the way between a God of grace and lost sinners. Hence He could say, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11: 25). It is thus life out of death, life in a crucified and risen Saviour, because "through death He destroyed him that had the power of death" (Heb. 2: 14); for if the corn of wheat had not fallen into the ground and died, it must have remained alone; but having died, it brings forth much fruit. (John 12: 24).

(c) Faith is the connecting-link between the sinner and Christ, just as the touch was the connecting-link between those who were healed and Christ in the days of His sojourn here. Hence it is, "Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (vv. 15, 16). This will be at once understood by looking at the comparison which the Lord Himself has made. He compares His own "lifting up" to the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness (Num. 21: 6-9). They were serpents that bit the people of Israel and caused their death; it was a serpent to which they were directed to look and live. It is sin that has caused our death. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin," etc. (Rom. 5: 12). It is to One who was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5: 21) on whom we are commanded to believe in order to live.

This, then, is the present point of importance — the comparison between the looking and believing. We read — "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Num. 21: 9). Notice, first of all, that it was the bitten Israelite who looked; and secondly, that he looked in the obedience of faith — believing the word of God. Just so is it with Christ lifted up. Whosoever takes the place of a sinner, acknowledging that he is "bitten," hopelessly lost by sin, if he look away in the obedience of faith to Christ, will not perish, but have eternal life. We thus, as in the case of the passover night, see that there is absolutely nothing whatever for the sinner to do; he has simply to believe the record that God has given of His Son, that God has dealt with sin in the death of Christ, and that therefore He proclaims life to every one that believeth. So soon then as the sinner has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ he is born again, he has everlasting life (Gal. 3: 26).

This is the method of the new birth. The gospel is preached — the word of God — which tells to a guilty race that "God so loved the world, that He gave (delivered up to death) His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). The Spirit clothes this message of God's grace with power. It enters the hearts of sinners; they believe, they are quickened, they are born again, they have everlasting life (John 3: 16).

Dear reader, Have you been born again? You surely, with this testing word before you, can have no difficulty in answering the question. If you are, your whole soul will go out in thanksgivings to God for the gift of His only begotten Son. If you are not, let me again warn you that it matters not what you are besides — you may be a good son or daughter, a loving husband or wife, a kind father or mother, and yet, not being born again, you are outside the kingdom of God, hopelessly undone and lost. Will you be satisfied in this condition? What had been the consequence if the bitten Israelites had refused to look at the serpent of brass, saying, "We may perhaps recover"? They would have died in their anguish and their sin. And so if you refuse to look to Christ, to believe in Him, there is no other remedy; and, instead of having eternal life, you will for ever perish. But if you bow to this divine necessity of being born again, acknowledging your true condition before God, and look to Christ in simple faith, you will immediately pass from death unto life.

Chapter 5  Peace With God

"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1). This is the conclusion at which the apostle arrives, after stating the grounds on which God is able to meet the sinner in grace, and to justify every one that believeth in Jesus. The principle involved is so important, and so necessary to be understood, that we propose to state it at length, so that anxious ones may see how carefully God has laid the foundation of peace outside of themselves altogether; that, in a word, they may perceive that the Rock on which it is grounded is Christ alone, and what He has done.

1. Justification is by faith; i.e., on the principle of faith in contrast with the principle of works. Much confusion of mind would be spared if this were remembered; and it is on this contrast that the apostle's whole argument is based. Thus, after depicting the state both of Gentiles and Jews, after proving that both are convicted as sinners, he says, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His [God's] sight" (Rom. 3: 20). Again, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (v. 28); and then, after citing the example of Abraham's justification — "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" — he tells us, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4: 3-5). We have therefore the most complete contrast between the law and the gospel. The law had said, "The man that doeth them shall live in them" (Gal. 3: 12); but the gospel proclaims that God is the "justifier of every one that believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3: 26). It is no more therefore a question of works — of doing on man's part; for God has shown man's complete and utter failure in every position in which he has been placed. The Gentile without law, and the Jew under law, are brought in as sinners; and thus every mouth is stopped, and the whole world is become guilty before God (Rom. 3: 19). From this very fact, man is entirely precluded from doing anything either to recover himself, or to save himself. He is already under condemnation, lost, and hence works or doings of any kind are utterly without avail. If therefore he is now to be saved, it must be on the principle of faith; "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2: 8). He neither has, nor can he obtain by his utmost efforts, any righteousness before God; and accordingly he is shut up to God's righteousness, which is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith (Rom. 1: 17).

It is of the first importance to apprehend this point; for it is just here that so many souls, like the Jews of old, fail. Thus, in the tenth chapter, we read that "they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10: 3, 4). Until therefore souls understand that they cannot "establish their own righteousness," that "their righteousnesses are as filthy rags" before God (Isaiah 64: 6), they will never accept the truth, that they can only be justified on the principle of faith, that if they are saved, it must be by God in His grace towards them in Christ Jesus. But once understood, the gain is immense; for the eye will be immediately taken from self, and directed to Him who is the only Saviour: they will cease from their own doings, and be made willing to submit, on the principle of faith, to the righteousness of God.

2. We may inquire now, What is the object proposed to faith in order to justification? This is very clearly defined in Romans 4. The apostle, we have seen, describes that Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; and, furthermore, he details the circumstances and character of his faith, carefully pointing out that it was prior to circumcision, and that the law had nothing to do with the promise which he received (vv. 9-16); and then he says, "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (vv. 23-25). The object proposed to Abraham's faith was God Himself, in His promise that "he should be the heir of the world" (v. 13); and he "against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness" (vv. 18-22).

The object of his faith was thus a God of promise; but the object proposed to our faith is a God of accomplishment; for righteousness will be imputed to us "if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead" (v. 24). God therefore is presented to the sinner in the gospel as One who has intervened in grace, provided redemption in Christ, and as testifying that Christ has been delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification; as therefore a God of salvation, One who requires now nothing from the sinner but faith in Himself — requiring nothing because He has sent His only begotten Son, who took the whole of our responsibilities upon Himself, met in His death every claim which a holy God had against us, settled forever the question of sin, and so glorified God that He is now able, on the foundation of that finished work of redemption, righteously to receive and justify every one that believeth. God has thus in grace, and out of the love of His own heart, provided everything for the sinner — the precious blood of Christ for his cleansing from guilt, a divine righteousness in which he can stand in His own presence — in fact, everything needed to bring the sinner out of his place of distance, guilt, and death, home unto Himself. In the gospel of His grace, He is therefore presented as a Giver, and not as a Receiver, and as the object of faith in His testimony concerning what He has wrought for us in and by His Son.

In the third chapter the blood of Christ is presented as the object of faith: "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in His blood" (Rom. 3: 24, 25). The connection here is different. Man — all the world — has been proved to be guilty before God (v. 19). The question therefore is how to meet the claims of God as a Judge; and the answer is found in the blood of Christ, provided by the grace of God, so that the most guilty can come and be justified before Him through faith in the blood of Christ (vv. 24-26). But in the passage just considered God comes forth, as already said, as a God of salvation, satisfied with the work of Christ, He having made atonement for sin by His death, and thus presents Himself as the God of grace in redemption, and therefore as the object of the sinner's faith. And how blessedly simple it is! for what does God require from sinners? Only that they should believe in Him, that they should believe His testimony concerning what has been accomplished on their behalf by the death of His Son; at the same time offering to them, in confirmation of His testimony, the fact of the resurrection of Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is as if He said to us, "If you want a proof that Christ was delivered for your offenses, that He has expiated them by His death, and that all my claims against you have been completely satisfied, behold it in His resurrection. I have raised Him from the dead, set Him down at my right hand in the glory, to convince all that He has finished the work of atonement, and that I have accepted it."

3. Every one who believes in Him is justified. "Being justified by faith"; i.e., we are by faith accounted righteous before God, righteous in Christ; for God "made Him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5: 21). This is much more than cleansing from guilt, or pardon of sins, because we have in justification a positive righteousness which fits us for the presence of God. The blood of Christ, as we have seen, is the meritorious cause of this, it being on our behalf of such infinite value, having so glorified God in expiating our sins, that He righteously — in righteousness to His Son — receives, pardons, justifies, and brings us into the very place where Christ Himself is. Hence, as the apostle says elsewhere, "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness," etc. (1 Cor. 1: 30). For so completely are we identified with Christ before God, that His place is our place, His acceptance our acceptance; for we are in Him; and accordingly the apostle John can write, "As He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4: 17).

This will suffice to show the complete character of our justification; and it may aid doubting souls to remember that it is God Himself who justifies the believer. For if He justifies us, if He is so completely satisfied with what has been done for us as to clear us from every charge, and set us down in Christ before Himself, who can condemn us? (Rom. 8: 33, 34). Who can incriminate us? nay, who can lower by one jot or tittle the perfectness of our acceptance? God has spoken; He has declared that we are "justified by faith," and His word abideth for ever.

4. Peace is the portion of the justified. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The words, "we have peace," do not of necessity mean that we enjoy it; for there are doubtless many justified ones before God who know but little of this peace. The meaning is that peace belongs to us, that it is made between our souls and God, that every question between Him and us is so perfectly settled, that He has nothing against us, that peace therefore is our portion.

But if it is made, and it belongs to us; what hinders so many souls from entering into its possession? Simply unbelief; they look within to their own state, instead of without to what God has done for them. We can only enjoy this peace as knowing it to be ours; and we can only know it to be ours by believing God's word. But if we believe, and are justified, we have peace, whatever our feelings or experience; and hence we should rest in the enjoyment of it in simple confidence in the word of God. It is of the first importance to know that it is ours; for souls are tossed hither and thither by doubts and fears, because they hesitate to believe in the fullness of the grace of God. They are therefore weak and helpless, the easy prey of the tempter; whereas if they but quietly rested on this sure word of God that they "have peace," that He has made it through the work of Christ, and made it for them, they would be able to sing amid the storm, to present a fearless front in the face of all difficulties, to be undisturbed by the most insidious suggestions of Satan, knowing that as the peace rests upon the cross of Christ, it is both sure and steadfast, inalienable and immutable, a foundation on which they might "build and rest secure" for ever. For the peace of the justified is the result of accomplished redemption, founded on the cross, and proved by the resurrection of Christ.

It may encourage some to a stronger confidence if we remind them that God is just, as well as the justifier of every one that believes in Jesus (Rom. 3: 26); i.e., that He is just to the claims which the work of Christ, or rather Christ in His work, has established upon Him. It is therefore what Christ has gained for us; and hence He is our peace (Eph. 2: 14). It should indeed be never forgotten that this peace is not apart from, but in and through Christ; or, consequently, that it is a righteous peace, a peace which God righteously bestows upon and secures to us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 6  "What Must I do to be Saved?"

Having pointed out God's provision for the need of souls, we may now consider the subject from man's point of view. No sooner indeed is he convicted of sin than the question springs up within his heart in one form or another, "What must I do?" It was so on the day of Pentecost, when the Jews were pricked in their heart by the power of the Holy Spirit under the preaching of Peter. "Men and brethren," they said, "what shall we do?" The jailor asked Paul and Silas, "What must I do to be saved" (Acts 16: 30). Twice our Lord Himself was asked, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10: 17; and Luke 10: 25). The question addressed to our Lord by Paul, or rather Saul — "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts. 9: 6) — is different, and need not therefore be considered.

The peculiarity of these questions is that the "I" occupies a prominent place, or rather perhaps the thought of doing. It is, What must I do? a sure sign that the questioners have not yet learnt what God is, or their true place before Him.

It is on this very account the more important to answer the question, because it marks in many souls a distinct stage of their history. There are very few indeed who have not asked the same question at some period of their soul-anxiety. We propose therefore to examine some of the examples which we have cited, that we may ascertain the answer given to it in the word of God.

1. We take first the case of the young man (Mark 10: 17; Matt. 19: 16; Luke 18: 18). We read that when Jesus "was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is,] God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto Him, Master, all these things have I observed from my youth" (Matthew tells us that the young man added, "What lack I yet?"). "Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions" (Mark 10: 17-22). This case is the more remarkable and instructive from the fact that this young man was so blameless and unexceptionable in conduct and character. He was both sincere and upright, one who could say, what Paul said of himself, that touching the righteousness which was in the law, he was blameless (Phil. 3: 6); for he replied to our Lord's enumeration of the commandments, "All these have I observed from my youth," and added, "What lack I yet?" (See Matt. 19: 20).

Is not this a picture of many in our own day, young people and others, whose whole lives, morally, as we speak, in their outward expression leave nothing to be desired? Gentle, amiable, and loving; observant, and tenderly observant of their duties as sons or daughters, upright and honourable in all the relationships of life, and diligent also in attendance upon what are termed religious duties, they win the approbation of their whole circle, both of relatives and friends. And what lack they yet? The Lord's answer to this young man is the answer to our question. What then is its import? First, that man can bring nothing to God, and therefore can DO NOTHING to inherit eternal life. Like Paul, he must learn that his righteousness is as filthy rags, to count the things which were a gain to him as a natural man loss for Christ, that nothing that he is, or has done, is of any merit before God; nay, that his best things must be regarded as worthless and unclean. Secondly, that he must be willing to suffer the loss of all things — self, his own righteousness, and the world — for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Hence our Lord told the young man to sell all that he had, and give to the poor; and then to "come, take up the cross, and follow me."

Such is the first answer to the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" You must take the place of having nothing, and being nothing — self, the world, yea, and every thing being nothing — at the feet of Jesus. And let not the solemn warning of this whole incident be forgotten, that moral attainments, and the advantages of position, etc., are to be classed among the greatest hindrances to coming to Christ, because they so often cover up and conceal the soul's real condition before God.

2. The case of the lawyer (Luke 10). This is in many respects totally different from that just considered; for the lawyer comes tempting Christ, and thus occupying a much lower moral place. Accordingly our Lord connects with it much deeper lessons of man's true condition. "A certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?" etc. Then follows the parable of the "good Samaritan" (Luke 10: 25-37). Here the Lord takes the lawyer, who was tempting Him, on his own ground; viz. that of the law; and He thus accepts his statement of the requirements of the law, adding the words connected with its promulgation, "This do, and thou shalt live" ("which if a man do, he shall live in them" Lev. 18: 5). But he used the law, according to its divine intention, as a standard of God's requirements from men in the flesh, and so brought in the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3: 20). For His words, "Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live" (v. 28), convicted the tempting lawyer of sin; for we read, "He, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?" The Lord had searched him with that word which "is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4: 12) but instead of bowing to it he desired to escape from its application, if not to insinuate the impossible character of the divine requirements. He sought to justify himself, as if a man could be just with God, by alleging that, since he could not carry out the divine command, he could not be expected to do any thing. But the Lord had brought into his mind the knowledge of sin, and then, to teach also the lesson as to who was his neighbour, described the man who fell among thieves, and how he was succoured by a Samaritan.

What then are the special lessons taught by this answer to the question, What must I do to inherit eternal life? It is not only that man can do nothing, but that he is also convicted as a sinner before God; and hence we have man's condition as a sinner pictured out in the parable. It is thus described: "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" (v. 30). The very place in which the traveller is assailed is significant. He was on his way from Jerusalem, the city of God, to Jericho, the city of curse (Joshua 6: 26) — a striking picture of the sinner's journey to destruction. He falls among thieves, who strip, wound, and depart, leaving him half dead; and so he lies helpless and hopeless, at the point of death.

Who does not see in this sketch man's condition as a sinner? And what folly it were for one in that condition to ask, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? The question rather is, What can be done to save him? And this is what our Lord would teach the lawyer — the folly of a sinner asking what he can do, and that if he is saved, it must be by the grace and by the doing of another. This latter truth is brought out in the Samaritan. But first a priest and a Levite pass by, and leave the wretched man to his fate, showing the helplessness of law to save the soul. Then the Samaritan comes upon the scene, "And when he saw him, he had compassion [on him], and went to [him], and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee" (vv. 33-35). Who then is the Samaritan? Surely none but Christ — Christ, in the compassion of His love, seeking and saving the lost. For He is moved with pity by the wretchedness of the poor, helpless man, binds up his wounds, carries him to a place of safety, cares, undertakes, and provides for him until He returns. We learn therefore from the whole scene —

(1) that man is a sinner;

(2) that as a sinner he is both helpless and lost;

(3) that therefore he can do nothing; and

(4) that if he is to be saved, it can only be through Christ, and what He has done.

3. This will prepare us for the case of the jailor (Acts 16). We take this rather than that of the Jews on the day of Pentecost, because the question is put by him in its most distinct form. Paul and Silas, at the instigation of an excited crowd, had been put into prison at Philippi; and at midnight, we read, the apostles prayed, and sang praises to God: and "suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed" (Acts 16: 25-26). The keeper of the prison was terrified, and in the excitement of the moment, thinking that the prisoners had escaped, would have killed himself, but for the interposition of Paul. "Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (vv. 27-31).

Why do Paul and Silas treat him otherwise than our Lord dealt with the two cases already considered? The answer in each case meets the moral condition of the questioner. But Paul and Silas are able to direct the jailor instantly to Christ, because he came in the moral condition set forth by the dying man in the parable. And hence if any of my readers are putting this same question, they cannot be answered until they take the same place. This truth has already been insisted on in the second chapter; but we again emphasize it here. For until the lesson is learnt the way of salvation cannot be known. Are you then, beloved readers, recognizing, not only that you can bring nothing to God, that even the things that might be a gain to you amongst men are worthless before Him, but also that you are sinners, and as such lost and undone; that therefore you can do nothing towards your salvation, and that if you are saved, it must be by the work and grace of another? If you are, we can then unfold to you the blessed truth, contained in the words, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (v. 31).

To be saved therefore, to have eternal life, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is thus a question not of doing, but of believing. For it is now, not what the sinner can do, but what Christ has done, for "He took what I had earned; I get the fruit of what He has done." Therefore it is, and ever must be, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." There is no other way; and hence salvation is always connected with faith. Take a few instances: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7: 50); "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole" (Luke 17: 19); "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3: 36); "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life" (John 5: 24); "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life" (John 6: 47); "To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10: 43); "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1, etc. etc.).

Do you then, beloved reader, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? We have pointed out the place the sinner must first take; that he must accept God's testimony concerning himself — that he is both helpless, guilty, and lost. If you accept God's word as to yourself and your condition, we then point you to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; for He who declares to us what we are by nature and practice in His sight, has provided redemption for us in Christ: He "so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Look away therefore from yourself to Christ, accept God's testimony also concerning Him, and even while you look you shall pass from death unto life. "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10: 8-10).

Chapter 7  Difficulties

No sooner is the soul awakened, convinced of sin, and directed to Christ, than difficulties will often appear on every side, threatening deprivation for ever of the blessing now so earnestly desired. Magnified by the unbelief which is native to our hearts, and pressed continually upon the soul by the activity of Satan, they seem insuperable; and it may therefore be helpful, if the most prevalent forms which they assume are indicated and explained. At the same time it should never be forgotten that the only effectual solver of difficulties is the Lord Himself; and that they will soon cease to harass the mind, if carried and spread out in simple faith before the throne of grace.

1. "My sins have been too many and too grievous." How often are words like these uttered by the self-judged penitent when he is told of the freeness of God's grace in Christ Jesus. "Yes," he will say, "Christ is able to save, and God no doubt waits to be gracious. But I am very guilty. I have sinned against light and knowledge; others may come and be saved; but for me there is no hope." Two or three remarks will show the real nature of this feeling. In the first place, it really expresses a doubt concerning the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ; for if it cannot cleanse you, it cannot cleanse from all sin. Moreover, it distrusts the sincerity of God in the invitations which He sends to sinners through the gospel of His grace. For He says, "Whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16); "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22: 17); and if you say that you are not included in these "whosoevers," what is it but to doubt the truth of God? Again, our Lord Himself says, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9: 13). This is not some, but ALL sinners. Hence, to be a sinner, is to have a title to come to Christ; and thus the more sure you are of your sinfulness, the more certain you ought to be that there is nothing in your case to shut you out from the mercy of God.

It is worthy of question whether the root of such a feeling is not self-righteousness, for it really means that you are too unworthy. As another has said, "If when God speaks I refuse to believe on the ground of something in myself, I make Him a liar (1 John 5: 10). When God declares His love, and I refuse to believe because I do not deem myself a sufficiently worthy object, I . . . exhibit the inherent pride of my heart . . . God's love flows forth spontaneously. It is not drawn forth by my deserts, but by my misery. Nor is it a question as to the place which I deserve, but which Christ deserves. Christ took the sinner's place on the cross, that the sinner might take His place in the glory. Christ got what the sinner deserved, that the sinner might get what Christ deserves. Thus self is totally set aside."

Besides, it may be added, our Lord has met by anticipation your objection, by receiving while on earth some of the vilest and most degraded. The woman who was "a sinner" (Luke 7: 37-39), and the thief on the cross (Luke 23: 40-43) are everlasting monuments of His willingness to receive the guiltiest. Meet therefore all such thoughts by the plain examples and statements of God's word; and never harbour, even for a moment, any suggestion which tends to obscure the Saviour's willingness to receive, or His ability to save, any and all who come in penitence to His feet.

2. "I do not feel my sins enough." This is quite true; for it is a complaint that even believers have to make, and will make to the end of their days upon earth. It is sure therefore to be the case with every anxious one; and it is on account of his sinfulness that he does not feel more deeply. But this only argues his greater and more urgent need of Christ. For his want of feeling is but the evidence of his alienation from God, and consequently of his need of reconciliation through the blood of Christ. It cannot then be, that to feel deeply is a qualification for coming to Christ, for that would mean that we must first cleanse ourselves from some part of our sinfulness. No; the gospel makes no conditions with men about feelings; it demands no preparation of heart, but proclaims a present salvation to every one that believeth.

"But must I not first repent?" Let me then ask, What is meant by repentance? It is simply taking the place of self-judgment, the place of a sinner before God, taking God's view about my sins. The confusion arises from the misconception that it signifies "the feeling sorry for, and the determination to forsake, sin"; and hence many probe themselves to discover whether they are in this state of mind. But the only thing you have to consider is, Do I know that I am a sinner? and, Do I accept God's judgment of myself as a sinner? If you do, there is nothing on God's part between you and the sinner's Saviour. For the only message of the gospel is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house (Acts 16: 31).

3. "I cannot be sure that Christ died for me; that I am personally included in the invitations of the gospel." And why not? For when God speaks in His word so repeatedly, and says, "WHOSOEVER believeth" shall be saved (John 3: 15, 16, 36; Acts 10: 43, etc.), is it not as evident that you are included as if your name were written there? As an evangelist recently put it, if you saw written over a gate, Whosoever will may enter, you would understand at once that you had a title to entrance; and you would regard it as downright folly if a companion were to argue with you on the subject, contending that the notice was not distinct. When then we read in the Scriptures, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," (Rev. 22: 17), it is nothing but rank unbelief to express the doubt whether we are included in the invitation. In a recently published memoir there is an example of the kind. The subject of it, when first awakened, had this difficulty; and, though Scripture after Scripture was pressed upon him, remained immovable. But going home, he spent a great part of the night alone with God. At last he took a piece of paper, and wrote, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezekiel 33: 11); then he added, "I am one of the wicked"; and further, "Therefore the Lord God has no pleasure in my death," and was thus led to believe that he was within the range of the divine mercy.

Every sinner is entitled to adopt the same plan. Let any one therefore who is troubled with the doubt named take, for example, John 3: 16, and write it out with self-application, and he will find that it is as clear as noonday that God includes him in the term "whosoever." There is no limit indeed to God's grace in the gospel, except in the unbelief of sinful hearts.

4. "It may be that I am not one of the elect." Now this is the most useless of all doubts, except indeed for the purposes of Satan. For secret things belong unto God, and no amount of speculation or reasoning can discover them. And let it be remembered that the sinner has nothing whatever to do with God's purposes. Election has to do with saints, and saints alone. The difficulty, if sincerely felt, should therefore be met by the simple question, Am I a sinner? For if that can be plainly answered, it has already been abundantly shown that the invitations of the gospel are addressed to you, and that to be a sinner is the only qualification for coming to Christ.

5. "I cannot believe." Let us examine this difficulty. What then is it that you cannot believe? Cannot you believe that you are a sinner? God testifies this to you in His word; and if you want any confirmation of His truth, the experience of a single day will surely be sufficient. No; you do not doubt that you are a sinner. Can you not then believe God's testimony concerning His Son? What is that testimony? It is that "He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification (Rom. 4: 25); that "He hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18); that God "made Him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Do you believe this? You will say, "Of course I do." Then see what this involves. You believe on the one hand that you are a sinner, and on the other that Christ has died for sinners; and yet you say "you cannot believe." Let me then put another question. Do you believe that God is satisfied with and has accepted that which Christ has done for sinners by His death? Before you attempt to answer this question, remember two things; first, that the resurrection of Christ, and His glorification at the right hand of the Majesty on high, is the proof that God is satisfied — that He has abundantly accepted the atonement made on the cross; and secondly, that the proclamation of the gospel is a proof also of it, for the gospel is a consequence of the finished work of Christ, and its acceptance by God. It is on the foundation of the cross that the message is sent forth, "Be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5: 20). Do you then believe that God is satisfied? You cannot doubt it. What remains? That you also should be satisfied. This and nothing more.

"Cannot believe," therefore, often means unwillingness to believe, the refusal to bow before God's judgment upon yourself as a sinner; for when you have truly taken the place of a sinner, you must of necessity welcome the offers of salvation as glad tidings of great joy. Suppose now a family in a state of starvation at the point of death, and provision is carried to their doors, and freely offered to them, what would you think if they were to reply, "We cannot believe it is for us"? Of a like character is the objection of the sinner under condemnation to the invitations of the gospel, "I cannot believe." For remember it is God who speaks, and is it possible for unbelief to go so far as to doubt whether He is worthy of credit? If a friend were to come to you with some announcement, and you were to reply, "I cannot believe you," he would regard it, if spoken in seriousness, as an insult. Much more, then, should you hesitate to doubt the truth and veracity of God.

6. "I cannot feel that I am saved." This is often said by those who think and avow that they believe in Christ, but who yet have no peace. How then is the knowledge of salvation to be obtained? Many expect some sudden accession of joy, or some inward experience to certify them of it. A young believer once came to the writer, and said, "I know I am saved now, because I feel so happy." But when he replied, "Suppose you feel unhappy tomorrow, will you come and say, "I know I am not saved now, because I feel so miserable"? she at once saw that she was building a wrong foundation. How then can it be known? By faith — faith in the word of God. For when God testifies that "whosoever believeth in Christ should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16), I am entitled, if I believe, to say that I am saved, resting my confidence on this word; and peace comes as the result of my belief of God's testimony.

Such is the divine order. First, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; secondly, knowledge of salvation, or assurance, as it is sometimes termed, from belief in the word of God; and lastly, peace as the consequence of knowing that I am saved. Take a simple illustration. If I owe a debt of one hundred pounds, and have not wherewith to meet it, I shall be under constant concern and anxiety. If however a friend comes and says, "Be under no concern for the debt. I have discharged it," my anxiety will instantly cease, if I believe his word, not otherwise. So is it with our knowledge of salvation. If I believe in Christ Jesus, I shall know that all God's claims against me have been satisfied, and consequently I shall have peace, if I believe His word, and in no other way. It is most important to apprehend this point; for many, making "assurance" to depend on feeling, are continually in a state of disquiet and unrest. But when we see that the foundation of our confidence lies in the immutable truth of God, we shall never doubt our salvation, whatever the chequered character of our inward experiences. The fact indeed is too often lost sight of (as pointed out in another chapter), that the ground of our peace is entirely outside of ourselves, in the work of Christ for us; and hence the eye is turned inward, instead of outward to His cross, His precious blood. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through out Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1).

It will be observed that we have spoken only of the ground of assurance. Having peace, there will be, indeed should be, happy experiences; for God sends His Spirit to dwell in the hearts of saved ones, and He bears witness with their spirits that they are the children of God. But happy experiences must follow upon, and cannot precede, the knowledge that we are saved.

7. "Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." As very many anxious souls are perplexed with the fear that they have been guilty of this sin, and that they are consequently shut out from the offers of mercy in the gospel, it may be well to explain its true character. The words in which our Lord describes it are these: "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come" (Matt. 12: 31, 32; see also Mark 3: 28-30).

The sin then spoken of is "blasphemy," or "speaking against" the Holy Ghost, and the precise force of these terms may be gathered from an examination of the context. The Saviour had just performed a miracle. We read, "Then was brought unto Him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and He healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw" (Matt. 12: 22). The people were deeply impressed with this display of divine power and mercy, and saw in it an evidence of His Messiahship; for they said, "Is not this the Son of David?" But the enemies of Christ — the Pharisees — made it an occasion for the exhibition of their enmity, and with the miracle before their eyes — indeed, confessing it — ascribed the power which they had seen exerted to the devil. They said, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." Hence it is that we find in the gospel of Mark the reason given for the Saviour's warning concerning "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost": "Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." The sin therefore spoken of is the wilful ascription to Satan of the power wrought by the Holy Ghost, and therefore blaspheming the Holy Ghost by maligning His operations as devilish. To prevent all possibility of mistake, the argument may be displayed at length.

1. The power in which Jesus laboured, wrought miracles, performed His mission, was that of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4: 1-18; Isaiah 61: 1, 2; John 3: 34; John 14: 10, etc.).

2. It was, therefore, by the power of the Spirit of God that He expelled the devil from the blind and dumb man.

3. The Pharisees acknowledged the miracle; they had seen it done, and could not deny it.

4. They had therefore before them a clear proof of the Saviour's mission; for, if done, it substantiated His claim to be the Messiah.

5. They ignored the evidence, and sought to discredit Jesus by charging Him with being the agent of the devil.

6. They thus wilfully not only sinned against, but "blasphemed," the Holy Ghost.

Thus, as another has said, "What the Lord denounces is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Keeping that distinctly in view would save many souls a great deal of needless trouble. How many have groaned in terror through fear of being guilty of sin against the Holy Ghost! That phrase admits of vague notions and general reasonings about its nature. But our Lord spoke definitely of blasphemous, unforgivable sin against Him. All sin, I presume, is sin against the Holy Ghost, who has taken His place in Christendom, and consequently gives all sin this character. Thus, lying in the church is not mere falsehood toward man, but unto God, because of the great truth that the Holy Ghost is there. Here, on the contrary, the Lord speaks of unforgivable sin (not that vague sense of evil which troubled souls dread as "sin against the Holy Ghost," but blasphemy against Him). What, is this evil never to be forgiven? It is attributing the power that wrought in Jesus to the devil. How many troubled souls would be instantly relieved if they laid hold of that simple truth! It would dissipate what really is a delusion of the devil, who strives hard to plunge them into anxiety, and drive them into despair, if possible. The truth is, that as any sin of a Christian may be said to be sin against the Holy Ghost, what is especially the sin against the Holy Ghost, if there be anything which is so, is that which directly hinders the free action of the Holy Ghost in the work of God, or in His church. Such might be said to be the sin, if you speak of it with precision. But what our Lord referred to was neither a sin nor the sin, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. It was that which the Jewish nation was then rapidly falling into, and for which they were neither forgiven then, nor will ever be forgiven. There will be a new stock, so to speak; another generation will be raised up, who will receive the Christ whom their fathers blasphemed; but as far as that generation was concerned, they were guilty of this sin, and could not be forgiven. They began it in the lifetime of Jesus; they consummated it when the Holy Ghost was sent down and despised. They still carried it on persistently; and it is always the case when men enter upon a bad course, unless sovereign grace deliver. The more God brings out of love, grace, truth, wisdom, the more determinedly and blindly they rush on to their own perdition. So it was with Israel. So it ever is with man left to himself, and despising the grace of God. "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness." It is the final stage of rebellion against God.

It may then be confidently affirmed, that no one under convictions of sin, no one who desires reconciliation to God through the blood of Christ, can have committed "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." Nay, these very convictions of sin, and desires after peace with God, are the effects of His own work in the soul; the sure proof that this "blasphemy" has not been committed.

8. The "sin unto death." This is popularly confounded with that just considered. But an examination of the Scripture in which it is mentioned will show that it is a totally distinct thing. It is thus described: "If any man see his brother sin a sin [which is] not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it" (1 John 5: 16). Here the question is concerning the sin of a believer. If any man see his brother, etc.; and since it is a believer who is spoken of, there can be no reference to eternal death, In fact, the death spoken of is bodily. Thus Ananias and Sapphira committed a sin "unto death" (Acts 5). Their sin was of such a character that God interposed and removed them from off the scene, in merciful chastisement upon themselves, and in solemn warning to others. But though they sinned "unto death," this did not affect their standing, if they were real believers. Their death was the result of the interposition of God in governmental discipline in the church on earth. Allusion is made to other cases of a similar character in 1 Corinthians. The apostle, writing concerning the abuses of the Lord's Supper, says, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation" (judgment, as in margin) "to himself; not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor. 11: 29, 30). That is, as the result of God's intervention in discipline, many had died.

It will be seen from the above explanation that no one can tell beforehand what constitutes the "sin unto death," because it is judged only by the Lord. Indeed, it does not follow that the same act would constitute the same sin in different circumstances; for there is little doubt that there have been many Ananiases and Sapphiras since their day. But we need not pursue the subject, as we have shown that the sin is that of a believer, and that it is connected with bodily, and not eternal, death, and hence that anxious ones cannot have been guilty of it before God.

9. The case supposed in Heb. 6: 3-6 is often a real difficulty. But a careful examination of the passage, though we cannot here go into it minutely, will show that it can have no application to those who are anxious and who desire peace with God. For the case is that of "those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Let it be first of all distinctly noted, that this cannot refer to the falling away of any who have been really converted. For nothing is more plainly taught in the Scriptures than that it is impossible for a child of God to perish. (See John 10: 27-29; Rom. 8: 28-39; 1 Cor. 1: 8, 9; Eph. 1: 13, 14; Phil. 1: 6, 7, etc., etc.). It must be borne in mind indeed that the epistle was addressed to Hebrew Christians; and the case put is that of those who had been brought out of Judaism, and convinced of the truth of Christianity, thus far enlightened by the power of the Holy Ghost, but not converted, born again. They were brought into the blessings indicated, but were still without life; and it is concerning these we are told, that if they should fall away it would be impossible to renew them again unto repentance, etc. And why? Because they would be deliberately and wilfully going back to what they knew to be no longer according to God; re-associating themselves with the nation that crucified the Son of God, and thus, by endorsing with their eyes open the act of the nation, crucifying for themselves the Son of God, and putting Him to an open shame (v. 6).

The case supposed therefore is that of wilful apostates. But no doubt it is intended as a solemn warning, though not for anxious souls. The warning will have its application to many who are associated with believers in various ways, to professors, and such professors as have been the subjects of much enlightenment without being born again, so that they, knowing the divine character of redemption, are persuaded that the only way of salvation is through a crucified and risen Saviour, and may even be outwardly zealous for Christ. It is for such that this warning is intended; for if they turn their backs upon what they know to be true, deny Him whom they know to be the Christ of God, become wilful apostates, their case is hopeless. It is to this class alone that this passage applies; and it therefore cannot include those who, convicted of sin by the Spirit of God, desire above all things to know that Christ is their Saviour and Lord. In a word, no one who desires to be saved, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, can be of that class and character.

There are doubtless many other difficulties in special cases, but those dealt with are the most common. Our aim should be to bring everything to the word of God in a prayerful spirit; for "unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness" (Psalm 112: 4), and "the entrance of thy words giveth light" (Psalm 119: 130).

Chapter 8  Deliverance

Many who have been awakened, quickened, and who may even be under the sure protection of the blood of Christ, are yet without a clear knowledge of salvation. They have sometimes a "good hope" that they are saved, but then sin breaks out within them in such overwhelming power, that, thereby made to know the utter corruption of their sinful hearts, they are plunged back into uncertainty and distress. They are thus deprived of the fullness of the blessing which belongs to all who believe in Christ, owing to ignorance (oftentimes through bad teaching) of the two natures, and of the provision which God has made in Christ for indwelling sin, as well as for sins. In other words, they have never learned that complete deliverance is to be found in Christ, both from the guilt of sin and from our sinful nature, so that the believer can say, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus . . . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 1-2).

The truth on this subject is specially unfolded in the epistle to the Romans, from chapter 5 to the end of chapter 8. This section has been described by another as follows:

Hitherto the great truth of the remission [forgiveness] of the believer's sins has been fully set forth, closing with the blessed privileges which belong to the justified man, but still in that connection, the expiatory efficacy of the blood of Jesus, and this displayed in His resurrection. Precious as it all is, it is not everything the believer wants. He may be miserable in the discovery of what he finds within himself; and if he knows not the truth that applies to his difficulties on this score, he is in danger of yielding to hardness on one side, or of bearing a burdened spirit of bondage on the other. How many saints have never learned the extent of their deliverance, and go mourning from day to day under efforts which they would be the first to confess unavailing against their inward corruption! How many settle down callously balancing their faith in the forgiveness of their sins by the blood of Christ as a set-off against a plague which they suppose must needs be, and, of course, with no more power over it than those who are honestly, but in vain, struggling to get better. Neither the one nor the other understands the value to them of the sentence already executed on the old man in the cross, nor their own new place before God in Christ risen from the dead. This it is the Spirit's object to unfold in what follows.

The sentences italicized in the above extract find a striking confirmation in chapter 7, where we have a quickened man, one who has been born again, not knowing his deliverance from law, struggling and groaning under the burden of his indwelling sin, so much so that he cries, "I am carnal, sold under sin" (v. 14); and again, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (vv. 22-24). This is precisely the condition of many who are termed anxious souls. It is the felt contrariety of their state to all that they had longed for and hoped which leads them to doubt whether they are saved.

How then has God met this need of the soul? There can be only one answer to this question: it is in the death of Jesus Christ. For not only did He, as we have seen, bear our sins in His own body on the tree, but He was also made sin for us (2 Cor. 5: 21); yea, "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8: 3).

The application of this truth is expounded in Romans 6. Having shown in the previous chapter that "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" (vv. 20-21), the apostle proceeds, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [His] resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [Him], that the body of sin might be destroyed (annulled), that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed" (justified, in margin) "from sin" (Rom. 6: 1-7).

If now we give attention to the words which we have emphasized by italics, we shall understand the whole subject.

1. We are here taught that we have part in Christ's death: we "were baptized into (or unto) His death"; "our old man is crucified with Him" (vv. 3-6). This is on the principle of substitution, a principle which finds a striking illustration in the following familiar incident. During the days of Napoleon I, a young man was drawn as a soldier, but having some means, he purchased a substitute, who went in his stead to fight the battles of his country. The substitute was soon killed, and not long after a decree for another conscription was issued. It so happened that the same young man was drawn for the second time, but he pleaded that he was a dead man. When asked what he meant by such a plea, he answered that, since his substitute had been killed, he himself ought to be regarded as dead. The case, from its singularity, was carried before the courts of law, and, after examination and trial, it was ruled that the young man was dead before the law of conscription, on the ground of the death of his substitute. So with us, if we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We can plead that we have died in the person of our Substitute, that in Him the whole judgment and condemnation due to our sin and sins have been borne and exhausted.

2. We are consequently "dead to sin" (v. 2); and being dead, we are "freed (justified) from sin" (v. 7). That is, our Adam nature — the seat of indwelling sin — our old man, has been judicially judged by God in the death of Christ; so that the penalty has already been paid, our doom so completely met, that before God we are regarded as judicially dead, and being dead we are justified from sin — cleared from all charge on account of it, completely delivered from it, through our death in the death of Christ.

The practical consequences of this truth are given in the succeeding verses. "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in" (not through) "Christ Jesus our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof," etc. (vv. 8-12). We are thus reminded, by implication at least, that we have part not only in the death of Christ, but also in Him as risen. "For if we be dead with Him, we believe that we shall also live with Him" (v. 8); and this is confirmed and enforced by the fact, that "in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God" (v. 10).

Then follow the practical exhortations.

a. We are to reckon ourselves dead to sin. The very terms of the exhortation indicate the truth; for if we were actually dead, we could not be told to reckon ourselves so. What we are then to do is to take God's estimate of ourselves. Having judged us, as to our Adam nature, in the cross of Christ, He holds us as having met our judgment, and consequently to be dead in His sight. This is His judicial estimate of every believer as to the old man; and this judicial estimate is to be the estimate of our faith. What God declares we are to believe, and to believe spite of all appearances or experiences to the contrary; and since He holds us to have been crucified with Christ, we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin. This will explain many otherwise difficult expressions in the Scriptures. "I am" (or have been) "crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 20). "If ye be dead" (or have died) "with Christ," etc. (Col. 2: 20); these, and all such, setting forth the truth here considered, that God regards all believers as having died with Christ, and therefore as having in Him borne the condemnation of sin. And this truth is to be our vantage-ground in the presence of temptation. We should remember in the presence of all solicitations to sin, that our old man has been crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin (Rom. 6: 6).

Thus our place before God determines our responsibility; and hence if I yield to sin, I contradict in fact that I have died with Christ; for sin argues, evidences one alive in the flesh and acting in the flesh. On the other hand, taking God's estimate of myself to be true for faith, I cannot let sin reign in my mortal body, that I should obey it in the lust thereof. I reckon myself to be dead to sin, and therefore delivered from it by the death of Christ; and thus my peace is undisturbed because I know that the flesh which I still have in me, and which, if not kept in the place of death, would break out at any moment in unbridled lusts, has already been judged, and condemned on the cross.

b. But we are also to reckon ourselves as alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This, as before said, implies our resurrection with Christ — although this truth is not here formally stated — because it is only as being in the risen Christ that we can be alive unto God. In the Colossians we find this aspect fully developed, the apostle making the fact of our being risen with Christ the ground of a practical appeal: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead" (or have died), "and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3: 1-3). It is not only therefore that we have been crucified with Christ, but in Christ we passed through death; for "God hath raised us up together" with Christ. (Eph. 2: 6). This was typified by the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. In type "the Red Sea is evidently the death and resurrection of Jesus, and of His people in Him; God acting in it, in order to bring them into death to sin, and to deliverance from it, by death, where He had brought them in Christ, and consequently beyond the possibility of being reached by the enemy. We are made partakers of it already through faith. Sheltered from the judgment of God by the blood, we are delivered, by His power which acts for us, from the power of Satan, the prince of this world. The blood keeping us from the judgment of God was the beginning. The power which has made us alive, through Christ, has made us free from the whole power of Satan, who followed us, and from all his attacks and accusations. We have done with Egypt and the world."

Two things have to be carefully noted. It is in Christ that we are alive unto God; and secondly, our being so is to be a matter of faith: we are to reckon ourselves so. We are alive in Christ really and actually; but this is not the thought here presented. We are also in this respect to take God's estimate, spite of all the contradictions to it within and without. Since God regards me as dead to sin, and alive unto Him in Christ Jesus, I am to reckon myself so; His estimate being the foundation of my faith and confidence, as well as the measure of my responsibility.

We are thus before God brought through the death and resurrection of Christ out of our old state and standing altogether, into a place and sphere where the flesh has no entrance — a deliverance so complete that not only is it said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," but also, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you" (Rom. 8: 1, 9). Such is our perfect standing before God in Christ as risen from the dead.

3. We shall now be in a position to understand the concluding exhortation of the passage cited; viz., "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Rom. 6: 12, etc.). We have here the contrast between our standing before God in Christ Jesus and our practical condition. He holds us, as we have seen, as dead to sin; but this exhortation supposes the presence of sin in the believer. Now it is in the understanding of this contrast, and its practical consequences and responsibilities, that the solution is found of the difficulties which are so often encountered at the outset of the Christian life, and which indeed in many cases keep believers in bondage for years, if not throughout the whole of their lives. It behooves us to be the more careful that our statements, in summing up the teachings upon this subject, are according to the word of God.

(a) Indwelling sin will always be present in the believer. Though he has a complete deliverance before God, the flesh in him remains unchanged; so that he will ever have to say, "In my flesh dwelleth no good thing." He must therefore never expect any amendment in the character of the flesh. What it was before his conversion it will be after, until he departs to be with Christ, either at His coming or through death (Rom. 7: 18; Rom. 8: 1-13; Gal. 3: 16-26).

(b) The presence of indwelling sin does not affect our perfect standing, our complete acceptance, before God in Christ Jesus; for God regards us as dead to sin. This is His judicial estimate of us, and consequently He looks upon the sin in us as already judged in the death of Christ. Thus sin in the flesh has been condemned (Rom. 8: 3). Its motions therefore within me, if I do not yield to them, cannot for one minute obscure even my enjoyment of the love of God; for I reckon the flesh in me as judged, according to His own estimate. It is thus not only that my standing is unalterable, but also my peace, my communion, is undisturbed.

(c) My responsibility is measured by God's estimate. If He regards me as dead to sin, I have to do the same; and therefore I must not allow sin to reign in my mortal body, that I should obey it in the lusts thereof. For if I were to allow sin to reign, I should practically contradict God's estimate of me as dead to it. I have thus to keep myself in the place of death, to mortify my members which are upon the earth (Col. 3: 5), because I am dead with Christ. Here then is the whole secret. I cannot rid myself of the foe. But God has judged it, and I have simply to act according to that judgment; to keep it in that place of death where He has already put it. Hence we are not told to expel sin, to root it out, to cast it away from us, as moralists, and even divines [clergy], ignorant of the Scriptures, sometimes exhort us to do; but we are told not to let it reign; i.e., it must be kept under, in the place and under the sentence of death which has been passed upon it.

"Ah!" you exclaim, "here is my difficulty. How am I, a poor feeble creature, to do this thing?" It is thus that unbelief ever speaks. Look at David in the presence of Goliath. Does he feel the impossibility of coping with such a powerful adversary? Nothing of the kind. His one conviction was that "the battle was the Lord's"; that Goliath was the Lord's enemy, and hence that the Lord would that day deliver him into his hand (1 Sam. 17: 45-47). He thus measured his foe by the strength of the Lord; and by that measurement Goliath dwindled down before him into a puny dwarf, yea, into utter impotence and nothingness. So should it be with us. Granted that indwelling sin is strong and active, yet He who tells us to reckon ourselves to be dead to it, has supplied the power to enable us to comply with the exhortation. He has given us the indwelling Spirit, and if we "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live" (Rom. 8: 13); if "we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5: 16). The Spirit of God is therefore our strength in this warfare, the all sufficient power given to enable us to keep sin from reigning in our mortal body.

The completeness of our deliverance is thus not even touched by the presence of indwelling sin. God has judged it in the death of Christ; we are brought clean out from under its power through the resurrection of Christ; and we have the power, in the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts, to keep it where God has put it, under judgment and death. Blessed be His name! We can therefore, like Israel, stand upon the resurrection side of our Red Sea, and sing, "The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation" (Ex. 15: 2).

Chapter 9  The Indwelling Spirit

Ye are all the sons (uioi) of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26). "And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4: 6). This is the divine order. We are born of the Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, and thus are made sons; then God sends forth the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship to dwell in our hearts. The indwelling of the Spirit is therefore, it will be observed, not coincident with, but consequent upon, becoming sons.

This divine order is shadowed forth in God's dealings with Israel. On the passover night, while still in Egypt, Israel was completely sheltered by the blood; but it is not until they had crossed the Red Sea that we read either of salvation, or of God's "holy habitation"; and we know that, as a matter of fact, God did not dwell in the midst of His people until they were brought out from Egypt, through the Red Sea, into the wilderness. So now. A soul may be quickened, born again, be under the protection of the blood of Christ, but he must be indwelt by the Spirit of God before he can cry, "Abba, Father" (Gal. 4: 6). Accordingly, we do not find in the epistle to the Romans any distinct mention of the Holy Spirit, as dwelling in the believer, until we come to the eighth chapter. As long as the believer does not know his deliverance from sin and from the law, we search in vain for any teaching on this subject; but no sooner do we get the complete answer to the question raised, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" than we are told, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (Rom. 8: 9).

The truth then is that every saved soul has the indwelling Spirit; and doubtless when the gospel was first proclaimed — proclaimed as it was in all its fullness, simplicity, and power — those who received it by the grace of God were brought at once out of darkness into light, and immediately received the seal of their redemption in the gift of the Holy Ghost. But now in the confusion that reigns around, when the gospel has been so largely corrupted by human admixtures, that the fullness of the grace of God in Christ Jesus is seldom preached, there are numbers who, though quickened, are still groping in the twilight, groaning in the house of their bondage, and consequently have not yet received that Spirit of adoption whereby alone believers can cry, Abba, Father. For "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 16); and hence if we do not know that we are children of God, and cannot cry in filial confidence, Abba, Father, it is because we have not the Holy Ghost dwelling in us.

Our object now is to unfold what the Scriptures teach concerning this subject. As we have seen, the Spirit of God takes up His abode in us, consequent upon our becoming sons. And this it is which distinguishes a Christian from the saints under the old dispensation. Jewish believers were quickened, born again, but they knew nothing of God's Spirit as dwelling in them; "for the Holy Ghost was not yet, because that Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7: 39). He wrought by His power; for it was He who quickened the Jewish saints, as well as Christians; He also strengthened them for walk and service; but His coming down from heaven as a person to dwell in believers, and in the Church, was consequent upon the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. This difference is marked in one aspect very plainly by a prayer of the psalmist: "Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Psalm 51: 11); but the apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians says, "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4: 30). Working by His influences in the heart of the psalmist, it was possible for him to lose that blessed power; but believers now, though they may grieve, are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Just as the presence of the Holy Ghost upon the earth, in the house of God, characterizes Christianity, so His dwelling in God's children distinguishes them from the believers of all past dispensations. For it is the Holy Spirit that unites us to Christ, makes us members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (1 Cor. 12: 13; Eph. 5: 30); and this union, this place as members of His body, was not possible until Christ had been glorified, and had taken the place of Head in heaven.

There are several prominent aspects of the indwelling Spirit which we desire briefly to notice.

1. As a witness. The presence of the Holy Spirit on earth is the witness of accomplished redemption. For before our Lord departed, He promised to send "another Comforter" (John 14: 16, 17, 25, 26; John 15: 26, 27; John 16: 7-14); and He distinctly told His disciples that "He would send the promise of His Father upon them," and that they were to "tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high" (Luke 24: 49). The descent therefore of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost was the infallible sign of the completion of redemption or rather the proof that God had accepted and was resting satisfied in the finished work of Christ. For "it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth" (1 John 5: 6).

But here we speak rather of the Spirit as dwelling in God's children, and as such, as we have seen, He "bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 15, 16; Gal. 4: 6, 7). In this aspect, He is the witness of accomplished redemption to the individual soul — as will be seen when treating the next point — and hence every child of God ought to know by this sure testimony that he is saved. But it may be asked, How is this witness borne to our sonship? The very fact of His presence within us testifies to it; but by His presence He forms within us affections suited to our relationship, begets in us desires after the enjoyment of the Father's love, enables us in the holy intimacies of our filial place and position to cry, Abba, Father, verifies to our souls the word on which we have trusted as revealing to us the relationship and the blessings which belong to us as God's children, and thus bears very distinct witness with our spirit. No! it is not an audible testimony, and it is discerned and apprehended by our spirit alone; but it is none the less, nay, it is all the more, real on this account, because indeed it is a living secret between ourselves and God. The strength and distinctness of His testimony, it ought not to be forgotten, will depend upon conditions. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." In other words, just as being led by the Spirit of God is an evidence of our being the sons of God, so it is, when we are led walking in simple, loving obedience and dependence, that our spirit will discern most clearly His testimony to our sonship. But if we are so walking as to grieve Him, we shall listen in vain for His testimony, for we shall have grieved Him into silence. God will not therefore permit any of His children to walk carelessly, resting the certainty of their salvation on the ground of their being children; but He reminds us that if we are His we shall be led of the Spirit, and that He will bear witness with our spirit, and teach us to cry, Abba, Father.

2. As a Seal. This truth is set before us in several passages. "Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us" (2 Cor. 1: 21, 22). Again, "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1: 13); and in the same epistle we are exhorted to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4: 30). The Holy Spirit given to dwell in believers is Himself the seal; i.e., God thereby marks them out, takes possession of them as His own, and declares them by the Spirit being within them to be His property. If one may use the illustration, just as the broad- arrow declares the thing on which it is marked to belong to the Queen, so the Spirit of God sets us apart, marks us out as belonging to God. But the figure is that of a seal. Now the seal not only indicated ownership by the impress upon it, but it was put also for protection. Hence believers are said to be sealed until the day of redemption. They are secured by the seal until the Lord shall return to receive them unto Himself. And hence only believers are sealed; and they are not sealed until they are the Lord's, until they are brought out of the house of their bondage (as before seen), through the death and resurrection of Christ, until they not only are safe, but are also saved.

3. As an Earnest. Two of the passages already cited speak of the Spirit as the earnest. "Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Cor. 1: 22); "In whom after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1: 13, 14). It is the latter passage which defines most exactly the character of the earnest. The Holy Spirit as now given is regarded as "the earnest of our inheritance"; that is, He is the first-fruits of that which we shall inherit in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. As indeed when a sale is effected of a property, a portion of the purchase-money is paid down as earnest-money for the completion of the bargain, so God graciously gives us the indwelling Spirit as the earnest of our inheritance, thereby assuring us that we shall possess all that He has promised, and binding Himself (if we may so speak) to accomplish His own faithful word; for the earnest-money is both a promise and a pledge. But the Holy Spirit is even more, because, as we have seen, He is also the seal, thereby securing us for the inheritance, as well as certifying us that God will put us into possession of it to the praise of His glory.

4. It would lead us far beyond the scope of these pages to enter fully upon the offices of the indwelling Spirit. We can therefore only briefly indicate that He alone is our power for worship (John 4: 23, 24; Phil. 3: 3); for prayer (Rom. 8: 26, 27; Eph. 6: 18; Jude 20); for walk (Rom. 8: 14; Gal. 5: 16-26); for service (1 Cor. 2: 4; 1 Thess. 1: 5, etc.); for the apprehension of truth (1 Cor. 2: 9-16; John 16: 13; 1 John 2: 20-27); for growth (Eph. 3: 16-19), etc. Indeed, as the Spirit characterizes our existence before God — for we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us (Rom. 8: 2) — He only is the source of power for all the activities of our spiritual life, whether those activities have God or man for their object. Blessed fact! for it is only when we know our own weakness and nothingness that we can learn the lesson of dependence; and when we are dependent, the Spirit of God is free to act within us according to His will.

A caution is often given, and much needed both by anxious souls and young believers, not to confound the Spirit's work in us with Christ's work for us. Thus another has said, "We are constantly prone to look at something in ourselves as necessary to form the ground of peace. We are apt to regard the work of the Spirit in us, rather than the work of Christ for us, as the foundation of our peace. This is a mistake . . . The Holy Ghost did not make peace; but Christ did. The Holy Ghost is not said to be our peace; but Christ is. God did not send 'preaching peace' by the Holy Ghost, but 'by Jesus Christ.' (Compare Acts 10: 36; Eph. 2: 14, 17; Col. 1: 20). The Holy Ghost reveals Christ; He makes us know, enjoy, and feed upon Christ. He bears witness to Christ, takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. He is the power of communion, the seal, the witness, the earnest, the unction. In short, His operations are essential. Without Him we can neither see, hear, know, feel, experience, enjoy, nor exhibit aught of Christ. This is plain, and is understood and admitted by every true and rightly-instructed Christian. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the work of the Spirit is not the ground of peace, though He enables us to enjoy the peace. He is not our title, though He reveals our title, and enables us to enjoy it." No; the foundation or ground of peace is Christ — Christ in His finished work which He accomplished on the cross. For whoever believes "on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification," is justified; and "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 4: 24, 25; Rom. 5: 1). The foundation of peace then, it should ever be remembered, is outside of ourselves; and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as pointed out, is consequent upon our becoming the sons of God.

But we cannot be too sensible to the fact that, if believers, we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us; nor too solicitous not to grieve Him by unholy actings in the flesh. (See Eph. 4: 29-32). Hence too the solemn interrogation of the apostle, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6: 19, 20); and the exhortations, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh"; "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Gal. 5: 16-25).

Chapter 10  Standing and Responsibility

No exposition of the salvation which is connected with faith in Christ would be complete, without some explanation of the perfect place of blessing into which we are thereby brought. There is little doubt indeed that many quickened souls are also kept in the bondage of doubt and anxiety through their ignorance of what Christ has really accomplished on their behalf; and it is perfectly certain that they can have no adequate apprehension of their responsibility without a knowledge of their position in Christ Jesus.

Every one understands that forgiveness of sins is the immediate portion of the believer in Christ. But great as is this blessing, it is but a small part of the provisions of grace. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 1). The very next verse speaks of two additional blessings: "access by faith into this grace in which we stand," i.e., into the full favour of God in Christ; and "rejoicing in hope of the glory of God," i.e., the full fruition and consummation of our present blessings. But these gifts of God's grace through Christ belong to us here, as justified men; and in the same way we can turn to other passages which speak of perfect and everlasting reconciliation. (See Col. 1: 21, 22). But there is something beyond all this; as indeed we partly saw when treating of "deliverance."

What then is our standing, position, or place before God? It is in Christ where He is. Let us explain. We have seen (Chapter 8) that every believer is regarded by God as having died with Christ; that the apostle could write to the Colossians, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3: 3); and the context (v. 1) of the same passage speaks further of our "being risen with Christ." Turning to another epistle we get even more. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 4-6). These expressions refer to something already accomplished, and we learn from them that, though we are still actually in the body on the earth, we are before God seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that the work of Christ on our behalf is so efficacious and wonderful, so God-glorifying, that God even now can righteously accord us a position in Christ in the heavenly places. For Christ "has not only borne our sins, and died to sin, and closed the whole history of the old man in death, for those who believe, they having been crucified with Him; but He has glorified God in this work (John 13: 31, 32; John 17: 4, 5), and so obtained a place for man in the glory of God, and a place of present positive acceptance, according to the nature and favour of God whom He has glorified; and that is our place before God. It is not only that the old man and his sins are all put out of God's sight, but we are in Christ before God." Every believer therefore has been crucified with Christ, raised up with Him, and is now seated in Him in the heavenlies. He is thus taken altogether out of his old standing — his Adam standing; for "he is not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in him (Rom. 8: 9); and his new standing is in Christ, and thus of necessity in Christ where He is. Hence too the measure of his acceptance is the acceptance of Christ; "for as He is so are we in this world" (1 John 4: 17).

This is often very difficult for the young believer to understand. Be it therefore very distinctly noted that it is no question whatever of attainment or experience, that it belongs to every believer; and the difficulty will vanish if the eye be taken off from self and directed to Christ. If we look within, consider our weaknesses, failures, imperfections, sins, well might we be perplexed to understand how such imperfect ones, as we are practically, could have such a perfect and inalienable place before God. But when we look at Christ, at His precious blood, at what He was to God on the cross, and what He accomplished there, we instantly confess that He is worthy of the place He fills. Here is the whole secret. It is in His worthiness we stand. All that we were, as to the old nature, is gone from before God: Christ only remains, and we in Him. Our place, standing, is thus God's response to the worthiness, the merits, of His own Son. He can therefore righteously shelter us by the blood, bring us out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the Jordan, and set us down in Christ in the heavenlies.

And just because our standing is in Christ, it is unalterable and immutable. Knowing this, the completeness of our redemption, because of our union with that blessed One who is risen from among the dead, we have abiding confidence and peace. We may change, fluctuate in feeling and attainment, but Christ can never change; He is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever" (Heb. 13: 8). And hence, since our standing is in Him, we dwell for ever in the light and presence of God; for our home is before Him, though we may sometimes forget it; and where should we dwell but in our home? The more fully therefore we understand our true place and standing in Christ, the more familiar shall we be with the presence and glory of God.

But such a wondrous place or standing has its responsibilities; and it is to these we would now turn. As we have seen, we are in Christ before God; and, marvelous fact, Christ is in us down here (see John 15: 4; Gal. 2: 20; Eph. 3: 17; Col. 1: 27, etc.), and this defines and measures our responsibilities; for if God has given us a place in Christ where He is, it is that we may exhibit Christ where we are. A few illustrations of this may be collected from the Scriptures. "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked" (1 John 2: 6). Taking this in its most general form, we may ask, And how did the Lord Jesus walk? Ever as the heavenly One upon the earth. As when speaking to Nicodemus, He could say, "The Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3: 13), so was it during the whole of His earthly sojourn; for the life He lived was a heavenly life — as One who had come forth from the Father, revealing Him, and unfolding the perfectness of heaven upon earth. He could thus say, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14: 9); for morally He was the perfect presentation of the Father. So ought we to walk — as belonging not to earth, but to heaven, and unfolding the ways of heaven upon earth — as samples of the heavenly character; for we are dead with Christ. We have not only died in Him to sin, but we have also died with Him from out of this scene in which we move, and have been raised together with Him. Our citizenship, or commonwealth, is in heaven (Phil. 3: 20), and in accordance with this character must be our lives. This responsibility is summed up, in its double aspect, by the apostle Paul when he says, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4: 10, 11). Thus it is death on the one side, and life on the other: death as to all that we were in the flesh; life as to all that we are in Christ, or rather, Christ Himself as our life — manifested even in our mortal flesh. Hence the obligation to mortify our members which are upon the earth (Col. 3: 5) — an obligation which distinctly flows from the fact that our standing is in Christ risen. The apostle shows that he had apprehended the responsibility when He says, "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1: 21); and just in proportion as we approximate to the ability to say the same thing will be our understanding of our true place in Christ.

Another form of our responsibility is found in the passage, "Be ye therefore followers (imitators) of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph. 5: 1, 2). The same thing is enforced by the apostle John. Herein we have known love, because He has laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3: 16). We have also an example, in one particular direction, given in John 13. After the Lord Jesus had washed the feet of His disciples, "and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, [your] Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you" (John 13: 12-15). The love of Christ therefore to us, even in yielding Himself up to death on our behalf, is proposed to us as our example. If He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, love's uttermost expression, and this — no degree short of this — is our responsibility.

But mark the language of the first of the passages which we have cited; and see how carefully the Spirit of God has defined the character of the love which should also flow out from us, and thereby guarded it from degenerating into human kindness and amiability. It is, "As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." While therefore we are under responsibility to love our brethren to the uttermost, God, and not they, is to be the object before our souls. It must be expressed as to Him; and can therefore only be expressed in the pathways of obedience. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments" (1 John 5: 2). Accordingly, our Lord's sacrifice of Himself is characterized as "obedience unto death" (Phil. 2: 8); and He Himself thus speaks of it: "I have power to lay it" (His life) "down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10: 18). Thus Christ must be before our souls — Christ in motive as well as act, in treading in His path of love, in seeking to love one another, even as He hath loved us (John 15: 12).

The apostle Peter gives us another aspect of our responsibility in the presentation of Christ in walk, an aspect towards enemies or persecutors. "If, when ye do well, and suffer [for it], ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously: who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2: 20-24). It is thus Christ, in whatever way we look; for since He is our life, our responsibility is to live Christ. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2: 20).

It may tend to simplify the whole subject, and aid in its apprehension, if we refer briefly to two other passages which treat of it in another form. Eph. 4: 20-32, and Col. 3 contain a number of practical exhortations which are all based upon our standing in Christ. We take the latter to indicate their general character. The first part of the chapter (Col. 3) deals with our death and resurrection with Christ, on which we have already touched. Following upon this we have practical directions. Then the apostle lays the foundation of all. "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new [man], which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free: but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness," etc. (Col. 3: 9-12). Without entering upon a detailed exposition of the passage, it will be observed that the ground of the exhortations lies in the Colossian believers having "put off the old man," and having "put on the new." But when did they put off the old man? It was in the death of Christ that our old man (Adam) was crucified (Rom. 6: 6). And when did they put on the new man? In the resurrection of Christ (Col. 2: 11-13; 3: 1-5). And herein lies the whole of our responsibility. For if I, through grace, have put off the old man, my responsibility is, to live no longer according to the old man, but to mortify my members which are upon the earth; and if I have put on the new man, I am under the obligation to walk accordingly, for we have been brought, through the death and resurrection of Christ, out of the old state and standing in which Adam was all and in all, into the new, where Christ is all and in all. If therefore Christ in glory is the measure of my standing, He also is the measure of my responsibility, and these two things are always connected in the word of God, as they should also ever be connected in our own souls. "If any man be in Christ, a new creature" (2 Cor. 5: 17), i.e., he is brought into that new creation of which Christ is the beginning and the Head; and hence every believer is responsible to walk in accordance with the character of the place into which he is brought.

Chapter 11  The Coming of the Lord

One object of hope is placed before the believer in the Scriptures as soon as he has been brought out of darkness into God's marvelous light, and that is the coming or return of the Lord Jesus. This is the case in almost every book of the New Testament; and this fact makes it the more surprising that the hope of the Lord's return has been lost sight of by almost the whole professing Church. Let us examine the Scriptures on this point.

In the first place, we shall find that our Lord Himself was continually pressing this truth upon the attention of His disciples. In the gospel of Matthew it is found again and again, and the "parable of the virgins" embodies it in its most striking form (Matt. 25). In Mark we get the exhortation, "Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning," etc. (Mark 13: 35-37). In Luke we read, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately" (Luke 12: 35, 36). In John we have those blessed and familiar words: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also" (John 14: 1-3).

These are only samples of the way in which the Lord presented His return to His disciples; and we now pass on to the subsequent books of the New Testament, because it is after the resurrection and ascension of Christ that the Holy Spirit reveals this truth as the distinctive hope of the believer. Indeed, no sooner had the Lord been taken from His disciples up into heaven than this message was sent to 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" (Acts 1: 10, 11). Passing still onward to the epistles which were addressed to churches or to saints, we shall find the same thing. The first epistle to the Thessalonians was the earliest in point of time of these; and in this, describing their conversion, the apostle says: "They themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven" (1 Thess. 1: 9, 10; see also 1 Thess. 2: 19, 20; 1 Thess. 3: 13; 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, etc.). The second epistle to the same church treats of the same subject, correcting some mistakes into which the saints were in danger of falling through false teaching. (See 2 Thess. 2: 1-6). In Colossians we have the same distinct note — "When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3: 4), showing here indeed that the saints will have been caught up to meet the Lord before His appearing. In Philippians also we have, "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3: 20). So in Titus, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2: 13).

Taking now the last book of the Bible, what do we find? The same thing both at the commencement and at the close. Of all the seven churches Philadelphia seems most in accord with the Lord's mind; and it is to it that He says, "Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3: 11). And our Lord thus closes His communications to His people, and the whole canon of inspired truth: "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly" (Rev. 22: 20), sufficient evidence surely of the place He would have His coming to occupy in our minds.

And not only is it the fact that our attitude should ever be that of waiting for the Lord Jesus, but we are also taught that there is nothing of necessity, as far as is revealed, between the present and that coming, no intervening events to occupy us or to turn aside our gaze; but that at any moment, even while this page is being written or read, the Lord may "descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God," to raise His sleeping saints, and to change the living ones, that both alike may be caught up "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thess. 4: 15-18). Thus the apostle, in the constant expectation of this event, says, "We which are alive and remain shall be caught up," etc. (1 Thess. 4: 17); and again, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed" (1 Cor. 15: 51). Accordingly, it is the evil servant who is spoken of as saying in his heart, "My lord delayeth his coming" (Matt. 24: 48); and Peter also tells us that there will be scoffers in the last days, "walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?" (2 Peter 3: 3, 4).

Waiting, looking for, expecting the coming of the Lord should thus characterize every believer. For, as we have continually seen in these pages, we are a heavenly people, and hence our hope is also heavenly; and we wait for the Lord Jesus, because He Himself has told us to do so. And, moreover, He has been pleased to reveal to us that then will be the consummation of our redemption. It is then that we shall be like Him (1 John 3: 2); that we shall be like Him bodily as well as morally (Phil. 3: 21). For if we shall have died as to the body ere He returns, He will raise us from among the dead, in resurrection bodies like His own; if we are still on the earth, we shall "be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we" (i.e., the living) "shall be changed" (1 Cor. 15: 51, 52). Then, too, not only shall we enter upon our association with Him in the glory, but we shall also "ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 4: 17).

The effect of this hope upon the soul should be most blessed. We may adduce a few instances of the practical power which it is intended to exercise. Beyond all, the constant expectation of Christ constitutes a searching test of our spiritual condition. This is one of the main points in the parable of the virgins (Matt. 25: 1-13). All the virgins are professors; but the fatal distinction is, that while five are wise, five are foolish. All alike had lamps, and all alike professed to go forth to meet the Bridegroom. Outwardly therefore there was no difference; and as far as can be discovered from the parable the essential difference between them was not detected until the cry was raised, "Behold the Bridegroom!" Then it is, in the prospect of His approach, and in order to be ready to meet Him, that they are aroused from their slumbers, and that they begin to trim their lamps; but no sooner was the light applied to the wicks of their lamps than five discover their lack of oil. Until now they had thought that all was well. They were professors, and walked, outwardly at least, as the Lord's people; but now, in the near prospect of meeting the Lord, they are made to know that they had no oil, that they had not been born again, that they had no indwelling Spirit to bear witness with their spirits that they were God's children, that they were professors and nothing else, and therefore that as such they could not meet the Bridegroom. Hence their endeavours to get the oil: but no, their efforts are vain; it is too late, for the Bridegroom and those that were ready have gone in to the marriage: "and the door was shut" (Matt. 25: 10). Undaunted still, they press onwards and reach the door, and standing there, they raise the pleading cry, "Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not" (Matt. 25: 11, 12). And the solemn lesson which the Lord Himself draws is this, "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour" (Matt. 25: 13); for what happened to the foolish virgins in the parable may happen to any of us, if we take only the lamp of profession, and have no oil; i.e., if we are Christians only in name, never having been born again, and received the Spirit of adoption.

But not only does the expectation of Christ reveal the true state of professors, but it also discovers the condition of the wise virgins. These equally with the foolish had slumbered and slept, and it is the cry, "Behold the Bridegroom" which also awakens them, and constrains them to trim their lamps that they might go forth and meet Him; and it is only thus that being ready they went in with Him to the marriage (Matt. 25: 10). Indeed, when believers are constantly expecting their Lord, it is impossible for them to sleep. In spirit they are already in His presence, and their own state and associations are instantly revealed. And it would seem from the parable that there are four things which constitute readiness to meet the Lord: First, the one essential thing, oil; secondly, the lamp trimmed and burning; thirdly, separation, for they were to go out to meet the Bridegroom; and lastly, watchfulness, for their failure was in having slumbered and slept. And it is when the Lord is momentarily expected that believers will seek to have these characteristics of preparedness for His presence.

It should be also an incentive to fidelity in service. Thus in the parable of the ten pounds, the charge which accompanied their delivery to the ten servants was, "Occupy till I come" (Luke 19: 12-27). Concerning the evil servant, already mentioned, it is said, "The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites," etc. (Matt. 24: 50, 51). Thus the coming of Christ is a double motive to fidelity; it holds out encouragement to the faithful, and it affords a warning to the careless servant. The former will say with joyful anticipation, "My Lord is at hand, and therefore I must seek to be diligent ere He comes"; while the latter, if he reflect at all, will surely think, "What will my Lord say if He find me, at His coming, both careless and unfaithful?" The more fully therefore we live in the power of the expectation of Christ, the more shall we feel the need of serving as in His sight, knowing that He will reckon with us on His return.

The prospect of the coming of Christ exerts also a separating power upon heart and life. The apostle John says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him (i.e., in Christ) purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 2: 2, 3). Nothing indeed will detach us from all that is unsuited to His presence like the constant expectation of Christ. Knowing that He may return at any moment, and living with this expectation, it will be our desire to be separated from all, whether in heart, manner, habit, life, and walk, on which He could not smile. Yea, it will lead us to judge everything within and without ourselves by the light of His presence as being in spirit already with Him, and thus having Him in glory continually before our souls, to "purify ourselves even as He is pure."

These are only some of the practical effects of the living expectation of the coming of Christ. If the Scriptures are examined further on the subject, it will be found that the coming of Christ is always associated with the heart and life of the believer. But enough has been said to indicate the practical character of the doctrine. A grievous wrong is therefore done to the young believer when he is kept in ignorance of this most blessed truth. For if the cross of Christ is the foundation, the coming of Christ is the completion of his salvation, for it is then, as we have seen, that in body also he will be like his Lord. And not only so, but he is also deprived of that hope which, applied by the Holy Spirit, not only sustains him in discouragement, comforts him in trouble, consoles him in bereavement, nerves him for conflict, stimulates his zeal, and calls forth his affections, but also works mightily for his practical sanctification. It is no wonder therefore that Satan should seek to obscure it from the minds of believers; but it is a wonder that so many should fall into his snare, inasmuch as our blessed Lord has for ever associated it with the touching memorials of His own death. For every time "we eat the bread, and drink the cup, we do show the Lord's death TILL HE COME" (1 Cor. 11: 26).

Chapter 12  The Judgment

Much confusion exists in the minds both of believers and unbelievers as to the judgment. The general idea is that at the end of the world there will be a judgment-day, when all alike, whether saved or unsaved, will stand before God, and receive according to their works. Hence it is often contended that we cannot know whether we are saved before that time. We therefore propose to examine this subject by the light of the Scriptures.

1. It is very certain that believers will never be judged — will never stand before the judgment-seat on account of sin. Our Lord teaches this doctrine most distinctly. He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5: 24). Now this word "condemnation" should be translated judgment, and is so translated in verses 22, 27, and 29; and we have therefore a distinct assertion that believers will not come into judgment. Indeed, this is only a simple consequence of having eternal life; for if the question of our state before God were left unsettled, how could we be possessors of everlasting life? And yet we are taught that we have this now: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath" (not shall have) "everlasting life." (See also John 3: 36; 6: 47; 1 John 5: 13, etc.).

This truth was shadowed forth in the distinction which God made between Israel and Egypt on the Passover night, when He smote the first-born. Israel, as we have seen, was completely sheltered from the power of the destroying angel, by the blood of the Lamb. In like manner every believer is secured from judgment as to guilt, by the blood of Christ; for Christ has borne the judgment for him in His death on the cross, so that he can say, "He bare my sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 24).

"Yes," you may perhaps reply, "my past sins." "No," we answer, "your sins; all your sins if you are a believer. For not one of them had been committed when the Saviour died; and so He took the burden of all of them, entered into and exhausted the judgment due to all of them, so that the whole of your guilt might for ever be swept away. Blessed truth!"

"If thou hast my discharge procured,

And freely in my place endured

The whole of wrath divine,

Payment He will not twice demand,

First at my bleeding surety's hand,

And then again at mine."

Thus it is that we have not only died, but have also been raised together with Christ (Eph. 2; Col. 3), and therefore have been brought through the judgment, in the death of Christ, so that we stand on the other, the resurrection side, where in perfect confidence we can cry, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (Rom. 8: 33, 34).

2. Though believers will never be judged on account of sin, all must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. Thus the apostle writes: "We are confident [I say] and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour (or, it is our earnest desire), that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him (or, acceptable to Him). For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad" (2 Cor. 5: 8-10). No statement could be plainer to the effect that all, "we all," and therefore believers, must also appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. We ask them these two questions: first, When will this be for believers? and secondly, For what purpose will they be there?

(a) When will believers appear before the judgment-seat of Christ? It has been seen in the previous chapter that the hope of the believer is the coming of Christ; and that at His coming the dead in Christ will be raised, that those who are living will be changed, and that both will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4: 16-18). This applies to believers alone, and is "the resurrection of life" of which our Lord speaks in the gospel of John. If we cite the whole passage the reference will be better understood. He says, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation" (judgment, kriseos) (John 5: 28, 29). In verse 24, He proclaims everlasting life to every one that heareth His word, and believeth on Him that sent Him; and declares that all such shall not come into judgment, but are passed from death unto life. He then proceeds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." He grounds this assurance upon the fact that "as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself; and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man" (John 5: 25-27). Then comes our passage, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming," etc. (v. 28).

The two things here contrasted are life and judgment, in connection with Christ as the source of one, and the depositary of the other. As the Son of God He communicates life; as the Son of man He is invested with the authority to execute judgment. Accordingly He offers life in the hour that now is; and will execute judgment in the hour that is coming. The hour that "now is" has lasted therefore from the time when these words were spoken, and will last until the close of the present dispensation. Thus the dead in verse 25 are the spiritually dead; and hence we have the words "they that hear shall live"; for it is only they that hear the voice of the Son of God in the gospel who pass from death unto life. But in the coming hour (John 5: 28) we are told that all that are in the graves shall come forth; "the hour" in this case, as in verse 25, marking a period or dispensation, and therefore in no way indicating a simultaneous resurrection. On the other hand, as we know from other Scriptures (1 Cor. 15: 23; 1 Thess. 4: 15-18; Rev. 20: 4-6, etc.), the resurrection of life will take place at the Lord's return, while the resurrection of judgment will not be until the close of the millennium, being the closing event of earthly dispensations preparatory to the eternal state. What we get then from this passage is, that the resurrection of life of those who have heard the word of the Son of God, and believed on Him that sent Him, and have received everlasting life, is an entirely distinct thing from the resurrection of judgment; that believers have no part in the resurrection of judgment, and hence that they will not appear before the judgment-seat together with the wicked. There is also the other solemn instruction which we note and leave, as outside our present purpose, that all men must honour the Son of God, if not now by bowing before Him in self-judgment to receive everlasting life, then by-and-by when He executes judgment as the Son of man upon every one according to their works. Now He acts in grace; then in righteous judgment.

Having then seen that believers have no part in the resurrection of judgment, we have still to enquire, When will they appear before the judgment-seat of Christ? The answer is clear from many passages that it is on His return, and therefore consequent upon the first resurrection. This is the distinct teaching of the parables in Matthew 25: 14, etc.; Luke 19: 11, etc. In the former, we have the words, "After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them" (Matt. 25: 19); in the latter, the charge on departure is, "Occupy till I come" (Luke 19: 13). In all the exhortations, too, addressed to the disciples, under responsibility as servants, the coming of Christ is the goal to which they are directed to look; so also in the epistles (as, for example, 1 Cor. 1: 7, 8; 1 Thess. 1: 9, 10; 1 Thess. 3: 12, 13; 2 Thess. 1; 1 Timothy 6: 13-16; Titus 2: 11-14, etc.).

(b) We may, then, now answer our second question — For what purpose will believers appear before the judgment-seat of Christ? We have seen that it is not to be judged for sin; for the possession of everlasting life exempts them from this, and the judgment, due both to their sins and sinful condition, has already been borne by their Surety in His death. It is "that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body"; and thus for the believer it is a judgment of his works or service. This truth cannot be too earnestly pressed upon our hearts and consciences; for it will stimulate us both to fidelity and zeal to remember that we must "be manifested" (as the word is) before the judgment-seat of Christ. Let it be remembered, however, that before we are thus judged we are already raised, and made like unto our Lord (Phil. 3: 20, 21; 1 John 3: 2), body as well as spiritually; and hence that we shall have full fellowship with Him in His judgment upon our works. Still it is a very solemn consideration, that in regard to those things which we now excuse or allow to pass unjudged, we shall then take part with Christ in condemning as unworthy of Him whom we professed to serve; as traces of Egypt [a type of the world] which ought to have been judged and rolled away; as actings of the flesh which God in His infinite mercy and grace had put into the place of death, and which He has given us power to keep there through the indwelling Spirit. Hence the blessing of constant and faithful self-judgment, as even now in spirit manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ. May we be enabled to do this, and may "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5: 23).

3. The final judgment of the wicked will take place at the end of the millennium. Earth has been, and will yet be, the scene of many a judgment of the living; and so also "when the Son of man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations," etc. (Matt. 25: 31, etc.). This judgment scene is often confounded with that which takes place before the great white throne; but it is entirely distinct. It is, as the word declares, the judgment of the nations, living nations at the coming of the Son of man in glory; a judgment therefore preparatory to His sway from the river unto the ends of the earth. The final judgment, that of the dead, is found in the Revelation, and is thus described: "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God" (it should be, before the throne)"; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (rather, hades) delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20: 11-15).

This is the "resurrection of judgment" of which our Lord speaks in the gospel of John; and will include therefore all the unsaved, and the unsaved alone. True that the book of life is there; but there is no indication of any saints to be judged. The book of life is opened to show that the names of those to be judged were not there; and thus they are condemned on both negative and positive grounds. Their names were not written in the book of life, and their works declared them amenable to righteous judgment, and they thus fall hopelessly under the everlasting sentence of the lake of fire, which is the second death, a sentence from which there is no appeal and no escape.

Are any of my readers still unsaved? Let me beseech you to ponder upon this solemn scene. He who sits upon that great white throne as the Judge is the Blessed One who, now seated in the glory at the right hand of God, is proclaimed to you as a Saviour. Concerning Him the divine decree has gone forth, "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth" (i.e., celestial, terrestrial, and infernal beings); "and [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2: 10, 11). None therefore can escape; but the question which affects you, and will affect you eternally, is whether you will bow the knee to Him now while it is the accepted time, and the day of salvation, or whether you will be constrained to bow before Him as your Judge on the throne. Bow before Him now, in self-judgment, taking the place of a sinner, and looking to Him as the Saviour, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and you will not come into judgment, but will, while you look, pass from death unto life. Refusing Him as a Saviour, despising the grace of God which promises everlasting life to every one that believeth on Him, you will have to bow before and under the rod of His judgment, and at the same time to confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Awful alternative! Oh that even the contemplation of it may be used of the Lord to bring you, even as you read, as a lost sinner to His feet, so that finding Him as your Saviour, you may be amongst that happy number who are waiting for His return, and who will never stand before the great white throne.

E. Dennett.

STEM Publishing: G. V. Wigram: A Gospel Address.

A Gospel Address.

2 Cor. 4, 5.

G. V. Wigram.

Christian Friend, vol. 8, 1881, p. 197.

I have read these chapters together because they present the gospel in the way in which Paul learnt all the leading points of it. There was a certain man very remarkable for his self-righteousness — Saul of Tarsus. He thought he could put forth his power mightily to vindicate God's cause against One whom he thought an impostor — Jesus of Nazareth; and when he saw the light of the glory shine down on Stephen, it had no effect on him whatever; it only stirred his heart up to go to the high priest to get letters to Damascus. All the hard thoughts he had about Christ had a response in the heart of Christ. He looked down and saw that man with those clothes laid at his feet; and He said, "That is the man I will take up; and I will put him into Stephen's place, whether he likes it or not" The Lord called him as he went down to Damascus "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Saul's answer was, "Who art thou, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." What gentleness of the Lord Jesus! The next word is, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" The Lord put that man for the first time into the place of an enquirer about the person of the Lord Jesus. He says, "The first time I ever asked the question, 'Who art thou?' was when I saw the divine glory shining down, and heard the voice of Him who I thought was an impostor calling me by name; what could I do but give up all to Him?" He gives up all his thoughts, and says, "I know Him, and I am at His disposal." Peter, James, and John did not know the Lord Jesus in this way till He was risen from the dead. Both Peter and Paul had to learn what was the main object for which Christ came into the world; and they got the light of it after He rose from the dead. The revelation of Christ as being gone into heaven had to be made known to Peter. Now, how many of you can say, I know Him? Do you know Him? After what sort of fashion? with any sort of intimacy? When I was nineteen, if friends talked to me about Christ, I knew nothing; but when the Lord came and introduced Himself to me I thought that a person was close to me, and that everything I had done was out in the light; but instead of coming to condemn me, there was nothing but love in Him. I could have told you who Jesus Christ was, and who Caesar was; but as to knowing Himself, I was utterly ignorant. But as He made His passages of love into my heart, out came the confession of what I was. I have had forty-seven years' apprenticeship under Christ; and of all the things on which my heart dwells as to eternity, I say, "I have got One who is gone there before me."

God says, "Let there be light." (v. 6.) The One who spoke light out of darkness could speak light into darkness, as He does into the heart of the poor sinner. I want to call attention to what Paul had to learn. Peter learnt it too, that it was not what men did to Christ in crucifying Him that contained the full meaning of His death, but there was a "determinate counsel of God." He let men run their whole course, because He could not be a just God, and the Justifier of him that believeth, without the blood of Christ. They had God in the world, and they would not have Him there, and now the blood is in heaven. They say, We will not have that either. It is the world, not the earth, spoken of here — the world, the system man has set up to make himself happy without God. God comes into the scene, and man says, "I will not have you." "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." He did not come raking up their transgressions. God saw that reconciliation was what was wanted. He saw that unless He could take that enmity out of my heart, we could never come together. And now Paul says, "He has committed unto us the word of this reconciliation." The unconverted say, "I cannot admit that I need reconciling to God, or else I should be lost." "Oh," says the Christian, "that is just where I get my rest!" Even a child very soon displays will. What does God say? "Very unlike my Son; I cannot get on with it." Does He turn away? No; He says you want reconciling. "You are in a path of 'I will' and 'I won't:' it leads to hell. My Son went through the world, and only said 'I will' twice, and that when it was My will." Does God deal with will in man? Yes; He sent out the apostles and others with this word, "Be ye reconciled to God."

Let me say a word about the need of this reconciliation, because I knew so much about it for nineteen years. When I learnt I was going down a sloping path to hell, I set myself to work out righteousness, and worked myself nearly to death, having no idea of doing things by halves. And what did I see all this come to? God says, "I must do the work." What! that no one but God was to have the credit of salvation? That I was to come as a poor sinner? Why that will let me down so very low! It just proved that I wanted reconciling. I was saying, up to that time, "I don't like Thy way." Perhaps some of you are saying to God, "I don't like Thy way; I must do something." God says, "I did it eighteen hundred years ago. My Son died. I shall not do the work again. If you come into My presence, saying, I am going to do everything for myself, I say, I do not know you." Are you going to displace every thing in heaven? Are you going to undo the work of Christ, and bring in a new way? That work has stood before God for more than eighteen hundred years, and are you, an upstart creature, going to say, No; that work must be set aside, and a way must be made for me, to let me figure out and show what I am?

In the last verse we get the basis of it all. If we pause on verse 21, we shall find how different God's thoughts are from man's thoughts. "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Very well put by the apostle in a few words, because we cannot say, Who can this be? for we know there was only One who "knew no sin." It might be placed over the Lord Jesus in heaven, "This Man hath done nothing amiss;" but more than that, "He knew no sin." "Holy, harmless, undefiled," etc. God made Him to be sin; now what does man think about that? I heard it said, "I don't think there is any justice about that;" but man, when he undertakes to judge God, is in the dark. It would never have been just or righteousness if He had been made sin contrary to His will. I just remark, that in all these infidel reasonings men take things for granted that are not true. Had not God a right to do as He liked? Had not He a right to sit in heaven from all eternity? Yes. Had not He a right to leave that place, and take His place on the cross? Man must keep his own place, or else he comes into judgment. Who can say to God, Thou must not be here? All that it brings out is, that when the gospel is presented to man, he says, "I do not like God, or His ways." It shows another thing, that the wisdom of God was such that He knew how to take the absolute ruin of man, and make that the means of the greatest glory to Himself. Look at man in the garden; he turned his back upon God, and followed Satan. How did He remedy it? Could man? No; God says, "I will step in there, and turn that very ruin to My own praise." How did He do it? His Son comes down to drink that cup of wrath for sinners; the Son of God was made sin. He is the only Person yet who has ever tasted the wrath of God against sin, and I am bold to say He was the only One who could taste it fully. Take a man who goes to "his own place:" he knows what it is to be separated from God; but how can a finite being learn what is infinite? But when the Son of God came into the world He took the cup of wrath. Who will measure what He went through? the thought of God hiding His face from Him? Many a believer has tried to measure sin, and he says, "No, I cannot; I find the measure in the cross which I cannot measure." He was forsaken of God; that is the sort of God who sent Peter and Paul with this message to poor sinners. "I have made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for you."

Then you get the other thought brought out in the latter part of the verse, "That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." God hid His face from His Son, just as the Jews and Gentiles were mocking Him; but He did not mean it to end there. Ire says, "Now come to My right hand, and let Me show the world what I think of You; and every one who comes to Me in Thy name shall receive a hearty welcome." It is as simple as possible. Suppose I had been into a foreign land, and saved the life of some man out of a river. I return, and I want a favour of some of you who are akin to him; I come to you; you say, "I do not know you." I reply, "Have you heard from your son lately?" You tell me all that has passed, and I say, "I am the man who saved him." "Oh," you say, "what will I not give you! Come and sit down, and make my home your home:" Just so with God and Christ; if you come in your own name He does not know you, if you come in His name you get a hearty welcome. The thing is as clear as possible, and you have firm ground to go upon if you come in His name.

What is the connection between this and human righteousness? Human righteousness is, I do this and that, and when I have done, God forms the judgment of it. God's righteousness is God saying, "I have done something, and I want some one to recognize it, and to come in His name." That is heart-work when we come to know a loving Saviour; faith-work when we come to think of what God has done. Then there is conscience-work; you cannot look into my conscience, or I into yours. We see a beautiful conscience-work in the apostle. He says we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; not the great white throne — that is at the end of the thousand years. Those who appear there will never appear at the other judgmentseat. Here it is like a man who has been away from home; he comes back and settles up his accounts in a loving way: good servants like their masters to keep short reckonings. When Christ gathers all His people together there, it is a question of how He shall place them in the kingdom. If I speak of appearing in a place, I mean I shall be manifest. Paul says, My doctrine is manifest, and we must all be manifested. People do not like that: what, all come out there? I will tell you why they do not like it, they have not been manifested to themselves yet; but you cannot escape it if you mean to be in the glory. But stop; what are you afraid of? Who are you going to meet there? The Lord Jesus Christ. No mistake about His having known you as a sinner, and as a failing saint He does not expect you to be just like Himself. He expects a poor sinner saved by grace Will it be a very painful thing to be there? He will say, as He did to Peter, "I had not a bit of faith in you, but you had a bit of faith in Me, and that is what brought you here." Will it be painful if He says, You owe it all to Me; do not go and say, that you did it yourself. Are you afraid to appear before Him there? What does God think about me? what do saints of God think about me? what do I think about myself? If I have not weighed myself up in God's presence, no wonder I am not at ease at the thought of being at the judgment-seat. Is your thought about yourself anything but the blood of Christ as to acceptance? I would rather come cleansed by that blood than in my own righteousness even if it were possible.

What do I think of all that blessed favour into which I am brought? Christ is gone into heaven, and I am to go in there. It is what I think of Christ, not what I think of myself; it clears out every thought of myself. Where are poor sinners who do not know they want cleansing by blood? Lost! lost! lost! No matter who you are — either a poor sinner with a Saviour, or a poor sinful man cleaving to his sinfulness. Paul says, I do not come to teach you human righteousness, but Jesus Christ who is revealed to you and me. The eye of that Lord looks down on us now. When He was on earth He looked down on a little company like this; He knew Nicodemus at the first glance, and He knew the woman of Samaria at the first glance. As He looks down on us, does He see one who knows His blood, His finished work, or one who cares nothing about Him? I am connected with One who is the centre of all God's purposes; I know that all that is true of a believer, and a great deal more. It is wonderful, God's way of setting aside all that is of the flesh, and making a way that lets naughty sinners down in self-abhorrence, and makes them say, "My trust is in the Lord." Who else should ruined sinners trust in? Everything in connection with sin about me makes me loathe myself, and cling to Him and say, Christ for me. G. V. W.

STEM Publishing : Frederick W Grant : God's Evangel.

God's Evangel.

Being gospel papers by F. W. Grant.

Publisher: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., Neptune, N.J.

1. A Coal from the Altar

2. In the Pharisee's House

3. At the Well

4. A Brand from the Burning

5. Rahab

6. The Demoniac

7. The Gospel in the Genealogy

8. The Healing of the Issue

9. The Famine of Samaria, and How it was Relieved

10. The Lost Sheep

11. The Lost Piece of Silver

12. The Lost Son

13. Not Lost and Not Saved — (the Elder Son)

14. The Perseverance of the Saints

STEM Publishing : William J Hocking : Salvation Possessed and Known

Salvation Possessed and Known

Notes of an address by W. J. Hocking on Acts 10: 42-43.

Published by F. E. Race, 1915.

“And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts. 10: 42, 43).

These words form the conclusion of the address of Peter to Cornelius the centurion, and to those assembled in his house. They were the special words in the Apostle's discourse which seem to have been for the centurion's personal benefit, though others show the blessing that ensued. They particularly suited his case. They brought him deliverance and enjoyment and peace in the Holy Ghost.

I want you to look this evening at the words as those addressed to a man who was seeking to know from God that which would settle, once and for ever, the great question of his own personal responsibility to his God. Cornelius was not a godless man. He was not a heathen man, in the sense of being a worshipper of false gods. He was a man who recognised that there was one God over all, and that He was the God of the Jews, and that God he most earnestly desired to know. We are told of him, in the commencement of this chapter, that he prayed to God alway, and gave alms to the people of God.

This is a striking witness to the character of the man. Cornelius was a Roman soldier, an officer, a man used to command, accustomed to enforce the strict military discipline which characterised the Roman army; but, in spite of the stern habits of his military life, he was a man who had been touched in his heart and conscience. He had seen and felt the follies and abominations of idol worship. He had been stationed in Palestine, the favoured land of Jehovah, where prophets had testified of God and His worship. He had been serving in that same land so recently trodden, as it had been, by the feet of the Son of God. And will it be too great a stretch of our imagination to suppose that he learned from that other fellow-soldier of his, that centurion of Capernaum, who loved the nation of the Jews, and had himself come to the lowly Prophet of Nazareth, and besought Him, with faith, such faith in his heart as had never before been known in Israel, that he might receive the words that would heal his sick one — would Cornelius have learned something of Jesus of Nazareth from him? And may he not also have heard some report from that other centurion whose duty it was to attend the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory, and see that all was done according to the law of that mighty Gentile empire which was holding God's people in a grip of iron at that time? This man was a personal witness of the extraordinary events of that day. He saw a meek and patient Sufferer, lifted up between two malefactors, and yet so different from them. He was indeed always so different from all men, but with what distinction did the Holy Son of man stand apart from those two robbers. This centurion was a witness to the supernatural darkness that covered the land at noonday. He heard, too, that bitter cry of anguish, “My God, my God, why bast thou forsaken me?” and the officer was smitten in his conscience, and confessed at the close that Jesus was a righteous man — the Son of God.

Cornelius must have heard something of these things. What he believed brought him on his knees to the living and true God. It caused him to love that people whom it was his business to govern in accordance with the exacting laws of his Emperor. For the centurion felt that the Jews were God's people, and he cared for their poor in a conspicuous manner; and yet the man was not at rest inwardly. There was that which was good and beneficent about him. There was that which showed that he had a care for holy things, and for holy persons, and yet the man kept on praying, being in need of something to satisfy the conscience within him, which told him that he had sinned against God, and that he could not escape the judgment of sin; and he craved to know how sins, his sins, the sins of a Gentile, might be forgiven. He knew God's word, and that he himself was not a lost sheep of the house of Israel, to whom the Messiah came. He might well have said: 'What part have I with the house of Israel? The Messiah is for them, but, alas! not for me.'

Yet Cornelius desired the blessing of God's forgiveness; he was a sinful man, but he prayed always, and he was heard.

Beloved friends, there are many persons in this country, no doubt there are some in this hall tonight, who have a sense that they, too, have sinned against the holy God. They feel that the past, with all its sins, is not quite extinct, but that it will be brought forth again to their condemnation, and they do not as yet see how that past will be dealt with otherwise than to their extreme ruin. They feel that they have sinned against God, and they cannot rest because they believe they must answer for sins in their bodies in the day which is to come. They love to hear of Jesus. They love to hear of the Christ of God. They confess that there is no other Saviour among men save Jesus of Nazareth, and yet they are not confident that He is their own Saviour; they do not know that their sins are forgiven. They resort to religious ceremonies — and yet they find no rest; the conscience within them will not be quiet. It accuses them again and again of their guilt before God.

Beloved friends, I honour a man who, in this matter, refuses to acquiesce in an authority not duly accredited. How can we rest the eternal destiny of our own souls upon our own feelings, or upon mere fancy? Shall we go to a mortal, failing man like ourselves, and rest upon his word for it? No; in our responsibility to God, we want the word of God as a valid ground of assurance.

There are, perhaps, many here seeking rest and finding none. There is a memory before me of a sight that I witnessed many years ago, which I shall never forget. I was in a well-known “place of worship,” one of the most famous in our great Metropolis, and I was inadvertently the witness of an early morning service. But what still lives before me is the figure of a man who was one of the communicants. He was a tall man, evidently in a state of physical weakness; but there was more than bodily infirmity: there was mental pain, there was a storm of sorrow and anguish depicted on the man's face as he left his pew with others and fell upon his knees. He received the bread and the wine. He then rose and went back to his place; and, dear friends, I shall never forget the look of unrest, of unhappiness and of intense agony of spirit written upon his face as he returned to his pew, threw himself upon the bench with his hands spread out, and his head bent upon his arms. He had evidently come there that morning to find in the ceremony something that would satisfy his heart. He had been through it, and, at the close, there was the sense that it was all of no use. The ceremony did not give him a solid basis on which to rest his soul.

The man was, no doubt, true, sincere and right in motive, but there was no need for his vain search after peace. The blessed Jesus was ready to speak the word of peace to him, only he was looking manward, to the outward ceremonial, to something that he could see and hear. All the while the gracious Saviour was saying to him, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The Saviour gives rest by His word, and it is only when you have His word coming to you personally that you can afford to dismiss the great question of your guilt, once and for ever, as a settled matter.

What was it that the blessed Master said to the woman who sought forgiveness of sins? “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” “Thy!” The same forgiveness was for everyone who was in Capernaum to find, if they sought it. The sinful woman sought it. And to her the Lord said, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”

Beloved friends, there is no other way of settling the great question. There is no other way of obtaining peace of soul, save by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, and hearing His word to you.

Now, how was this man, Cornelius, to get such a word from Jesus? Jesus was gone. He had been here. He had left memories behind Him, sweet memories of His ministry, throughout Judea and Galilee. The savour of the Presence that had been was not lost. What could Cornelius do but pray to God? And his prayer rose up as a memorial to God, a sweet sacrifice, as it were, to Him. He was one anxious and desiring to know for himself the fulness of the salvation of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and the man who seeks such knowledge shall not be disappointed. The Lord Himself was no longer in Palestine; but His ambassadors were. As He was sent into the world, so He sent His emissaries — the apostles into the world to represent Him (John 17: 18).

Accordingly, God sent His word to this man who was a Gentile, a Gentile soldier, one of the conquerors of God's ancient people. He sent the apostle Peter to speak the word to him that should clear his soul in its anxiety, and settle every doubt. Now, we know that Cornelius understood very definitely that Peter was coming to speak to him, that Peter was God's messenger to him, that he was directed to deliver God's word to him. Peter would be only the channel. The much-desired word was coming through him, and it would not be the word of a mere man. When the centurion met Peter, and had gathered together his friends, he said: “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.”

Dear friends, in the great question of the sin of a man's soul there are two persons concerned — the man himself and God. It is one of the cardinal truths of the gospel that in His grace the Saviour God comes down to meet this individual need. It is a device of Satan to adulterate and corrupt the gospel, and to introduce some medium between God and the sinner. No, beloved friends, there is but one Mediator between God and man; the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. He sought the individual where he was, and now God is sending His word through the Scriptures to the individual.

There may be a word in my text tonight for some hearer personally. You may have a similar difficulty to Cornelius upon your heart. You know you have sinned, and want your sins forgiven, and you are asking, How am I to know that they are forgiven? On what ground? I do not know any possible trustworthy ground but God's holy word, and, having this, you need not fear all the powers of Satan. There is no power in this world, or under this world, which can destroy the imperishable word of God. The Lord said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”

Here is the Bible. Here is God's word, but, beloved friends, you must receive it for yourself. You must be able to open this word and say 'I know that, if there is no other person in the wide world, God is speaking to me.' It is comforting to that extent to know that God is speaking to others, and a person may well be rejoicing in this fact, but it is a different matter if I feel He may leave me out of the blessing, and while other persons have their sins forgiven, I am not included in the company. What a loss for me! The case of the new blessing which others had recently received must have been known to Cornelius, for Caesarea was not so far from Jerusalem, and the news spread rapidly of the people who were receiving the gospel. They had come into the town in the fulness of their joy, and spoken of the joys of their salvation. The sight of their ecstasy led Cornelius to, pray, 'Oh, that I knew my sins were forgiven! Oh, that I might have the remission of my sins!' And God sent Peter to speak to him this particular point of anxiety.

We have not much time to look into details of the apostolic visit, but will pass on to the particular moment when the word met Cornelius. Peter is referring, in the two verses I have read, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he speaks first of all of Him risen from the dead, and ordained of God to be Judge of quick and dead. What is the special relation of this fact to the anxious man? What did this mean to the soul of Cornelius? Jesus ordained to be the Judge of quick and dead! Have you ever thought seriously of this, beloved friends? It is admittedly a commonly received truth. We know that Jesus Christ is the One who is coming to judge the quick and the dead, but have you ever considered what the prediction involves? The One who was once on this earth, stretched out upon the cross, in the place of shame (so far as this world's judgment is concerned), is He who not only rose from the dead, but into whose hand is placed the responsibility of the eternal judgment of men and women, whether they be alive or dead.

Friends, in the interests of eternal justice there is before us the great work of examining the lives of men and women, and adjudicating upon their words and deeds, and administrating due punishment, and the Person into whose hands this work is committed is that Holy Man who suffered on Calvary's cross. Is it not wonderful to contemplate that He will sit on His throne, and that the nations of the earth shall be gathered before Him, and that out of His mouth shall proceed the sentence of judgment? It is so. The Man whom the world despises is the One into whose hands is committed all judgment. Man regenerate or unregenerate has never paid adequate regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is many a person who is losing his way in the things that pertain to spiritual life, because he is seeking joy and rest apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. No man can neglect the veneration of Christ without serious loss. And the gospel of the grace of God is the one that exalts Jesus, and puts Him in the highest heavenly glory — a present Saviour, a coming judge. Would you not, then, like to be on the side of that Judge? Would you not like to have Him for you? If He is for you, oh! how good and blessed! If He assures you now concerning the forgiveness of your sins, oh! how safe must you be in the day of wrath which is to come!

There are persons — possibly Cornelius was one of them — who have that great day of judgment ever before their minds. They think of that time so awful, when all the world will be assembled before the throne, and will be there to be judged. They dread lest they shall then hear the word, “Depart from me”; and they say, 'I can never rest until that day is past.'

I am considering the case of those who are really in earnest, and seeking the salvation of their souls, and who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but are fearful of what is to come. But, beloved friends, think that it is Jesus who will be there, and that He speaks to you now! What does He say to you now? Does He not say unto you, “I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish”? Does He not say unto you, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life”? If the Judge Himself says to you, 'You shall not come into judgment!' you have this word for your reliance. If there is anyone who can speak to you about the time of judgment, surely it is the One who is ordained to judge the quick and the dead. And He says that the believer shall never come into judgment. Is this sufficient? Is this a word for you? Can you suppose for a moment that the robber on the cross, to whom the Lord said, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” — can you believe that this one shall yet be brought before the Lord as the Judge of quick and dead, to be judged, to decide whether heaven or hell shall be his eternal lot, he having been in the paradise of God now for some two thousand years? He had the Lord's word to him; and He said, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” It was to comfort and assure him in the last hours of his agony. And he passed in peace of heart into the presence of his Lord and Saviour.

And so we just come back to this concise test. Have you received the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving unto you assurance for the future, as well as the forgiveness of your past sins?

But it was not only the fact that Jesus was ordained to be the Judge that Peter advanced. The Apostle unfolded a further truth which Cornelius needed to know. He went on to says “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” Jesus, risen from the dead, is Lord of all, not merely of the Jews. He is the Lord of all men and all things, for all things are put under His feet; and this too was meant to enlighten the centurion. Jesus, walking through this world, was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but, risen from the dead, there are for the Saviour no national limits. There is no Gentile or Jew beyond the grave. There are here geographical distinctions that mark men off from one another, but beyond the grave there are none, and that is where the Lord of glory is. The risen Christ spoke through Peter as the One who had come out from among the dead; and His grace was flowing out to all men, as the prophets of old had given witness, that whosoever believeth in Him should receive remission of sins.

Cornelius found himself within the scope of this message. That is where I come in. 'That is exactly the word that addresses me.' Such clearly was his belief.

The force of this word of God is such that wherever a man is, whatever a man is, should he believe, he will receive remission of his sins. It is not a question of his bowing to some ceremony. A man is not required to be circumcised, to keep the law of Moses and thus be saved; such is not the truth of God in the gospel. The truth of God is that, whatever a sinner may be, let him come to the Saviour as a sinner, and let him receive the remission of sins.

Then and there the word of the gospel entered Cornelius' heart, and he appropriated that word to himself. He said, 'It is for me,' and there were others with him, his household, his servants, all desirous to know the truth of God, and they found the same truth of God offered to them. “Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”

Beloved friends, I do earnestly beseech of you to consider upon what ground you are resting this night in this matter. Is it upon the word of God spoken directly to yourself? Have you at some point in your past history come to this position — that if God did not speak to you, if He did not clear away the doubts from your heart, no one else could, and then God in His word did come to you? Some particular text, some particular truth has flashed like a light from heaven to your soul, and you have known that God is for you. This knowledge God gives through His word. “We know” is the sincere language of faith. The man who believes the word of God is the man who knows it.

There are persons who affirm that it is presumption on man's part to say that his sins are forgiven. How can he know? Such knowledge would be impossible if God had not spoken. I do not think that we, who rejoice in God's word, rejoice sufficiently in this fact, that God has spoken to us in this Book. Amid all the uncertainties of this time and the great national struggle, causing men to wonder what lies beyond, oh! how we ought to thank God for that which never fails, His blessed, holy word! Here it is, as it was spoken of old. We have it now, in all its perfection, unchanged and unchangeable. It is for you and for me, but each heart must take hold of it.

I know that there are men who are proud of this book, that is, the book that is printed. They say there is no other book like it in the world. This is true. They say that it has made national history; but, beloved friends, there is another question, a deeper question than this, which it solves. Here am I, a responsible person, and where God has put me I have failed most miserably. I have despised God's precepts, and what is going to be the result of it? Is there not a word there for me, the erring and disobedient? It is very easy to speak of a Bible which is being sent forth to help and bless nations, and to bring men out of barbarism and into civilisation. But, a man may say, 'How about the sins of which I am guilty? God knows that I have despised His Son, and there are many sins I have committed, and I am responsible for them.'

Now this book speaks to the individual as the apostle Peter spoke to Cornelius. The word was for him, and, when received by him, the clouds dispersed, the doubts disappeared, and the man, gladdened by the sunshine of God's word, was a saved man in the full sense of the Scriptural term. To be saved, beloved friends, is not only to have the benefits procured by our Lord Jesus Christ, but to know that we have passed from death into life, and that whatever may come upon us, whatever may betide us in the future, all is well.

Have you observed the sequel to this preaching? The Spirit of God fell upon every person who was there, every man, every woman was sealed by the Holy Spirit. God thereby marked them out as His own, and they were subsequently baptised, and received into the company of God's people. This was not the admission of Gentile believers into the place of God's ancient people here upon earth. On the contrary, it was a new thing; Jews and Gentiles are now one — equally believing in Him, equally accepted by Him, equally rejoicing in His name, and equally possessed of His great salvation.

Oh, beloved friends, ask you whether you know for yourself the salvation of God. In order to do so you have to come, personally, individually, with your sins, to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not sufficient, however, to come to Him. It is necessary that you should continue in the attitude of expectation and entreaty until you meet God, and learn the truth about yourself on the authority of God's holy word. Do not trust a man like yourself. Do not trust a fellow mortal. Do not let anyone deceive you. Lay hold of God's word for yourself. A man, wittingly or unwittingly, may lead you astray. You can only trust One; that One is the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks through this holy Book to you, and He who died for your sins, He who suffered for you on the tree, He is the One who says to you, “Thy sins are forgiven.”

Let me say just one further word before parting. Some may have this difficulty which I will specify. And it is a difficulty which the more earnest Christian is not unlikely to have. There are many who start with a fervent determination that henceforward they will please Him at all costs, live for Him, shine for Him, be His good soldiers in this world. They seek to find from the Scripture what they must do, and everything seems joyous and happy and bright, and they can hardly believe the truth about themselves, they are so full of joy, and they are full of desire that everybody may be like them, just resting and trusting on the Lord Jesus Christ; and then something untoward happens. One day there is a disaster. From their mouths something comes which is so unexpectedly evil. They say, 'Surely, I cannot be a true disciple of Christ, or I should not have said or done this.' However, they try again, and find that a similar thing occurs before long, and they become very sorrowful and downcast, after vainly struggling again and again, and they have to confess themselves more prone to fall than they could have conceived. They know that they have done wrong. They say, 'Well, it is worse for me now than when I knew nothing of Christ. I know there is no love like His; He died for me, and, knowing that He died for me, I still go contrary to His will, and I do really what I do not want to do. I cannot seem to help myself.' And then they think they are lost after all, and are plunged into a gulf of darkness and despair. They felt when they came to the Lord, that their sins, and all the past, were obliterated, but now, after receiving the forgiveness of sins, they have gone wrong. What about that terrible disaster in their Christian pilgrimage? How about these sins? Satan says, 'Your sins are now very different from what they were once, for you now know His love and yet you have sinned against Him.' Satan says, 'There is no hope for you. The salvation is for the sinner who does not know God's will.'

Beloved friends, such a state is true of thousands. They are clear as daylight as to the sins they committed before their conversion, but stumbled because of present failure. But, remember, there is one Person who will deal with all your sins. This is the One who died for your sins. You will have to come to Him and confess your sins to Him. You will have to own, with shame, that, having known His love, you have despised it. And you will find that His love and forgiveness will come to you sweeter than ever. You will find that another word of His will come to you, and say that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” “The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”

Dear friends, the remission of sins is the Divine act which covers everything. 'Oh, but,' you say, 'my sin is after my conversion.' That is true, but when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, God knew, not only what you would commit up to the time of your conversion, but He also knew what you would be after your conversion. It is a sad thing that you should be so weak and wilful, and that after knowing His love, and tasting something of the sweetness of His salvation, such a grievous failure should be true of you; but there is the grave fact, which God knew before He sent out the sweet invitation of His love to you.

Therefore, beloved friends, if you are on the way to God, to that bright place above, and if your face is towards Him who died upon the cross, who is now there, the Lord Jesus Christ will receive you and forgive you in spite of all your failure, if you will but come to Him and believe in Him. The truth is just this. “Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” It does not mean that we just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ one day in our history. There was a day when we first looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, a day of days in our history; but His gospel that we believe is to put away all doubts, once and for ever. The terms are “Whosoever believeth,” that is, yesterday, today, and throughout life. You have to continue to believe. You have to look in faith, and not to take your eyes away from Him, who is the Source of strength to those who conquer, and of forgiveness to those who fail.

I just leave this passage with you. “Whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” Is that word for you personally? Take it home to yourself, and in the light of God's holy presence, do you know, and are you certain, positive, within your own soul, that God therein speaks to you? It is no use looking at the matter from any other than a personal standpoint in order to get peace for your heart. You can rejoice over the conversion of other people, but first of all it must be realised in your own soul, and then, standing on redemption ground for yourself, you can rejoice with a deeper joy in the blessing, as it goes out to others. May God bless His word. W. J. H.

STEM Publishing : C Knapp : We believe and are sure

"We believe and are sure."

C. Knapp.

Simple Testimony 1917, p. 8.

"Seeing is believing" is a saying as trite as it is untrue.

The following occurrence proves how utterly deceived one may be while trusting to what he believes to be the sight of his eyes.

In one of the departments of the University of Kansas some time ago the lecturer stood on a platform addressing a body of some hundred students. Suddenly the front door opened and the janitor of the building came rushing to the front, shouting angrily at the professor, who leaped from the rostrum and met his opponent in the middle of the room. There was a quick interchange of hot words, a struggle ensued which ended with the janitor drawing a revolver. A shot rang out and the two men were with difficulty separated.

When the case was tried all the witnesses swore that it was the janitor who fired the shot, some even testifying that they saw the smoke issuing from the weapon after its discharge.

Will it surprise the reader to be told that it was not the janitor who fired the shot but a man stationed outside the building at an open window? The whole affair was prearranged, an experiment in psychology to test the value of direct evidence before the law students of the University.

And there are many who, in the realm of the spiritual, demand visible demonstration before believing. They ask for what they call tangible proofs; they will receive nothing "on trust," and refuse to believe anything that cannot be discerned by the senses—sight, hearing or touch —their deified trinity, the only god in whom they trust. And in doing this they consider themselves exceedingly astute, and look down with affected pity, and even scorn, on those who have not seen, yet have believed. "Yes," they answer, when it is demanded of them that they have faith in God, "when we see we will believe"; and wise in their own conceits they maintain the ground that they will believe nothing except that which can be demonstrated to the senses.

This they think is rational and safe ground. But is it? Is their attitude toward revealed truth really rational? In view of the above-cited incident, No. Our senses may deceive us, our reasonings are oftentimes faulty; and our deductions are frequently false as our premises are erroneous.

Law students are not, as a rule, easily gulled, nor are they more prone than others to jump at conclusions. Yet in the demonstration arranged for them by their professor they were every one of them deceived; and trusting to the sight of their eyes were ready to declare under oath to be fact that which they afterwards learned to be false.

Yet in view of this (and such mistakes are being made constantly) men, and especially young men, say when spoken to of the verities of Scripture, "Give us proofs, produce for us some direct evidence; we are perfectly willing to believe, but we want to see, hear, touch, taste or handle something to which we may attach our faith." Stupendous folly, when it is every day being demonstrated to us that our natural senses are the very things that we cannot trust. Some are colour-blind, and to the sight of such red appears white, and green looks blue. Some have an impaired taste and to them every bitter thing is sweet, and the sweet bitter. To some the finest music is but discordant noise, while to others (as the heathen chief who heard a famous band play in London some years ago) the big drum is the acme of pleasurable sound. I have known of persons to whom the odour of kerosene oil seemed most delightful perfume! So much for the impaired and perverted senses of fallen man and any real dependence that may be placed upon them.

Except ye see . . . ye will not believe," was the scathing denunciation of the divine Master, "the Author and Finisher of faith," to the unbelieving generation of His day.

Those hundred or more University students saw, or thought they saw, and were deceived and put to shame like gullible children at the trial of the case staged so cleverly for their undoing, as credible witnesses who were sure because they saw.

How then can you know the certainty of those things in which from a child, perhaps, you have been instructed: the great doctrines of the Bible, such as God's existence, the creation, man's fall, the personality of Satan, redemption from sin by Jesus Christ, eternal life for man, the soul's immortality, heaven, hell and other equally important truths? Yes, that is the question. How can you know? by what means may you be sure?

That you cannot implicitly trust your senses is evident. You may have insisted that to believe a thing it must be demonstrated; and it has been demonstrated, by test as fair and full as could be desired, that not one but one hundred clear-headed young men, who were themselves preparing to sift, examine and weigh testimony, could be ludicrously deceived by appearances.

How, then, we repeat, can we know the things of the Bible to be true? Can we know? or shall we take the banal ground of the agnostic and say, We cannot know, no one can tell, it is impossible to be sure? We Christians know; we "know we have passed from death unto life"; "we know we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"; "I know that my Redeemer liveth," the believer can say (1 John 3: 14; 2 Cor. 5: 1; Job 19: 25). All this and much more we know; and we know it beyond the shadow of a doubt. But how? Well, how was it known by the students finally that it was not the janitor who fired the shot but a man posted for the purpose at a near-by window? It was by credible verbal testimony, the statement of trustworthy men, the word, the assurances of men who they knew would not, in this matter at least, deceive them.

And we believe, not because of visions, revelations, or feelings, nor because by a process of reasoning we have arrived at the conclusion that we may rationally believe, but because God, who cannot lie, has spoken! He has declared these things to be so, and not to believe them would be to make Him a liar, — the extremity of human guilt.

Our faith rests on adequate testimony, the Word of the living God, unchangeable and eternal. And to this the doubter must come if ever he is to arrive at a satisfactory state of mind and heart in reference to the stupendous realities of eternity.

There are evidences, on every hand, many and varied and of the very best; evidences both direct and indirect. The world is full of them, and they may be seen every day; museums of antiquity contain them; evidences of the Bible's veracity are writ large on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments and temples; the ruins of buried cities and the tombs of forgotten kings abound with them, even mummies bearing mute testimony to what the "scripture of truth" declares; and the spade of the excavator brings to light fresh witnesses every year. The natural sciences, astronomy, geology, physiology, anatomy, including even that most exact of all sciences, mathematics, all bear united and harmonious witness to the truth of Scripture, written with "the finger of God."

And in the realm of the moral we have evidence multiplied; at home thousands of men and women reclaimed by the Gospel from lives of degradation, crime and shame; we see saints suffering from incurable diseases, lying helpless year after year on beds of pain, yet rejoicing in hope and patient in tribulation; martyrs die triumphant firm in their confession, preferring torture to deliverance purchased by a denial of their faith; while in the mission-field not only do we see the power and truth of the Gospel manifested in the regeneration of individual savages, but whole districts, islands and archipelagos transformed as if by magic through the influences of the circulation and reception of that book called the Bible.

But all this, though wholly adequate as direct testimony to the truth of Christianity, is not presented for your faith. We have a more sure basis for our belief: God, His word, His testimony, as revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. He speaks, and therefore we believe. It is impossible to be deceived here. It is not necessary to laboriously gather, sift and weigh testimony, or examine witnesses. By the Word of God we know.

"I know whom I have believed and am persuaded," wrote one who ranked with the foremost thinkers of his day: Paul of "much learning" and deepest intellect, yet not faithless, but believing because he had the testimony of Him whose Word is "forever settled in heaven," where shams, deceits and illusions cannot abide, for all there is light and truth and verity.

Yes, "we know." "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding" (1 John 5: 20). He is "the truth," as well as "the way" and "the life," and believing in Him we shall never be confounded or put to shame (Rom. 10: 11). C. K.

STEM Publishing : William J Lowe : Prove the Bible

“You must prove the Bible true before I accept it.”

W. J. Lowe.

For some 50 years I have never ceased to be astonished at the utter futility of human laws, and parliaments, their inadequacies and mistakes, never-ending tinkering, adding, changing; which all proves the truth of the Bible dictum — “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps”, Jeremiah 10: 23. Usually, most “M.Ps” are lawyers; yet they cannot make laws that are free of “loopholes”, or are just and wise enough to be permanent, a finality. They are unable to grasp and rectify all points of a problem; and above all, have no foresight as to future needs. Yet, the people who urge so strongly that you “vote” for this mass of confusion and contradiction, are the first ones to scoff at a Book that records laws that once pronounced never needed changing, that by foresight covered future changed conditions; that justly governed a nation for 1500 years without tinkering, failure, jails, police or parliaments, elections or lawyers.

Surely, such a law, without parallel in human history, laid down complete at the beginning and never changed, could not be of human authorship; it and the Book that records it, must be God-inspired. The utter inadequacies and foolishnesses of the most enlightened legislatures of today, by contrast, proves the Divine origin of the perfect Law of Moses. Man had no part whatever or vote in this Law; it was dictated direct by God, see Exodus 20 and on through Leviticus; and Moses just “wrote it in a book… for future generations to obey” Deuteronomy 31: 24; 1 Chronicles 16: 15. No king, parliament or people ever altered one word of this Law. The mere fact that while Israel obeyed this Law for centuries they were happy, prosperous, free and enlightened, while trouble, punishment, dispersion, followed disobedience — proves this Law the only perfect law, and necessarily it and the Book it is written in must be God-inspired.

Human laws merely punish, brutalise, perpetuate offenders; they make no reparations. A man cheats people out of their life-savings; he is jailed, the victims get nothing back. But by God’s law — a thief was not only punished, but compelled to work for wages to pay back the theft to his victims, Exodus 22: 1-4; Leviticus 6: 4. He was not jailed and kept at the expense of the taxpayers, nor did his victims suffer and starve.

Divorce was only allowed for a physical cause of impediment, Deuteronomy 24: 1-4. Adultery between otherwise married couples brought death, Deuteronomy 22: 22-24; misconduct before marriage brought stoning to death, vs. 13-21. Rape brought either death or compulsory marriage, vs. 25-29. Causing wilful injury to any person brought identical retribution, “an eye for an eye” by public legal infliction, Leviticus 24: 10-20. “Juvenile delinquency”, laziness, disobedience to parents, were punished by death, Deuteronomy 21: 18-21. No usury, interest on loans to the poor, was permitted, Leviticus 25: 35-37. Murder brought death, no reprieve, Leviticus 24: 21.

Property always remained in the family, no man could buy up and accumulate a large estate, Leviticus 25: 13-36; Isaiah 5-8; 1 Kings 21-3. Care for the poor, Deuteronomy 24: 19-21 & 15: 7-11; consideration for others, Leviticus 19: 13-14, 32-36; love for neighbour, Leviticus 19: 18; were enforced by law. All through human history, against every race, the challenge has gone forth unanswered — “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgements so righteous, as this law?” Deuteronomy 4: 5-10. Who but an all-wise, all-time foreseeing, all righteous Creator-God could give and record such laws?

STEM Publishing : H H Snell : Streams of Refreshing from the Fountain of Life

Streams of Refreshing from the Fountain of Life.

H. H. Snell.

"Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." John 7: 37.

London: A. S. Rouse, ninth edition, 1897.

Preface

This little volume is about JESUS the Son of God, and sets forth God's way of saving sinners. It is hoped that the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ will be found the most prominent object in it, and that it is calculated not only to arrest the careless and thoughtless, but to confirm and comfort weak and troubled saints.

In the blood of Jesus God speaks peace and love to every sinner that believes; and that same precious blood enables the believer to draw near and keep near to God. The blood of Christ, being the true ground of peace and source of confidence in God, gives rest of conscience in God's presence, where Jesus now is, and fills the heart with praise.

Many believers, however, are in great bondage. They truly look to Christ for salvation, and have eternal life, though they are scarcely sensible of it. Like Lazarus, when he left the tomb, they really have life, but are unable to walk in liberty, to minister for the Lord, or happily confess His name, because of the grave-clothes which envelop them. They struggle; but they are fettered, and need to be loosed. Some vainly try to get liberty by looking into their own hearts, or are expecting to receive it from some man, instead of looking only to Christ, and believing His Word. It is of the utmost importance that the believer should learn from God's truth his security and standing in Christ; that he is already a child of God, on the other side of death, in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus; not yet with, but in, Christ Jesus. This being realized, the natural inquiry must be, What is my hope? We reply, The Lord's coming. We do not hope to have everlasting life; for he that believeth hath everlasting life. (John 5: 24.) We do not hope for forgiveness of sins; this also we have now: "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." (Eph. 1: 7.) We do not hope for righteousness; this too we have now; for "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. 10: 4.) What, then, do we look for? The inspired reply is, "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." (Phil. 3: 20, 21.)

Such are the precious truths of God's Word to which the reader's attention is called in this little volume. It is sent forth, with much conscious infirmity, in dependence on the God of all grace, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Fear Not

"And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." — Rev. 1: 17, 18.

Every one of us must have to do with the Lord Jesus. Each person will yet come before Him. Nothing can possibly hinder this. The joyful expectation of the Christian is, that he will see his Saviour's face and be like Him. Those who are not born again — unbelievers — will assuredly see Jesus too, but not with joy: as a wicked man once said, "I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh." Many persons now turn away from the Saviour's name; they like to banish His blessed gospel from their thoughts; but then, "at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." This is God's decree, and it must be accomplished. "The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations." There is, therefore, no possibility of escape from having to do with Jesus; and I doubt not that those who will go away into everlasting punishment will send up a cry continually from the pit of torment, that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is very solemn, and makes the gospel a matter of such individual application and importance. The Scripture says, "every knee," "every tongue," "every one of us shall give account of himself in the day of judgment!" "Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him!" plainly showing that men must have to do personally with the Lord Jesus. Now He graciously pardons and saves; then He will righteously condemn, and punish with everlasting destruction. What folly, then, it is to neglect His great salvation!

In these verses of the Revelation we find that John saw the Lord Jesus, and he says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." So dazzling and refulgent is the glorified Saviour, that even His most intimate and beloved servants, while in the body, cannot catch a glimpse of Him without being overpowered by the brightness of His glory. Perhaps there never was a man on earth who knew such deep intimacy with Jesus as John. We find him with the Lord in the days of His flesh on every remarkable occasion. At the Supper he was the only one of the disciples that leaned on His bosom; and in an anxious moment he only could turn to his loving Master and say, "Lord, who is it?" And further, when Jesus was betrayed and apprehended, and all others forsook Him, John followed Him into the High Priest's palace, and stood by Him to the last, even at the cross. John, then, must have known very deep intimacy with the Lord, and his writings show how richly the love of God was shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost.

John was also faithful after the Saviour left the world. He was transported to the isle of Patmos for his godly life and testimony. It is important to notice that he was banished, not so much for the doctrines he held, as for what he said and did; for in this chapter he tells us that he "was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." Most persons around us now have no objection to the outward forms of religion, and will allow you to hold what doctrines you please, provided you keep them to yourself; but the unrenewed mind still kicks against faithful testimony in life and word to the infinite and glorious perfections of the person, work, offices, fitness, and fulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. If Christians now bore distinctly "the testimony of Jesus Christ," we may be sure that it would still be offensive to many; for the offence of the cross has not ceased.

While John was honouring his earth-rejected Master in desolate Patmos, his Master marvellously honoured him. His persecuted and banished apostle was chosen, not only to convey the Revelation to the churches, but to have such blessed views of the future as no one was ever privileged before. This is very sweet to contemplate. Accordingly, we are told that he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day." By his being "in the Spirit," we are to understand that he was not musing or meditating according to the thoughts of the natural mind, but that he was under the guidance, control, and operations of the Holy Spirit; the thoughts of his mind, and the affections of his heart, were according to the workings of the Holy Spirit, the Testifier and Glorifier of Christ. Every believer has the Spirit; but we are not always "in the Spirit." In this state of mind the beloved apostle suddenly heard behind him a trumpet-like sound so very loud, that he tells us "it was a great voice, as of a trumpet." The voice said, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book," etc. This was a remarkable sound, which so aroused the dear apostle, that he turned to see the voice that spoke with him; but no sooner had he looked behind him, than a marvellous vision of Christ and the Churches, resplendent with unheard of glory and beauty, met his astonished eye. He saw the churches symbolized by seven golden candlesticks — costly, pure, precious, heavenly, fitted to bear light; and in the midst of the candlesticks he saw the Lord; but, astounding as the great voice must have been, and beautiful as the appearance of the seven candlesticks must have been, it was neither the one nor the other that so overpowered the apostle, as the sight of Christ Himself — "When I saw HIM, I fell at His feet as dead." Oh, my reader, it is not being taken up with the Church, or sounds, or sights of any kind, apart from Christ, that really humbles us; but when by faith we feel near the risen Saviour, it is this that withers up fleshly pretensions, that exposes the filthiness of creature-righteousness, makes us feel in an atmosphere that breathes holy solemnity into the soul, and gives deep reality of feeling to the heart and conscience. It was when Job was brought to say, "Now mine eye seeth thee," that he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes. When Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, he exclaimed, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." The beloved Daniel tells us, "When I saw this great vision, there remained no strength in me; for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength." The prophet Habakkuk also says, "When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself." Ah! my reader, be assured that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. In His holy presence our depravity and weakness are made manifest; there we learn that we are really fallen creatures, corrupt, and very unlike Him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil. Here we find that God's balance is infinitely holy, His weights perfectly just, and that, weighed by Him, we are "found wanting." Oh, that you, dear reader, might be led to consider, not what you are as compared with your neighbours, but what you are before God, and how you will meet the Lord Jesus at His coming!

I say, it was a sight of the Lord Jesus that brought John down "at His feet as dead." Though he had full assurance that he was born again, that he was a son of God, that all his sins were purged, that he was in-dwelt by the Spirit, and therefore, as to his eternal state, he had nothing to fear; yet the glory of the ascended Lord was more than he could bear while in this body. In a momentary glimpse, John seemed to eye the adorable Lord from head to foot. He tells us, that He was "like unto the Son of man," and yet He declared Himself to be "the First and the Last." And in this brief account we find His Person — God and Man — beautifully expressed. Who can be "the First and the Last," but the eternal Godhead? and who is "like unto the Son of man," but He who was in "the likeness of sinful flesh," and "was found in fashion as a man"? We may gather from His being "in the midst of the seven candlesticks," that He is in Spirit with the Churches, though personally absent. "His eyes," which once wept tears of sympathy and pity, now, "as a flame of fire," show us that nothing escapes His observation; He therefore says to every assembly, "I know thy works." "The sharp two-edged sword," and "His voice as the sound of many waters," may teach us that He judges and reproves; while the "garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle," may remind us that He is not now mocked with a purple robe, nor is His sacred bosom now exposed to the rude centurion's spear; but that He is girded for the service of judging the assemblies.

We may learn, perhaps, from "His head and His hairs white like wool, as white as snow," that He is the I AM, perfect in purity and spotlessness. The "seven stars in His right hand" may teach us that He is the source, the upholder, and sovereign controller of all ministry in His Church, and that it all flows from the hand that was pierced on Calvary's cross; while "His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace," may teach us that though He was crucified through weakness, when His feet were nailed to the tree, yet that now all judgment is committed unto Him, He will tread "the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God," and that "He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet." And what can "His countenance as the sun shineth in his strength" set before us, but that He who once condescended to be spit upon and smitten for us, whose visage was "marred more than any man," is now the exalted Head of the Church, Head too of all principality and power, and in the full enjoyment of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was?

"The head that once was crown'd with thorns

Is crown'd with glory now;

Heaven's royal diadem adorns

The mighty victor's brow."

What a glorious sight of the Lord had John! and though it so affected him as to bring him "as dead" at His feet, nevertheless he afterwards found that the feet of Jesus was the place of honour and blessing; and this is not the only instance in the New Testament. When the Lord Jesus appeared to Saul, and arrested him in his persecuting zeal by a glorious manifestation of Himself, it at once brought him prostrate on the earth. He says, "Suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me; and I fell unto the ground." But though blinded with the glorious light, humbled at the feet of Jesus, and crying out to Him whom he had so blasphemed, and whose members he had so persecuted, "What shall I do, Lord?" nevertheless, he found the feet of Jesus the place of rich and abundant blessing even for the chief of sinners. The Lord said unto him, "Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do." Oh, that the Spirit of God might now show sinners that the feet of Jesus is the place of blessing!

Peter is another witness of the same thing. He was fishing with his companions in the lake of Gennesaret. For many an hour he had been casting his net in vain. At last Jesus entered the ship; and when He had finished preaching, He prayed Peter to launch out into the deep, and let down the net for another draught. Peter appears to have thought it would be of little use, because he had toiled all night without success; however, as he had been requested to do so, he did it, when the multitude of fishes was so great that the net brake. This circumstance seems to have led Peter into the understanding that the person who had thus commanded him to let down the net was the Lord; and, humbled under a sense of His amazing condescension and power, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Observe, that Peter fell down as a sinful man; he felt so vile, and so unfit for the Lord's company, that he could only bow down before Him as a sinner. But how did Jesus reply? Did He say, You are such a sinner, you shall depart from me? No. You have sinned so much that I cannot receive you? No. If you will promise to do better for the future, I will pardon the past? Oh, no! but Peter found by happy experience, in thus casting himself at Jesus' feet as a poor guilty sinner, just as he was, that there was grace in the heart of Jesus to abound over all his sin. Jesus said unto him, "Fear not!" as much as to say, I welcome, pardon, cleanse, and save you; and more than this, you shall be honoured in my service; "from henceforth thou shalt catch men." Oh, what grace there is for self-abased sinners at the Saviour's feet!

"The moment a sinner believes,

And trusts in the crucified Lord,

His pardon at once he receives,

Salvation in full through His blood."

Let us look at another instance. A woman who was notorious for her sinful ways heard that Jesus had visited the city, and was sitting at meat in the house of Simon the Pharisee. She felt the burden of her sins; her conscience was oppressed with guilt; her heart was sad. She needed a Saviour, and He was near at hand. But will He save such a sinner? Can He welcome such a notoriously evil person? Will He who is so holy deign to listen to such a vile creature? Such might have been the reasonings of her distressed heart. Nevertheless, necessity compelled her to go to Jesus. She stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment. Here we find another troubled soul, a conscience-stricken sinner, at the feet of Jesus. And what did the Lord say to her? Did He give her one upbraiding look? Did one reproachful word escape His lips? Oh, no; for He came "not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." "He came to seek and to save that which was lost." "He came into the world to save sinners." Jesus therefore said unto her, "Thy faith hath saved thee." Oh, how blessedly do the Saviour and sinner meet together! How welcome are such to the gracious heart of Jesus! How happy for the sinner to be thus received! There is nothing here between the guilty sinner and the gracious Saviour; no ordinances, no ceremonial observances, no official interferences; but simply the guilty penitent confessing, and the Son of God forgiving. And the same who had said to another, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," now openly declared, "Thy faith," not thine ointment, thy tears, nor thy kiss, acceptable fruits though they were, but "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

Now let us look again at John. "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." The beloved apostle, being thus at his Master's feet, was now in a position to learn still deeper lessons of the Saviour's love. John says, "He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not!" What a blessed manifestation of the compassionate heart of Jesus! How tender, how gentle, was the touch! That same right hand that had gotten eternal victory over His servant's enemies was now again put forth on his behalf that hand which had been once willingly pierced for his sins was again stretched out for his recovery, at the same time comforting His fainting servant with "Fear not;" as much as to say, John, you have nothing to fear, no ground for discomfort, no warrant for uneasy apprehensions; for my right hand is for you, and not against you. If He who has all power in heaven and in earth, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Redeemer, and Judge of all, says, "Fear not," what ground can there be for disquietude?

But, more than this, the Master will give His fainting servant yet more intelligent reasons for not fearing, because of His person, finished work, and exaltation.

1. His Person. "I am the First and the Last." We have already referred to this. It may be well to add, that true peace must always be connected with right views of the person of Christ, because it is the dignity and glory of His person that give efficacy to His work. Take away His manhood, and we have no Substitute — no Redeemer; take away His Godhead, and we have no atoning virtue in the blood. The blessedness is, that both God and man are found in Him. Thus He was fitted for the stupendous work of eternal redemption. He was the Days-man, that brought in all the blessing man needed, and answered all that God righteously demanded. This is another reason why John should "Fear not."

2. His Finished Work. "I am He that liveth, and was dead." As much as to say, John, I have died for you. I have borne all your sins, and removed all your transgressions from you. I have been into death instead of you, so that you shall never see death. I am alive again; therefore all your debt is cancelled, all just claims upon you as a sinner have been answered by me; and I am alive again; therefore you must live for ever. "Fear not."

3. His Exaltation. "Behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Unless every one of our sins had been purged, God could not have raised Christ from the dead. His resurrection, therefore, is God's public testimony that sin has been condemned, and for ever put away; and the risen Lord being exalted to the right hand of God, crowned with glory and honour, appointed a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, invested with all power, and having all judgment committed to Him, are abundant proofs of the acceptance and security of all believers. And as to death and the grave, Who holds the keys? Did not Jesus say to His servant at His feet, "I have the keys of hell and of death"? What a comforting truth this is to the child of God! How impossible that one can sleep in death, or be laid in the grave, till Jesus unlocks the gates; and we may be assured He will open the gates for His loved ones at the best time, and it shall be neither too soon nor too late — neither shall the way be too easy nor too painful. How wonderfully does the heart of Jesus provide comfort for His fainting servant at His feet! How very sweetly He took away his fears! Oh, Christian reader! if you are almost ready to faint, behold your risen and exalted Saviour! Think of His person; consider His finished work upon the cross; behold Him triumphing over all your enemies in resurrection; contemplate Him justly exalted in heaven to the highest pinnacle of glory as your life, ever living to make intercession for you, and see Him securely holding the keys of hell and of death. Precious, glorious facts!

"The Saviour lives no more to die;

He lives our Head enthroned on high;

He lives triumphant o'er the grave;

He lives eternally to save!

He lives to still His people's fears;

He lives to wipe away their tears;

He lives their mansions to prepare;

He lives to bring them safely there."

Dear reader! sooner or later you must have to do with the Lord Jesus! Will it be as a Saviour, or as a Judge? Will He say to you, Come, ye blessed? or, Depart, ye cursed? Will you bow your knee to Him with joy in heaven; or with weeping in hell? Now He says, "Whosoever will, let Him take the water of life freely." Then He will say, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord." (Prov. 1: 24-29.)

STEM Publishing : H Forbes Witherby : The Gospel of Our Salvation

The Gospel of Our Salvation

Ephesians 1: 13.

H. F. Witherby.

Second edition, A. Holness.

— Preface (this file)

Chapter 1. — Forgiveness

Chapter 2. — Peace

Chapter 3. — Redeemed from Judgment

Chapter 4. — Brought to God

Chapter 5. — The Eternal Efficacy of the Blood of Christ

Chapter 6. — The Fruit of the Tree

Chapter 7. — The Root of the Tree

Chapter 8. — Dead in sins; Alive in Christ

Chapter 9. — Upon counting Self to be what God says it is

Chapter 10. — Deliverance from Self

Chapter 11. — Delivered from the Law

Chapter 12. — “Therefore now no condemnation”

Chapter 13. — The Resurrection and the Life

Chapter 14. — The New Creation

Chapter 15. — The good news of the glory of Christ

Chapter 16. — The power of the new life

Chapter 17. — Blameless before God

Chapter 18. — God, our God

Chapter 19. — God, our Father

Chapter 20. — “Always confident”

Preface.

It has been thought advisable to carefully revise this book before issuing a new edition.

If our reader should be led by the perusal of these pages to a more prayerful and careful searching of the Holy Scriptures, one great object of the writer will be realized. Our every thought about God, or about ourselves in relation to Him, should be brought to the test of the written Word; we each one must stand before God, and the character of our everlasting future will depend upon our present obedience to the truth. We cannot too strenuously urge upon our reader to search the Scriptures, and yet, while so doing, to look to God for the guidance of His Spirit, so that both heart and conscience may be searched through and through by the Word.

An attempt has been made in these pages to indicate some of the different stages by which God leads His people to a more distinct knowledge of Himself. Many can recall the time when the great hope of their souls was to know the forgiveness of sins; and — before God had made good to them His way of delivering His people from thraldom to self — their anguish, during this struggle after peace with God, and that strife within, which almost threatened to end in despair.

It may be, also, that the knowledge of forgiveness, peace, and deliverance, having been given by God, the heart turns with joy to the memories of those hours when God first unfolded to the soul the fact of the glory of the risen Christ; spread before faith's eye the bright and heavenly things which are the Christian's in Christ; and filled the affections with the invigorating yet patience-giving hope of the Lord's coming again.

Further still, the fact of the Holy Spirit indwelling God's children, and the knowledge of the Father's love, may be amongst the holy things which the reader has been given by God to rejoice in, and to prize.

Our souls grow as we know more of God, and these pages are once more issued with the earnest desire that God, by His Spirit, may use them to help seekers after the truth, to a clearer knowledge of the Christian's privileges, and to a more earnest searching into the exhaustless treasury of His Word.

STEM Publishing : Walter Scott : The Story of our English Bible

The Story of our English Bible

Its Preservation - Its Compilation - Its Inspiration - Its Translation

Walter Scott.

The Story of the English Bible

Lecture 1. The Scriptures are Divine and the Text Divinely Preserved.

Lecture 2. The Perfection of and Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures.

Lecture 3. The Books and Canon of the Old Testament.

Lecture 4. The Books of the Old Testament..

Lecture 5. The Books and Canon of the New Testament.

Lecture 6. History of the Various English Versions of the Bible.

Lecture 7. Specimens of Translations and Peculiar Renderings.

Lecture 8. The Bible: Its Divisions, Chapters, Verses, Titles, and Subscriptions.

Prefatory Note to Third Impression

We are exceedingly thankful to the Lord that a large edition of our "Story" has been disposed of, and that two further impressions have been called for. We regard this continued interest in the Holy Scriptures as a hopeful sign. The history of the Bible, which is briefly told in those pages, is one of thrilling interest, and we are right glad to know from many that the book has proved a real help.

We will be I thankful if friends at home and abroad would kindly do their utmost in making the "Story of our English Bible" known to Christians, and to Christian workers in every sphere of labour.

Once again, we commend the book to the God of all grace, in the fervent hope that He may grant a largely increased circulation.

Your Servant for Christ's sake, Walter Scott.

20 Gospel Tracts

Gospel Tracts

Edinburgh Series Wm. C. Reid.

1, Redemption.

2, Forgiveness.

3, Reconciliation.

4, Deliverance.

5, Salvation.

6, Justification.

7, Peace.

8, Joy.

Cumberland Series J. Wilson.

1. An Officer's Faith

2. Brought Down on Reconnaissance

3. A Storm at Sea

4. The Wrong Uniform

Preach The Word Series Wm. C. Reid.

The Counsel of Peace.

The Cup of Salvation.

An Anchor of the Soul.

No More Conscience of Sins.

Be Reconciled to God.

A Grave Warning and Its Sequel Robt. B. Wilson.

A Message from the Sea Robt. B. Wilson.

Original Distributors:

Galashiels — T. Oliver, 90 Channel Street.

Sydney — Tract Depot, 302 Pitt Street.

New York — Bible Truth Depot, 19 West 21st Street.

Redemption.

Redemption brings to light the power and glory of God, and presents to the believer in Christ the forgiveness of sins. The first chapter of Colossians sets forth a rich array of the glories of the Son of the Father's love, and these are introduced with "In Whom we have redemption — the forgiveness of sins." Before the glories of the Son, and the grace, power and glory of God can be known, the forgiveness of sins must first be enjoyed.

After crossing the Red Sea, where they had seen the display of God's power and glory, Israel sang, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed." They had been redeemed from Egypt and from the thraldom of Pharaoh by the blood of the paschal lamb and by the mighty hand of God. Similarly those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are redeemed from their sinful estate by the precious blood of Jesus, and from the authority of Satan by the mighty power of God, Who translates them into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

Jewish believers were told in 1 Peter 1, that the precious blood of Christ had redeemed them from the vanities of a corrupted Judaism. In the same way, Gentile believers have been set free from all the corruption of the human religions in which the Gospel found them, that they might live for God's good pleasure in the obedience of Jesus Christ, having come under the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Silver and gold could never secure this great redemption; but God has procured it at infinite cost to Himself.

Shortly before Jacob's death, in blessing Joseph and his sons he said, "The angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the lads." Redemption for Jacob evidently meant his deliverance from all the dangers and troubles of his tortuous path. Christians too can count upon the strong arm of the Lord to bring them safely through all the vicissitudes of the wilderness they have been called to pass.

Although already enjoying the blessed fruits of redemption in our souls, as having bodies of humiliation, we are hindered from full enjoyment; but this imperfect condition will be done away when the Lord Jesus comes to give us that for which we wait, "The adoption (or sonship), the redemption of the body." (Rom. 8: 23).

In glorified bodies the saints of God shall enter into the full blessedness of the joys of the Father's House, and shall possess the inheritance that God has given them in Christ. This immense possession has already been purchased at the price of Jesus's blood, and at His coming the Lord Jesus will redeem the possession He has purchased by removing from it those who have taken unlawful tenancy. Till that great and glorious day for which the Christian longs, God has given to the heirs His Holy Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance. (Eph. 1: 14).

Forgiveness.

Throughout the Christian ages, great and successful efforts have been made by Satan to rob believers in the Lord Jesus Christ of the knowledge of forgiveness of sins. When on earth the Lord Jesus said to a man, "Thy sins are forgiven thee" (Luke 5: 20); and to a woman, "Thy sins are forgiven." (Luke 7: 48). These two would therefore be assured that their sins were forgiven. All true believers should possess the same assurance for it is written in the Scriptures, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." (1 John 2: 12).

The forgiveness of sins rests on the foundation of the great redemptive work of Christ, and all the efficacy of the accomplished work abides in Him where He dwells before the face of God. No other could atone for sins. When Israel sinned at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses pleaded with God for them saying, "If thou wilt forgive; and if not, blot me, I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written." But Moses could not be accepted as a sacrifice, even for one sin. His zeal for Israel was wonderful; his sentiments were noble; but how could a sinful man, even though he was the meekest man on all the earth, die for sinful men? At the appointed time, God sent forth His Son, Who became Man, and as the holy, spotless Lamb of God laid down His life and shed His precious blood, so that a righteous and Holy God might be able in perfect consistency with His character and nature to forgive sinners who believe in Him.

With the sacrificial work of Christ in view God was able beforehand to forgive sinners of a previous dispensation. This is taught in Romans 3: 25; and in Psalm 32: 5. David in confessing his sin to God availed himself of this great benefit, even although, he could not know the glorious plan of redemption that was in the mind and heart of God. David said, "I acknowledged my sin to thee — and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin"; and this is an excellent example for all. That all may receive the same forgiveness as David is clearly taught in John 1: 9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Scripture also teaches governmental forgiveness of sins. This character of forgiveness was really granted to the man in Luke 5: 20; and is also indicated in John 5: 14 and 8: 11. God not only deals with His people in grace, but chastens them in His government; and some may be laid upon a bed of sickness because of some particular sin. James 5: 15 shows that such may be healed and governmentally forgiven. On this line Peter received authority from the Lord to bind and loose sins on earth, and his actions were to be ratified in heaven. This of course is governmental; and the case of Ananias and Sapphira demonstrated how heaven ratified the sin that Peter bound upon them.

Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is getting right with God. When Adam sinned, moral distance separated him from God, and he became an enemy of God. To be reconciled, man must be brought back to God with the enmity removed from his heart. Perhaps the outstanding picture of reconciliation in the New Testament is found in Luke 15. The need of bread, and the realisation of his Father's goodness awoke within the Prodigal the desire to return; but he had no idea of the reconciliation that the Father had prepared for him. A servant's place would have sufficed the Prodigal but the kisses, the best robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf, and the music and dancing revealed the resources of the Father for the satisfaction of his love. These things were all enjoyed by the erstwhile wanderer when the distance had gone, and the enmity displaced from his heart by the Father's love.

Old Testament incidents also help us to understand the truth of reconciliation. Absalom's murder of Amnon alienated him from the house of David, and although he was ultimately brought home he was not really reconciled. His rebellion against David proved there was enmity in his heart towards his Father. Absalom never confessed his guilt, and a reconciliation without confession and repentance will never do for God. With Mephibosheth it was very different. When brought from the distance of Lodebar, the kindness of God lavished upon him by David dispelled his enmity; and this was evinced in his mourning for David during his absence in rejection.

God reconciles sinners by bringing them near to Him in Christ, His Beloved, and by displacing the enmity from their hearts with the knowledge of His love. The love of God and enmity towards Him cannot remain in the heart together. Christ's wonderful death has fully manifested God's love for ungodly sinners who were His enemies, and this love has been shed abroad in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 5).

But reconciliation is also connected with the truth of the new creation. This is taught in 2 Corinthians 5; where the Christian is seen "In Christ" before God. The new creation describes the new conditions of life in which the believer exists; where death cannot come, and where there is no distance and no enmity. Every feature of this new existence in which saints have been created is portrayed in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Soon the Lord will return to reconcile all things to the fulness of the Godhead; which shall be completed when every sphere of government and authority on earth and in the heavens is recovered to God. By the exercise of His mighty power the Lord will remove His foes from these spheres and fill them with His glory, that God might be glorified in all things for the ages of ages.

Deliverance.

Elihu told Job that God speaks to man in various ways to instruct him, and to keep him from his purpose and pride. God speaks by dreams, by preserving men from violent deaths, by pain, sickness and disease, and by bringing men to the very point of death. All these things are to teach men the grace of God, and that they might hear Him saying, "Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom." (Job 33). To be the subject of this deliverance from divine judgment, the sinner must acknowledge his sin, saying as in this chapter, "I have sinned and perverted that which was right"; then "He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light." (v. 28).

Deliverance from the bondage of the law is realised by the knowledge that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ; and this liberty is given to Christians that they might live for the will of God to give Him pleasure. This is taught in Romans 7; the next chapter shows that the individual believer can enjoy deliverance from the law of sin and death. Before God, every true believer is looked at as liberated both from the law and from the bondage of sin; but the practical experience of these things is another matter. To enjoy deliverance from sin we must reckon ourselves as dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Having learned to do this the Christian will be able to say with Paul "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." Like Israel under the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt the sinner is under the yoke of Satan as the god and prince of this world. It is the privilege of the saints of God to know that the Father has delivered them from the power of darkness, and has translated them into the kingdom of the Son of His love. (Col. 1: 13).

Our God and Father desires that we should be delivered from this present evil world. (Gal. 1: 4). We learn how this is brought about in the same epistle, (Gal. 2: 20 and Gal. 6: 14). "I am crucified with Christ" is the experience of one who has allowed the truth of the cross to affect his whole moral being; and "I live by the faith of the Son of God" meant that Paul's whole life and being were bound up in communion with Jesus his Lord. Then in chapter 6 we see a man who realises that the world has been completely exposed and judged in the cross, and that that same cross which measured the world's hatred of God and His Son revealed the world's estimate of him as Christ's disciple. These are the lessons to be learned if deliverance from this present evil world is to be realised. When this guilty world receives its just judgment for the murder of God's Son, we shall not be here, for Jesus is "our deliverer from the coming wrath." (1 Thess. 1: 10).

Salvation.

Jonah, the prophet, had remarkable experiences, and doubtless made great discoveries during his sojourn in the whale's belly; but his release from such a prison would be the most blessed of all his experiences, and this was when he discovered that "Salvation is of the Lord." The discovery that we need salvation may be very painful, accompanied with anxiety and deep distress, as with Jonah. This will occur if we realise before God that we are ruined, guilty and lost; and powerless against sin and Satan.

Salvation is not procurable by human efforts, for Titus 3: 5-6 points out that we are saved by God's mercy, and not by works of righteousness which we have done. This is also emphasised in Ephesians 2: 8-9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should boast." God in sovereign love has secured this great salvation for us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Aged Simeon knew this when he said, "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." The Samaritans learned it when they heard Jesus speaking, for they said, "We know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." There must be personal contact with the Son of God to know Him as the Saviour. Peter, the great apostle, who truly knew the Lord said of Him, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

Many true believers have doubts and fears about salvation, not having in their souls the assurance that God gives in His word. The woman in Luke 7 would not have the slightest doubt on this question after the Lord said to her, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." Nor should we have the semblance of a dread, for the Scripture tells us that "God — hath saved us." (2 Tim. 1: 9). The word is not "may save" or "will save," but "hath saved." But we need to be preserved amid the dangers and snares of the world, and for this the Lord Jesus Christ has become our Great High Priest; and as such "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7: 25).

Complete salvation will be effected for us by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His saints. Then we shall be delivered from our present circumstances, and shall be taken to heaven to be for ever with the Lord. While awaiting this momentous event, we "are kept by the power of God through faith." (1 Peter 1: 5). If this salvation in all its parts is to be ours, we must heed the word spoken by Paul to the Jailor at Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

Justification.

When Job contended with his friends, who ignorant of God's dealings with him, falsely accused him, the cry was wrung from his grief-stricken but self-righteous heart, "How should man be just with God?" His three "comforters" could not rightly answer this question, but the true answer was given when God revealed Himself to Job, and when he replied, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." To tell God that we are loathsome sinners deserving only divine judgment is the way to be just with God. The same lesson is learned from the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18. Proud in his self-righteousness the Pharisee justified himself before God, but the Publican condemned himself, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Of the self-judged man the Lord said, "I say unto you that that man went to his house justified rather than the other."

Justification is simply to be righteous in the sight of God: to be cleared from the imputation of guilt. No man is free from guilt, for "all have sinned"; and none can redeem himself, for we are without strength." Therefore if sinners are to be justified, a means for its accomplishment must be found outside of themselves. God in infinite wisdom has devised the means, which manifests His great love and the riches of His grace. On the cross, the Lord Jesus endured the divine judgment merited by sinners, and shed His precious blood; and this enables God in perfect righteousness to clear from every charge of guilt those who believe on Him.

But there are those like the haughty Jews of Romans 10, who, seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. Like the man at the wedding feast they refuse the wedding garment provided by the King. Unlike the Prodigal they will not confess, "I have sinned," and so lack the best robe and all else provided by a loving Father, and remain like the elder brother outside the Father's house with its merriment and joys. The apostle Paul had once sought to establish his own righteousness, and thus be just before God; but his interview with the Lord Jesus on the way to Damascus disclosed to him the unsuitability of such a garment when exposed in the light of the glory shining from the face of Jesus. He desired thereafter "to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. 3: 9). While those who have neglected or refused the righteousness of God are sorrowing in the darkness for eternity, those who have received the abundance of grace will be displayed with the Lord Jesus in glory as "The righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5: 21).

Peace.

No one will gainsay that all the prodigious efforts of men to procure peace for the nations have ended in failure; but few realise that the explanation of this failure lies in the world's rejection of the Son of God. With the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem the entry of peace into the world was celebrated by the praising heavenly host saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace"; but the portending departure of peace was proclaimed just before Christ's final rejection, by the multitude crying, "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." Not until the Lord returns as Prince of Peace will peace be found on earth again.

But God in infinite wisdom and compassion used the very occasion of the cross to secure for men a more wonderful peace than that brought to earth in the Son's incarnation. This peace was made by the blood of His cross, and it is proclaimed in the Gospel. Indeed, in Ephesians 2: 17, Christ is presented as the great Preacher of peace both to Jew and Gentile. It is because of this peace received from Him that we can have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace when standing in conflict in the evil day.

The troubled sinner needs peace for his conscience, and he receives this when he believes the Gospel. Romans 5: 1, unfolds this, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment illustrates this beautifully. Trembling she came to Jesus, only to hear from His lips, "Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." (Luke 8: 48).

Those enjoying peace with God soon realise that if faithful to Christ they will share the reproach of His rejection, and be the object of the world's malice and opposition. When forewarning His disciples of this the Lord said, "These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace." (John 16: 33). There is no peace for the Christian here; but while passing through tribulation for the Lord's sake he can have the bounty left by the Lord, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you."

Although brought into divine favour the Christian is not relieved from the trials that are common to men; and these are apt to bring anxious care. For such circumstances the believer may have the peace of God which passes all understanding, and this by making his requests known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. (Philippians 4: 6-7). God's peace is not disturbed by the unrest and conflicts of the world, and this is the peace that is held out to His people. To enjoy this divine peace in its varied aspects, the Christian must abide in communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, for "He is our peace."

Joy.

Natural joy is very precious and according to the Preacher in Ecc. 2: 26, it is one of three things that God gives to a man that is good in His sight. Natural goodness, in the government of God brings its own reward of natural joy. But the joys of nature quickly fade before the trials and sorrows that man inherits, and the exercised soul at length discovers that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. The transient character of natural joy was demonstrated at the marriage feast of Cana of Galilee, when the wine ran out; but it was there the Lord Jesus revealed that in the best wine of His providing there was a source of an entirely new kind of joy. This new joy is from God, and is known in the reception of the Gospel. As a result of Philip's ministry at Samaria, where he preached Christ unto them, we read, "And there was great joy in that city." (Acts 8: 8). In the same chapter, Philip spoke to the Ethiopian about the Lord Jesus, and having believed the word spoken, it says of him that "He went on his way rejoicing."

Many new things bring joy at their reception or beginning, and afterwards the joy is displaced by distresses that eat like a canker. But Christianity is very different. Having saved us from our sins, God brings us into His kingdom. This kingdom is characterised by "Joy in the Holy Spirit," and in order that we may possess the joy constantly, God has given us the source of it by shedding His love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which He has given to us. One of the precious fruits of the Spirit as delineated in Gal. 5: 22, is joy.

The joys of nature are dependent on circumstances. If a man's circumstances are grievous, his joy disappears. But the joy given by the Lord is independent of circumstances, and therefore persists in seasons of trial and sorrow. Although the Lord Jesus on earth was "A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" it is written of Him "He rejoiced in spirit." His joy was from communion with His Father, in spite of His rejection by men. The apostle Paul following in the steps of His Master, shared His rejection and sorrow but knew the blessedness of His Master's joy, and commended this joy to others. In his epistle to the Philippians more than once he says "My joy," and he exhorted them to "Rejoice in the Lord alway."

On the night of His betrayal the Lord Jesus spoke of many things to His disciples. He warned them of the tribulation they should receive from the world, but He also promised them His joy. He said, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15: 11). From 1 John 1: 1-4 we see that this joy is realised as we learn the reality of eternal life in communion with the Father and the Son. May we truly know His joy in communion with Him.

Cumberland Series

1. An Officer's Faith

2. Brought Down on Reconnaissance

3. A Storm at Sea

4. The Wrong Uniform

An Officer's Faith.

The searchlight of God's gracious dealings with men in this world of darkness allows its beam to pause upon particular incidents in Holy Writ and for the gaze of all holds in its ray God's attitude towards His creature estranged from Himself by sin. So, in the Gospels there are recorded many instances of the Grace of God reaching men through the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ who, as the Vessel of Grace, was alone competent to fulfil such a work. Whether in preaching the Gospel to the poor, healing the broken-hearted, delivering captives, recovering sight to the blind, He is presented in the Gospel of Luke as the Perfect Man in the activity of grace. It is not to call attention to the kind of faith, viz., an officer's, that this incident from Luke 7 has been chosen but to show that in the Scriptures the military forces are not excluded from the many walks of life in which examples of the gift of God (Eph. 2: 8) are found. What marked the unnamed centurion was a faith which surpassed any found amongst a people privileged above all others as to the things of God (v. 9) and which got an answer (v. 10). We do well then to consider this soldier's reaction to faith if we would be pleasing to God (Heb. 11: 6). Here was a man with a deep need but he was in the favourable circumstances whereby he could hear of Jesus (v. 3). His sphere of service as a soldier happened to be cast in the very territory which was graced by those Divine footsteps. How often privileges are taken for granted! How often is the opportunity of hearing of Jesus in this favoured Island Home of ours spurned! But the centurion was not content with simply hearing of Jesus, faith was in exercise, for he approached Him in such a way as to bring out the glory of the Perfect Man which is the particular theme of Luke's Gospel. He thus solicited the aid of the elders of the Jews (v. 3) and clearly indicated the ground of repentance for he took sides with God against himself (v. 6). Moreover, there was the recognition both of the ability (v. 7) and the authority (v. 8) of the One to whom he addressed his appeal in his deep need. It may be that news of the man who was healed of the palsy (Luke 5: 18) had reached the ears of this centurion and, as his servant was suffering from the same complaint (Mat. 8: 6), he had concluded that Jesus might cure him. However, this would only have involved the exercise of natural intelligence. What the Lord recognised and answered was the faith which expressed itself in such a way, the need being felt, as to produce repentance on the part of the centurion and appreciation of the power of the Lord to help him.

Dear reader, may it be yours in all your deep need as a sinner to exercise repentance toward God, i.e., taking sides with God against yourself, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e., bringing in God as He has been pleased to reveal Himself (Acts 20: 21). In this way you may have the assurance of the forgiveness of your sins, which is undoubtedly your deepest need (Acts 13: 38). The One who met the centurion in his extremity is the only One who can meet you in yours. "He is the same yesterday, and to-day and for ever" (Heb. 13: 8). J. Wilson.

Brought Down on Reconnaissance.

The title of this tract will doubtless divert thought into the avenue of aerial activity and to the brave men engaged in the hazardous work suggested, but such is not its aim. The desire is to isolate the principle of ascent, and, through clothing it in a moral garb, show that it originated with Satan himself and which has been manifested ever since by men as fallen creatures. We do not wish to detract from the value of reconnaissance work in the ways of men nor to belittle those who display natural courage, but to stress that in the ways of God the practice by men of ascendency in a moral sense never leads to salvation or blessing; this is the thought of God for all men for "God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2: 3-4). To trace the principle to its source we must go back to the fall of Satan from heaven. God has carefully recorded this incident in Isaiah 14: 13. "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. . . ." As a fallen creature and under the dominion of sin (Rom. 6: 14) man has never ceased to give expression to the rule. In Genesis 11 the Tower of Babel is a monument to the desire and efforts of men to enjoy the atmosphere of heaven in their own way. The confederacy would be the witness to the former and the brick an indication of the latter. Then, as though to guard against the fallacy that the principle had been eradicated either by the passage of time or the transition from the Old to the New Testament, Zacchaeus is introduced in Luke 19. Evidently there was still the desire after what was of God for "he sought to see Jesus who he was" and the efforts to satiate that desire was seen in his own scheming for he climbed into a sycamore tree, noted for the thickness of its foliage; only to find, however, that his own efforts were but taking him farther from the place of blessing. The higher he climbed the greater was the distance he had to come down.

Dear reader, if hitherto you have been seeking to merit salvation by anything you are doing, no matter how commendable it may appear, take warning from what God has recorded in His Word in connection with this little man! "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down" indicated the way of salvation, on the line of his humbling himself before the One who had become Man that He might bring salvation within the reach of men in their lost estate. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51: 17). Moreover, far from being obtained by the efforts of men, the blessing was to be had only on the principle of faith "forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham" and that in the Son of Man who came to create the sense of need in the soul and to satisfy it. Have you humbled yourself before the Saviour in the confession of your lost condition and through the exercise of faith in Himself received the salvation which he waits to impart? If not, learn the lesson taught in the Scriptures of Truth by Zacchaeus who was brought down on reconnaissance to have the word of salvation spoken by the Saviour Himself. J. Wilson.

A Storm at Sea.

In these days when engineering seems to have reached the peak of accomplishment it is difficult to understand the dangers which attended a storm at sea in bygone days. However, history shows that the destinies of nations have been moulded by such an event. For instance, the Spanish Armada was one of the most outstanding events in that connection, but the destiny of a nation pales into insignificance in comparison with an individual soul in the sight of God. "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Thus the sea storm described in Matt. 14: 23-33 is concerned largely with the Lord and Peter. In these few verses there is given a beautiful example of the Lord's help to His own in distressing circumstances.

But ere we pass on to develop this a little, let us consider for a moment the character of the one who reaps the benefit of the Lord's gracious support. He, who is presented in Matthew 14 is the same as is dealt with in Luke 5. It is important to grasp this, bearing in mind that Peter's experience in Luke 5 is antecedent to that in Matthew 14, for it clearly shows that the man the Lord was dealing with in the latter instance had judged his sinful condition in His presence. "Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But Peter stayed where he was at the knees of Jesus until the words of peace had been spoken to his conscience. "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." He had made his confession to the only One Who had authority to set his conscience at rest. Peter was to prove the truth of these words on many occasions subsequently; this is one from Matthew 14. But Peter is only taken up representatively to show that the Lord's support can be enjoyed by all who have judged their sinful condition before Him and who have had the word of assurance spoken to the conscience.

The Lord goes up into a mountain to pray, indicating the place of exaltation which He occupies to-day (Heb. 9: 24) on behalf of His own who are left below where the rough seas are encountered. But it is blessed to notice that He is mindful of them in all their toil and comes to them in the fourth and last watch, which suggests that all during the night of His absence, the Lord's own people can count upon Himself. Surely it is a word of encouragement to them to-day for Scripture clearly represents this as having the character of night! (Rom. 13: 12; Rev. 22: 16). But there is One who is able both to succour and to sympathise in connection with all the weakness and infirmity which abound. In spite of all that is calculated to disturb, there is One who moves above these things for the sustenance of His people. Jesus comes to them walking on the sea!

May the Lord give you, dear reader, if you have not already done so, to judge your sinful condition before Him, that when the storms come you may know where to turn for the Pilot! J. Wilson.

The Wrong Uniform.

The wearing of the correct uniform is a matter of prime importance to-day if we would move through our country with impunity. The donning of an enemy uniform would probably lead to immediate enquiry, if not arrest and imprisonment. Care is, therefore, exercised that our clothing is so regulated as not to offend the eyes of men. But how careful we may be sometimes about suiting the eyes of men who, after all, can only touch the body, and forget to consider our suitability to the eyes of God who is concerned with the soul! A consideration of the parable spoken by Jesus in Matt. 22: 1-14, therefore, may help in the latter matter which is infinitely more important as it raises eternal issues.

In the parable we are told of a King who has designs of blessing for His Son and, with this in view, proposes a wedding. The necessary accompaniments which attend such a desire are then considered and the invitations are given verbally by the servants. The result, however, is startling! The would-be guests refuse to accept the King's invitation and are much more concerned with the mundane routine of earthly toil (one went to his farm and another to his merchandise). This is almost unbelievable until we remember that we are considering a parable which portrays the refusal, on the part of the Jews, of all God's overtures of grace. Man's history from the commencement shows that he has always been much more concerned about earthly things than heavenly things! But the King would not be thwarted and we are beautifully introduced into that which God is doing amongst men to-day, by the Gospel, that the wedding may be furnished with guests. God is inviting men and women to-day to the marriage of His Son, a marriage which, as yet, has not taken place (Rev. 19: 7), but the guests must be arrayed suitably. Moreover, they are held individually responsible for being so; the guest in the parable was speechless when questioned for he knew quite well what was required but he evidently thought that his own clothes would do. They may have been ever so nice and well-fitting but they did not meet with the approval of the King and this, after all, was the acid test.

Dear reader, do you think that any righteousness which you may suppose you possess will be suitable clothing for the marriage of His Son to which God now invites you? If so, be warned by what God has recorded here and elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures. "All our righteousness are as filthy rags" (Isa. 64: 6). "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3: 10). The guest who is taken as an example only made one mistake — he failed to avail himself of the wedding garment — but it resulted in "outer darkness." Dear friend, are you garbed in the righteousness of God for of such does the wedding garment speak? If not, turn to Romans 3: 21, 22 and learn that the righteousness of God which has been manifested . . . by faith of Jesus Christ is unto all so that it may be yours but it is only possessed by those who exercise faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is upon all who believe. It is here on earth that the question is settled for we are told in the parable that the servants gathered in both bad and good and there will be certainly no bad connected with heaven and its glory (Rev. 21: 27). J. Wilson.

Preach The Word Series

The Counsel of Peace.

The Cup of Salvation.

An Anchor of the Soul.

No More Conscience of Sins.

Be Reconciled to God.

The Counsel of Peace.

If there is one thing needful for the troubled nations of the world, or for the distressed individual, it is lasting peace. For the world there can be no abiding peace until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to put down all evil, and establish His kingdom in righteousness. Peace was offered to the world when God's Son came into it as the Babe of Bethlehem, even as recorded in the angelic praise, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace." This divine overture was rejected when the world put the Son of God upon the cross; and this shameful rejection is the cause of the world's incurable wounds of sorrow and distress. So far as the individual soul is concerned, peace of conscience and heart are unknown until Christ has His true place in the heart and life. Man is by nature a sinner, and at a distance from God, subject to divine judgment because of his sins, from which he cannot escape by his own efforts. Apart from God's intervention on his behalf, in sovereign mercy, man must perish for ever in his sins; and the thought of this troubles the conscience and distresses the mind of the awakened soul.

We may well thank God for the deep interest He has shown in His erring creature. "The counsel of peace" (Zechariah 6: 13) tells how God and His beloved Son have devised the means for securing the blessing of peace for the repentant sinner. This wonderful plan involved the coming down into this world of God's own Son, so that He might go to the cross to suffer for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3: 18). This great work was completed; peace was made by the blood of His cross; the efficacy of the work is infinite and eternal, and through it, whosoever will may come to God and receive the blessings of the counsel of peace.

So that men might partake of the fruits of the counsel of peace, God has sent forth His gospel. To the Jews, who crucified His Son, and said "His blood be on us and on our children," God offers peace in the gospel; and many of Jacob's troubled sons and daughters have found their rest in this deep peace. This blessed message of peace comes to you and me, poor sinners of the Gentiles, far from God by nature and by practice; a peace that dispels every bit of dread from the heart, and brings the tranquil soul to delight in the presence of God.

Have you peace with God? Do not say that this is impossible to have. We read in Romans 5: 1, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." There is no need for you to continue in doubts and fears if you desire the peace of God. But there is only one way of procuring this inestimable blessing. You must come to God, as a poor sinner, confessing your guilt, and bowing the knee in true repentance before the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him NOW; and hear Him say to you, as He once said to a poor repentant sinner, "Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace" (Luke 7: 50). (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

The Cup of Salvation.

God desires the salvation and blessing of his fallen creature, man; but, like the writer of Psalm 116, we have to be brought low in the presence of God before we are ready to accept the cup of salvation that He offers. Describing the experience through which he had passed, the Psalmist says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow." This was surely a dreadful plight; when in the extremity of human weakness, and beyond all creature aid, the gates of death and hell were open wide before him, ready to receive him. What could he do but throw himself upon the mercy of God? Therefore he says, "Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul."

Man's extremity is verily God's opportunity, as witnesses the Psalmist. After extolling the Lord for His grace, righteousness, and mercy, he can say, Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." And this is also the blessed experience of all who, on being brought low before God, cast themselves upon His mercy. God has no pleasure in the sorrows of men, but in His great mercy and wisdom He often brings them into ways of sorrow and distress, so that they might come to the end of themselves, and trust wholly in Him. We are poor guilty sinners, deserving only death and hell; but God has procured salvation for us through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; and this is the blessing He desires that we should drink from the cup of salvation that He offers.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that this is a "Great salvation," and that it began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him. Do you remember the tragic story of Lot's wife? Salvation was almost hers. She was actually out of the doomed city of Sodom, but on disobeying the divine command, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Salvation may be almost yours, and yet you may miss the blessing. It may be that you mean to be saved; yet you still neglect the great salvation preached to us in the Gospel. Listen to the solemn warning of Scripture, "If the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?"

Perhaps you would like to work for salvation? The word of God tells us, "For by grace are ye saved through faith . . . it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." This clearly shows that we cannot get salvation apart from receiving it as God's free gift. Our Psalmist asked "What shall I render unto the LORD for all His benefits towards me?" His own answer was, "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD." This is the simple way into the blessing. Take then that blessed cup now; for "Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

An Anchor of the Soul.

A wise man, in considering a new position or job, is concerned about its prospects, knowing that it will probably determine how he is to be occupied, and perhaps where he is to reside for the rest of his natural life; but how few give consideration to, or have concern for the prospect beyond the grave. And yet this is a matter of much greater import, involving the eternal destiny of the soul. Many refuse to face the eternal prospect, and if questioned about it, endeavour to evade it, clearly manifesting that they do not have the Christian's hope "As an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast" (Hebrews 6: 19).

God, in His word, has plainly spoken of the judgment awaiting those who have neglected the blessings of the Gospel, or who have refused His grace. This world is guilty of the death of God's Son; and all who form part of the world will share its judgment. When on the cross, the Lord Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do;" and because of this wonderful intercession, God is prepared to treat us as manslayers rather than as murderers. Those who refuse this offer of divine mercy will have to answer to God for the murder of His Son.

The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has "fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us," and this hope is the God-given anchor of the soul. Of old, the manslayer was sheltered in the city of refuge (Numbers 35); and the Christian is sheltered from judgment in Christ, even as we read in Romans 8: 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." God Himself provided the cities of refuge; He would not have the manslayer treated as a murderer; nor will He have you treated as guilty of the murder of His Son, if you flee to Christ, the refuge He has provided in the richness of His mercy. The hope of the manslayer was liberty through the death of the High Priest; those divinely sheltered now have the blessed hope of actually entering God's presence and glory at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alas! many do not realise their need of the refuge God has provided; nor have they the blessed hope that God has given to the believer in Jesus. They may be willing to admit that all are sinners, but say they hope to get to heaven at last because they are no worse than many. There is no place in all their thoughts for the refuge and the hope God has provided. A sure anchor is one properly formed and fashioned, one that can hold. Has your anchor been formed aright? Has it come from God, or is it the creature of your own thoughts and imagination? A stedfast anchor must be holding on proper ground. Is your anchor secure within the vail of heaven, or does it rest on the shifting ground of man's philosophy and false hopes? See to it that you get the anchor that God gives, a hope that will never fail: be sure that your hope for eternal blessing rests on Christ, Who is sitting at God's right hand in heaven. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

No More Conscience of Sins.

Why did Adam hide himself among the trees of the garden of Eden after his sin against God? Was it not because of the sense in his soul that he was guilty? The Scripture tells us that "All have sinned" (Romans 3: 23), and the guilt of our sins resting upon the conscience makes us dread the searching light of God's presence. The very best of men have confessed themselves altogether unfit for the presence of a holy God. At Sinai, Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake" (Hebrews 12: 21); Job, the best man of his day, said "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 1: 8; Job 42: 5-6). Isaiah, who had just been pronouncing woes on evildoers, on entering God's holy presence, said "Woe is me! for I am undone" (Isaiah 6: 5). Before God, Daniel, a truly lovely character, said of himself, "My comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength" (Daniel 10: 8). And how do we compare with these holy men? Are we better than they?

If God has brought our guilt before us, it is not to have us ever conscious of it; but rather that confessing it we might avail ourselves of the wonderful blessing of "No more conscience of sins" (Hebrews 10: 2). To bring this inestimable blessing to men, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's own dear Son, came down from heaven, and on the cross offered Himself a sacrifice for sins. That one offering has glorified God, completely satisfying the claims of His holy and righteous throne; enabling Him to clear the guilty from every charge of sin, if they will but confess their guilt and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So clear can we be, that not one stain remains on the conscience; and we can enter with holy boldness the very presence of the God against whom we had sinned.

In the sacrifices of the Jewish law, God had indicated His desire to take away sins; but such sacrifices could never take sins away; their blood had no intrinsic value, but they pointed forward to the spotless victim, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose precious blood can remove our sins. Let no one be deceived, there is no other way of having "no more conscience of sins," but by resting in that one sacrifice, the death of Jesus.

The time must surely come, when each one of us will leave this world, and appear before God. When your time comes, will you go with the guilt of your sins upon your conscience, or with "no more conscience of sins?" This is a most solemn question, which should be faced without delay. So many put the matter off until it is too late. You may never have warning that your end is near; even if you have, the poor body languishing in pain or sickness may leave you unable to consider this all-important matter. Be wise therefore, and have the question of your sins answered before God while still you have the opportunity, by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

Be Reconciled to God.

There are few who realise that by nature and practice man is far away from God, with very wrong thoughts and feelings of God. In His well-beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God has perfectly expressed His attitude towards poor sinful man, for "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. 5: 19). Alas! instead of receiving the Lord Jesus, men took Him, and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him. But man's crowning sin has not impeded the outflow of divine grace, for God is still sending forth His messengers with the Gospel, bidding men to get right with God. The day rapidly approaches when the glad news of the Gospel will cease, and God will require the blood of His Son at the hands of men and every one who has refused or neglected the message of grace must give account to Him.

When Adam sinned, he not only became guilty of disobedience, but the principle of sin entered into his nature, and he became estranged from God. Every child of Adam inherits his sinful nature with its enmity towards God, and is born in the distance from God. Coming down to Eden, after man's fall, God called to Adam, "Where art thou?" God had not only come to convict the sinner, and to pronounce His righteous judgment, but, in wondrous compassion, to seek the lost ones and rescue them from the consequences of their dreadful sin. Before men can be saved and brought near to God, they must first realise the enormity of sin, and be found in confession and repentance. A just and holy God cannot overlook sin; and the cross shows how God maintains His righteousness and holiness while pardoning the repentant sinner. There, the Lord Jesus Christ became the sin offering, and accomplished the redemption that enables God to offer pardon to every sinner.

Have you availed yourself of this offer of pardon? You will never be right with God unless you do so. You may try to overlook the consequences of your sins: God cannot. God could never fill heaven with unrepentant sinners! Do you remember what happened when King David brought back the unrepentant Absalom? He plotted against his Father, and sought to kill him. If Absalom had confessed his sin, and repented of it, there would not have been enmity in his heart towards David. How could God have sinful men in the heavenly courts of light and love with dark hatred and enmity filling their hearts?

In Luke 15 the Lord Jesus gave a lovely illustration of one truly reconciled. Having learned that the pleasures of sin are but for a season, the Prodigal remembered the goodness of his Father, and this brought him back to ask for a servant's place. Instead, the Father kissed the Prodigal, gave him the best robe, the ring, the shoes, and the fatted calf and rejoiced in receiving the lost one safely home. If you will come to God, like the Prodigal, in true repentance, confessing your sin, God will give you a wonderful reconciliation. (R. — Wm. C. Reid.)

A Grave Warning and Its Sequel.

1. The Warning.

Some years ago the writer was spending a holiday at one of our large East Coast resorts. There he made the acquaintance of a local resident who kindly offered to conduct him round the town and surrounding district, visiting specially the beauty spots. One place he considered to be particularly charming and a special day was arranged for our visit thereto. We were glad that the day, when it dawned, proved an ideal one as far as the weather was concerned. The sun shone in all its brilliance and on reaching the railway station we observed that others besides ourselves were

apparently bound for the same destination. When we left the train, we found ourselves after a short walk, in a lovely wood. The writer well remembers what a pleasing sight it was to look upon the blue expanse of the North Sea; the view being broken in places by the trunks of fine old trees, whose contrasting colour seemed to enhance the beauty of the sea beyond. But sore disappointment was in store for us. We had not been there long before the sky suddenly became overcast. Darker and darker grew the prospect, and the sea which just a few moments before had gladdened our vision, now reflected and emphasized the threatening aspect of the sky above it. We concluded that a severe storm was about to overtake us, and as neither of us had made any preparation for this unexpected change in weather conditions, we set off with all speed to reach a shelter of which the writer's friend was aware. We were just in time. Already a goodly company had gathered, but there was enough standing room for us to have the protection we so much needed. The rain descended in torrents, the frequent flashes of lightning almost blinding us, and the responding peals of thunder making us feel that the earth trembled beneath our feet. My friend and I were well placed to view the faces of those who had gathered, and we could see that many of them bore the signs of mingled fear and disappointment. A solemn silence prevailed, a silence intensified by the contrasting thunder and the falling rain outside, and one felt that God was speaking silently yet powerfully to the hearts and consciences of the people.

The writer himself was moved by the circumstances of the occasion, and he thought of another storm and another shelter, both of which he felt impelled to speak. Before so doing he prayed to God that a suitable message might be given him for the people, and also courage to proclaim it faithfully and fearlessly. Quicker even than the lightning flash the message came, but before delivering it, he sang the words of a well-known hymn, most suitable for the occasion: —

"The Lord's my Rock, in Him I hide,

A shelter in the time of storm,

Secure whatever ill betide,

A shelter in the time of storm,

Oh! Jesus is a Rock in a weary land

A shelter in the time of storm."

After singing the hymn the speaker was encouraged to find that every one seemed ready to listen to his God-given message. He reminded his audience that the storm which raged around them in all its fury, had overtaken them very suddenly and unexpectedly, and being without protection of any kind, they had all hastened to this welcome refuge. He also suggested that every one present, including himself, must feel in their hearts that they owed a debt of gratitude to those whose kindness had prompted its erection.

These introductory remarks led him to the theme that burdened his heart. This was none other than the solemn fact of the coming storm of God's judgment, and His wonderful and gracious provision for all who desired a shelter from it. It is an appalling fact that there are multitudes to-day who never think of eternity, and consequently have no regard for the welfare of their precious souls, nor of the precious salvation God is offering them through the death of His own beloved Son. Their brief span of life which God's word declares to be "even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4: 14) is so engrossed with the pursuit of pleasure, or wealth, or fashion or one of the many other things wherewith Satan lures his victims to destruction, that all thought of eternity and the all-important matters relating thereto, are quite excluded. The same gross folly was seen in the days of Noah, as Matthew 24: 38-39, states: — "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage . . . and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

How solemn are these words of the Son of God! How strongly they refute the claims of those who maintain that the world is getting better, and that we are on the threshold of a glorious age! Let there be no mistake, this world, far from showing any repentance towards God, is ripening fast for judgment.

Towards the close of his remarks, it was the speaker's joy to turn from the note of warning (necessary though it was to arouse his hearers to a sense of their danger) to the sweet notes of the Gospel. God is holy, He is righteous, He cannot look upon sin, yet He is a God of wondrous love with infinite compassion for His creatures. It is not His will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He provided a shelter for the people in the days of Noah, and such was His long-suffering that He pleaded with that wicked generation for one hundred and twenty years. But all His pleadings were in vain, and His plan for their salvation was rejected. Only Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were saved. Man's only hope of salvation from the flood of judgment was the ark. Man's only hope of Salvation from the future judgment is Christ. Those outside the ark perished when judgment fell, and, just as surely, those outside of Christ, will have no shelter, to which they can flee from the coming storm. Blessed are those who can sing: —

"Death and judgment are behind us,

Grace and glory on before,

All the billows rolled o'er Jesus,

There they spent their utmost power."

Urging his hearers to flee to Christ and to put their trust in Him, and His atoning death, the speaker concluded.

The storm now began to abate and while the clouds were lifting he had much pleasure in speaking to individuals and giving gospel booklets to all before they left. Time and space forbid him to recount all that was said, but it was evident that the message had been appreciated. One dear woman whose heart was filled to overflowing with the love of Christ, and a love for perishing sinners, could not refrain from giving utterance to a song of praise. Sweetly she sang: —

"Jesus, the very thought of Thee,

With sweetness fills the breast,

But sweeter far Thy face to see,

And in Thy presence rest."

On reaching the place where she stood, the writer was privileged to engage in conversation with one of the most devoted Christians he had ever met. She told him that when she arrived at the shelter and observed the disappointed and sad looks on many faces, she prayed silently to God asking Him to send a message of love and warning through the lips of one of His servants, should such be present. At once, she said, I saw you remove your hat and I thanked God, for I knew my prayer was answered. Her parting words were that she would pray for God's blessing on the solemn message, and doubtless the interesting sequel about to be given, is one result of the prayers of this devoted woman.

2. The Sequel.

Holidays were over. The writer returned to home and friends in the North, to whom he related his holiday experiences, including the thunderstorm incident. Some years afterwards, one of these friends was on a train journey to a town in Lancashire. Evening was approaching and he became anxious about reaching his destination before darkness closed in. Two young ladies sat opposite to him in the compartment, and he gathered from their conversation that they were travelling to the same town to which he was going. He ventured to explain to them that he was a stranger to the district and would be glad if they could direct him to a certain street. In reply they informed him that they knew where it was, and they would be pleased to show him the way to it. A most interesting conversation followed.

After warmly thanking them for their kindness, he asked if he could be of any service to them by showing them the way to Heaven. To his great surprise and joy they told him they knew the way. Struck with their ready and happy response, he expressed the desire to know how and when they found the way thither. With keen attention he listened to their story. One of them said that three years before she had gone to S— for a holiday. While visiting a pleasant spot in the district she was overtaken by a severe thunderstorm. She hurried to a place of shelter and while there heard some one singing "The Lord's my Rock in Him I hide, a shelter in the time of storm." (Needless to say, my friend was now most interested, but did not interrupt as she continued her story). After singing the hymn he warned the people of another storm and of the good news that God had provided a shelter which was available, for all. On the Cross Jesus had borne the judgment our sins deserved, and the speaker urged every one to flee to Christ, God's only refuge. She felt that the message was meant for her, and though up to that moment she had trusted in her own good works she found that these were hopeless to afford her soul any protection from the coming judgment. At once she took the advice given, she fled to God's shelter and trusted Jesus as her own personal and precious Saviour. Having finished her story, great was her joy to learn that the man to whom she had been relating the glad news of her Conversion was a personal friend of him who had spoken during the thunderstorm three years previously. As to her companion, it appears that when her friend returned from her holiday looking so bright and happy and testifying to her "Conversion" she was astonished. She could not comprehend why one who was the most zealous of church workers and the most devoted of Sunday School teachers should need to be "Converted." But after a time of misery and doubt, she also confessed her need of a Saviour, and put her whole trust in Jesus and His Salvation.

To the Reader.

Dear Friend! I know not what your opinion is after reading this booklet. Some people, no doubt, will consider the storm, the provided shelter, the company, the speaker, his remarks, the remarkable meeting in the railway train, to be all due to mere chance and unworthy of further consideration. Certainly the happy women my friend met three years afterwards, would entirely disagree, for evidently God ordained everything for their salvation. And, by whatever means this booklet has reached you, please do not attribute your possession of it to mere "chance," for a God of love is seeking your welfare and waiting to bestow on you His richest blessing for time and eternity.

There is a tendency among men to leave everything to chance — even their future destiny. A short time ago five words on a wayside pulpit riveted my attention. They were

"Choice, Not Chance, Determines Destiny."

How solemn! how true their message! They mean nothing less than the fact that it is left to every man, and woman, to fix their own eternal destiny and their decision is final. Christ said to the people

"Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life" (John 5: 40).

In closing, I would urge you to choose your destiny and to do it now. Is it to be with Christ and the myriads of redeemed in Heaven — or in that place of endless remorse where hope and mercy are unknown? Oh! flee to the Saviour, and if words fail you in His holy presence, just repeat the well-known words of Charlotte Elliott —

"Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God! I come."

Robt. B. Wilson.

A Message from the Sea.

As a boy the writer well remembers an incident, recorded in one of his school books, which made such a deep impression on his youthful mind, that the ups and downs of a busy life of over seventy years have not effaced it. The story narrated the loss by fire of a large vessel outward bound from this country to some Eastern port. It had been long overdue, and no one knew what calamity had befallen the gallant ship and her crew and passengers, among whom were several notable people. A bottle, washed up by the waves some time afterwards, revealed the terrible secret. Inside was a piece of paper bearing this brief message: —

"THE SHIP 'EAST INDIAMAN' IS ON FIRE. ELIZABETH, JOANNA AND MYSELF COMMIT OUR SOULS INTO THE HANDS OF OUR BLESSED REDEEMER. HIS GRACE ENABLES US TO BE QUITE COMPOSED IN THE AWFUL PROSPECT OF ENTERING ETERNITY."

This was the only news received from the doomed ship. Many years must have elapsed since this note was penned, and many hearts must have been touched when its pathetic message was read. God grant, that, at this far distant date, many more hearts may be constrained to follow the example set by the writer of the message and his two companions, as they committed their souls into the hands of their blessed Redeemer.

The message is a very brief one, yet surely it merits the most earnest consideration on the part of all who are privileged to read it. Note: —

Firstly. — In the presence of death, their only concern was

Their Souls' Eternal Welfare.

Everything else was apparently forgotten. All their ties with this world were severed. Their friends, their wealth, their pleasures, their ambitions, were no longer of any avail to afford satisfaction to their hearts or occupation for their thoughts in that dread hour.

Reader! In view of the uncertainty of life, a fact which must have been impressed on every one during the late terrible war; when many thousands of people — soldiers and civilians — were launched into eternity without any warning, would you not be well advised to consider your own soul's eternal welfare? King Solomon spoke wisely and solemnly when he said "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth" (Prov. 27: 1).

Do not follow the example of the young man who asked a divinity professor how long before death ought a man to prepare himself for it. "About five minutes," said the professor. The young man turned away with relief, making up his mind to see life, to sow his wild oats, to enjoy the pleasures of the world and then turn to God at the end of his days. "Stop," said the professor, "when are you going to die?" "That I cannot tell," said the young man. "Then you had better prepare for death now, for you may not have five minutes to live."

One can only hope that the young man took to heart the sound advice given to him.

Secondly. — They speak of One whom they knew as

Their Blessed Redeemer.

With no earthly voice to cheer them, no out-stretched arm to save them, and the pitiless waves waiting to engulf them, yet in the company of their Redeemer they awaited their end in perfect calmness of mind and spirit. In the message they cast on the waves, no sign or expression of fear is traceable. The Christian's confidence as expressed in the lines: —

"Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours,

Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers,"

seems to have been theirs in full measure.

How wonderful is the peace which God imparts to His people! The world with all its allurements and attractions knows nothing of it, nor has it anything to compare with it. Not only do they enjoy the companionship of their Saviour throughout life's journey, with its many trials and temptations, but as the end of that journey approaches, the comfort and presence of their Lord, become sweeter and stronger than ever before. Death, that dread monster, whose approach strikes terror into the stoutest heart, has no terror for the believer. To him, death is only his servant, come to usher him into the presence of his Lord.

Now, it is most important to note that the little company on the doomed vessel speak of Christ as their "Redeemer" and not as their "Exemplar." In many religious circles there is the belief that Christ came into the world merely to be our example, and that, if we seek to live as He lived, God will pardon our little short-comings and failures, and that all will be well with our souls for eternity. However pleasing such a doctrine may be in the estimation of men, there is not a verse of Holy Scripture to support it. No man, either of the present day, or of the past, has possessed the power to live as Christ lived, unless indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God only dwells in those, who, like the Apostle Paul freely admit that "in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (Romans 7: 18). Further, they endorse with all their heart the fact, that "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5: 6).

How can any accomplish their own salvation when Scripture declares definitely that they have not the strength to do so? It is utterly impossible. Hence our dire need of a "Redeemer" not an "Exemplar." How true and precious the words: —

"I would not work my soul to save,

That work my Lord has done,

But I would work like any slave,

From love to God's dear Son."

Thirdly. — On the burning ship the little company were sustained by the

Grace of their Redeemer.

Grace is surely one of the sweetest themes that fill with joy the hearts of the redeemed. How they delight to sing: —

"Grace is the sweetest sound,

That ever reached our ears,

When conscience charged and justice frowned,

'Twas grace removed our fears."

"Grace taught our wandering feet,

To tread the heavenly road,

And new supplies each hour we meet,

While travelling home to God."

Grace is heavenly in its origin, it is like a mighty river whose source is the very heart of God. It speaks of God's boundless liberality in contrast to man's utter unworthiness. It was the grace of God that sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world, not because we merited such a glorious visitation, but as another has said "Man's misery, not his merit, was the magnet that drew the Saviour from the skies."

Only those whose hearts have been touched by the love of Christ, and whose knees have been bowed in true repentance at His feet, know anything at all of the beauty and perfection of grace, and of the wondrous gifts it bestows on its humble recipients. One of the greatest of these is the knowledge of salvation, for we read "By grace are ye saved" (Eph. 2: 8), and it is through Christ that grace reaches us for in the Gospel of John 1: 17 we read "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

How beautifully does grace shine forth in all the words and works of the Lord Jesus as recorded for us in the Gospels. Anyone who can read that wonderful story and yet remain unmoved by it must possess a heart of stone. Those who heard Him "wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4: 22). As to His works they had to admit "He hath done all things well" (Mark 7: 37).

But the grace that was manifested so wonderfully during His life could not avail to save us from our sins, nor open wide the gates of Heaven for our admission there. Only His death on the Cross could accomplish that. The tide of grace that flowed so gently, yet so deeply, during His life, was destined to burst forth in a mighty cleansing flood at His death. Yes! for the salvation of mankind, the mighty, the glorious Son of God submitted to an ignominious death upon a cross. Blind unbelief would aver that this is the end of the story. But what meaneth that triumphant cry "It is finished," uttered by Him in the moment of His death, a cry that has brought eternal peace to millions of sin-sick hearts? What means that earthquake, and the rending of the rocks? What means the opening of the tombs, and the appearance of their former occupants in the holy city? What means the rending of the temple veil?

They are all the tokens of a mighty victory over sin, death and the grave; a victory unequalled in its results, in the records of Heaven, earth and hell.

And to think that the first trophy of His victory, — the first of the mighty host of redeemed sinners — was a poor repentant malefactor on a nearby cross. What wonderful grace! Unsearchable in its heights! unfathomable in its depths! Many there are who would reckon such an outcast as the dying thief to be utterly unworthy of the Saviour's saving grace. Suffice it to say in reply "This is the Lord's doing it is marvellous in our eyes."

Fourthly. — It was the knowledge of the Redeemer's grace that enabled them to be

Quite composed in the awful prospect of entering Eternity.

This prospect lies before every member of the human family. The writer, and every reader of this narrative, whoever he or she may be, must enter eternity. There is even the possibility that we may be like the subjects of our story, on the very threshold. The old hymn-writer says: —

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

Bears all its sons away."

Away! Yes! But whither? Is it not a lamentable fact that many of the sons of time are living in ignorance of the awful truth that their heritage is not one of Time only, but also that of Eternity?

What are the fleeting years of time compared to the long ages of eternity? One may well repeat the lament of God's servant in a past day: —

"O that men were wise. . . . that they would consider their latter end."

"I have no time," said the railway guard, as he rudely pushed aside the loving hand that offered him a little gospel tract just as he stepped on to his train. But his foothold was insecure, and in a few moments his mangled and lifeless body lay across the rails. No time for God, no time for Christ, no time, no care for his soul. How terrible his remorse, if he has now a long eternity to mourn his own neglect! Remember the solemn question in Hebrews 2: 3,

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"

In closing, dear Reader, allow me as one who has a care for your soul, to counsel you to get alone into the presence of God, and face the fact of eternity. If you are yet without the knowledge of the Redeemer's grace, the prospect may well make you tremble, yea, it may even produce a state of soul agony. But, thank God, this is often the first step on the way to Heaven, leading you to repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross.

May the calm unruffled peace that filled the hearts of the little company on the "East Indiaman" be yours in the prospect (be it near or distant) of entering eternity. This is the heartfelt wish of the writer for every reader of this true story. Robt. B. Wilson.