is brought forward. For the cross of Jesus was the reproach of nature; having no wisdom in it to man's thoughts; yea, a perfect foolishness; and here the blood of atonement was found. Did any at Corinth say, I am of Paul? (ver. 12.) "Was Paul crucified for you?" (ver 13), says he. Did any glory in Apollos, because he was mighty in the Scriptures? or in Paul, because of his deep wisdom? His answer is, "Christ sent me...to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness."

15. "And I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor. ii. 2). This to the apostles was connected with the mystery of wisdom, which (ver. 8) none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

I learn here that if carnality or worldliness in any shape is marring testimony for Christ, as leaven working to fill the whole lump, the way to meet it is by a reference to the cross-Christ degraded in death for us-whereby, as it were, God has most lovingly yet deeply expressed his abhorrence of our old man altogether.

16. "For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God....We also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you" (2 Cor. xiii. 4).

Two things are taught here. 1st, that the cross told of the weakness of the livingsoul life of Christ when He would appear in God's presence-as the sinner's substitute, bearing by imputation our sins-He was crucified through weakness; though that might and did only make manifest the deeper quickening spirit-life He had as Son of God from before all worlds; by which, and according to the pleasure of God, He rose himself; and rose for us through the value of the blood just shed. 2ndly, it tells that so likewise weak as the fruits of the testimony of a saint may show him to be, it tells, in them that are converted, by the power of God in them, that the testimony is of one who has life with God. The Corinthians said, "Paul, can you prove you are an apostle, and that Christ has spoken by you?" (ver. 3.) "Yes," says he (ver. 4, for he had preached the gospel to them, and they had been saved by it), "poor thing, as you think me. If I am not an apostle, I am a liar, and there is no hope for me; but I am not afraid of this, for God gave you the Holy Ghost when you heard me preach, and this shews I have the truth, and shall live......I am therefore an apostle, for otherwise (ver. 5) you cannot be Christians."

Here, as in the first Epistle, he reads in the cross his own nothingness, and that even when in testimony for God.

17. In the 1st Corinthians we saw Paul meeting carnality of flesh by the cross: in this epistle he argues against the law upon precisely the same ground. The law was part of a religion of the earth when God was ruling in the world over Israel: a Christian, who rightly understood the cross, would see in it not only God's estimate of our old man, but God's estimate of the earth and of worldly religion, and therefore no man that understands the cross can Judaise.

"I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. ii. 2). This, observe, is his grand argument against being under the law for justification. The law cannot take hold of a dead

man.

me.

Well, then, I am crucified with Christ. Then, lest any one should say, "But are you not alive," he adds-Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in The law cannot take hold of Christ, for He fulfilled it. And neither will he admit it to be his standard of life, for he adds, "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 (and then, observe, he goes on)—I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if right

* Read carefully chap. i. and ii. The evil to be met was carnality, marring the testimony of union in the church as God's witness. Paul meets it by the cross, first of all.

eousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." This was his own clear ground to go upon. The cross of Christ had said to him, There's nothing good to come from your flesh, neither can Moses in all his search through you find anything; therefore Christ was put to open shame, through grace for you; look away from self and religion of the earth, to Christ Jesus, who is risen. And so much did he feel the power of this voice from the cross, that he contents himself with saying to the Galatians,

18. "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?" As though he had said, Why you must be either fools or out of your minds to have heard that he that knows the cross is one with Him that died upon it, and now to be thinking about going to be justified! or, from the law, a religion of earth, every thing of which the cross condemns! or, by your own lives, which God put to open shame upon the cross.

"And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution ? Then is the offence of the cross ceased" (Gal. v. 11). Here was the grand truth. If a man is justified by the cross, in itself and by itself, simply by the knowledge of it, then he is justified, but that comes entirely and solely from God: and it is a thing too which thoroughly condemns the world and all its wisdom-for the cross is a stumbling stone to the Jew, and foolishness to the Gentile, and a thorough condemnation from God of all that is natural to those whom He justifies by it. Nature, therefore, seeks to add some little thing to it; but whether we add circumcision, or reformation, or a new life, or anything else, then is the offence of the cross ceased. It is the cross, in itself and by itself, for justification, which is God's instrument; and not only is it his instrument, in itself and by itself, for justification, but also for purification; for, "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (ver. 24).

Observe, if I know the cross of Jesus, I know pardon for myself; but I know it there where my flesh was put to an open shame, a cruel, lingering, disgraceful death: for that cross was not the expression of God's feelings to Christ's own flesh, but toward ours, when the spotless Lamb of God stood in our place in judgment. This, you will observe, is just in substance what we saw before in chap. ii. There, however, it was said to have been Paul's argument with Peter when inclined to turn back to the law: as though he had said, Why I told Peter, the apostle of the Jews, that he and I were justified and purified from the world by the cross, not by the law; how much more then you (Gal. iii. 1). In this fifth chapter he shews how the same thing is the theme of his own preaching; and in the sixth, how it ought to be the experience of the Galatians: three times repeating the same things in different connections.

19. "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.....As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them" (vi. 12). As though he had said, Now observe, ye Galatians, if we Jews had to leave the law, that we might get justification at the foot of the cross, and there also find power over the evil which was in us (see chap. ii)-if such is my preaching every where (chap. v)—such is my individual experience; and there is no blessing whatever for any of you in any other way. And those who teach another way are false teachers, and teach what, though it may give them occasion to glory in your flesh, won't give you power over the world.

I would press every one to ask themselves this question, Is what I hear preached as the gospel, and on which I rest for acceptance, the cross of Christ, in itself and by itself, received simply by faith; and that it leads to victory over the flesh and world through justification to the poor sinner, before he begins to work.

20. In Eph. ii. 16, the cross is presented as the Lord's power over flesh in the Jew and the Gentile, both before God and toward one another. He is speaking of the union of Jews and Gentiles to Christ and to one another......That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby...... The Jew was far off from God, while his nature was boasting in the law: the Gen

tile was without God in the world: they find the cross before them; and the Jew that believes says, "What a deadly thing man's heart and mind, and soul is! what a nothing man's strength, if this is God's estimate of me!" "Aye," says the Gentile, “it is nature, human nature's estimate this. Now, observe you, the Jew is humbled, and his religious pride laid low before God; and the Gentile's sin, in being without God in the world, is brought to light. 'But," says the Jew further, "the cross! that's a Gentile thing. O Gentiles, my legal righteousness and boast in Moses is put to shame; there's my hand!" "Well," says the Gentile, "I take it heartily; for all my wisdom, I see, is foolishness."

21. The Epistle to the Philippians shows us, in a peculiar way, the fellowship which Paul had with the brethren in Christ; it is written :-God the Son..." being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even

the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.

Wherefore, my beloved,....now....in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. ii. 8-13). As though he had said, "You see because He went so low He is lifted now so high. And observe the object-that every one may go down low before Him. This is God's object. And since such is God's object as to you, He is present to help you. Do not care then that I am away from you; yea, rather rejoice, and use it as a means of going down low before Jesus."

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22. And then he goes on to warn them against those that do not so act :-" Mark them which walk as ye have us for an ensample; for many walk...as the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven; whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ," &c. (chap. iii. 17).

Is not this word of comfort and of warning needed now? May each of us learn to join the apostle (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10) and say, "Most gladly will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for your sakes; for when I am weak, then am I strong: for if we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him.

23. "Having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself” (Col. i. 20). Here the cross of Jesus is spoken of as the way by which He in whom all fulness dwelt, marked, and stampt, as it 66 were, WAS AN ENEMY upon the things he would bring near to God. The full application of the passage I think is future, and refers like Eph. i.10, to the time of the display of the mediatorial glory. Afterwards, speaking of the means and energy by which the whole present reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in one virgin espoused to Christ has taken place, speaking of the Jew, he says, neither the means nor the energy were found in the law as to us; for we know him as—

24. “Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it away, nailing it to the cross (Col. ii. 14); so that the cross being the taking out of the way of our ordinances, not giving us power to fulfil them, he that hung on the cross has all the glory of our salvation. Closely connected with this, as contrasted with it, is Heb. vi. 6, "Seeing they crucify to themselves afresh the Son of God, and put him to an open shame."

This epistle was written to Jews, and the apostle is saying what it is for a Jew who has once recognised and acted upon what he says of himself in Col. ii. 14, to turn back from him that was upon the cross to Moses and his ordinances.

25. In chap. xii. 2, he says of Jesus, "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." This, believer, is thine example. For the joy set before thee, endure the cross, despise the shame, and soon the bosom and the throne of Jesus shall be thy rest.

26. Rev. xi. 8, "where also our Lord was crucified" is said of Jerusalem-a sort of parting word for the Jews as a nation. Christ was crucified there, and till they repent as a nation, they are aliens from Jerusalem. And to us it is a word of warning, as reminding us that if we be faithful the worst persecution is always to be looked for from what bears the name of God in the earth, and has most self-com

placency in thinking of itself, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we!"

Yet a little while, and the same scenes that were seen in Jerusalem at the close of our Lord's life may be seen in Christendom, at the close of the church's sojourn here. Are you ready for it?

THE INDWELLING OF THE HOLY GHOST.

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)" (John vii. 37—39).

The three great festivals appointed by Jehovah for the nation of Israel were the passover, the feast of weeks, or pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles. On each of these occasions it was expected of every male person that he should go up to Jerusalem to worship; and each, therefore, of these festivals was a general assembly of the people whom the Lord had chosen as His own inheritance, and that at the place which He had selected to put His name there. Every feast had a distinctive and peculiar character, referring to the dealings of God with His people, and intended to convey instruction to their minds, to awaken their gratitude for past mercies, and to lead their hopes and expectations forward along the dim vista of futurity to prospective blessings. The feast of the passover commemorated their deliverance from Egypt, and prefigured the redemption of the church by the shedding of the blood of the Lamb. One sheaf was then waved before the Lord-typifying Christ, the first fruits of the spiritual harvest. After seven full weeks came pentecost, the feast of weeks, an offering of thanksgiving to the Lord for the increase of the first fruits of the harvest, and foreshadowing the descent of the Holy Ghost on the church at pentecost. But the feast of tabernacles was in many respects the greatest and most remarkable of these solemnities, so that it acquired the title of "the feast," by way of eminence. It was celebrated after the harvest and the vintage were ended, on the 15th of Tizri, the first month of the civil year, and was designed to return thanks to Jehovah for the fruits of the earth then gathered in (Ex. xxiii. 16). This festival could only be celebrated in the land of promise; it was not a feast for Israel in the wilderness. For the antitype of this great feast then we must look forward to the time when the "harvest and the "vintage" of the earth are past, when the wheat has been gathered into the Lord's storehouse, and a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stand before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and pulms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb. That feast of thanksgiving will not be bounded by the fleeting days of one week, but by the days of eternity-that week will be the commencement of a new year indeed, but it will be a year of endless duration. Nor will any of the evils of the wilderness be felt among the worshippers there, "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountaius of waters, and God himself shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

It was then under circumstances of peculiar interest that in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried. He lifted up his voice, and there was something in what He uttered, and in the circumstances, and in the power with which He spake, which touched the hearts of the hearers. As He spake these words many believed on Him. But Israel had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts. Jesus was to them without form or comeliness. They would soon attempt to stone Him, because He declared His essential Godhead. There was but one further occasion when He would meet the assembled multitude of Israel; and at that coming feast they would cry, "Not this man but Barabbas." What then was the testimony which in the conscious knowledge of His approaching rejection by "His own"

people our gracious Saviour gave? It was a declaration of the individual blessing which He would bestow, while as the rejected One of the earth He should take His place at the right hand of the Father. There was something in the very terms of the promise, conveying an apparent intimation of the wide extent of the gracious invitation. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living

water."

Christ had previously unfolded to the poor despised defiled Samaritan somewhat of this mystery; He had told her something about those streams which should make glad the whole heritage of God. He had then declared "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." But here we have the fuller development not only of the assured indwelling of the Comforter, but of the consequent flowing out of the refreshing streams from the inward affections and thoughts of the believer, an anticipatory announcement of that which should form the very principle of ecclesiastical union in the coming dispensation, a manifestation of the Spirit given to every man for the common profit, and the mystical body compacted together by that which every joint supplieth.

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It was through the wilderness now that the church was to be led, in order that it might enter into rest, and keep the feast of tabernacles with everlasting joy. The world had received, without recognising, its most illustrious guest; and Jesus, not owned by the nation whom he came to save, was soon to return as the disallowed King to the Father's throne, awaiting the time when all things shall be put under him; and in the interim, gathering out to himself a people out of every nation, and kingdom, and tongue, and people. These heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, foreordained unto glory, and destined to be conformed to the image of Jesus, are also by the blessed will of their heavenly Father, made to tread through the wilderness, following the footsteps of their rejected Lord, and bearing His cross, His reproach in the midst of a world that "lieth in the wicked one," and is at enmity with God." How graciously then does Jesus reveal himself by anticipation as the smitten rock, out of which should flow living streams of refreshment, to cheer His own selected ones in their arduous journey. Nor this alone, for it is declared moreover that through vital union with the fountain of life and love, these His people should become channels through whom should flow forth those “rivers of living water." There seems a strong resemblance both in the circumstances under which our Lord spoke, and partly also in the subject-matter of His discourse, to the xiv., xv., and xvi. chapters of John; and yet how different the two scenes! Most deeply interesting to every Christian mind is that last conversation of our Lord with his disciples. Because He had told them that He was about to go to the Father, sorrow had filled their hearts. Fain would they at once have followed their dear and gracious Lord, and death itself appeared not undesirable to one of them, if it might be the porch of entrance through which he might pass with his Lord into a land where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. They were about to lose, as regards His bodily presence, Him whom they recognised as the light of the world; and whose cheering presence had turned their darkest night into day; had calmed the troubled sea when its tempestuous waves threatened to overwhelm them; had drawn forth the kindliest affections of their hearts by the display of the love of God mingling with the sympathy of human nature, blending in one harmonious bow of promise all those lights and perfections of the divine effulgence which testified the present Messiah, "The hope of Israel."

But now Jesus told them distinctly that the world which rejected the Master would also hate and persecute the servants. They were standing on a Mount Pizgah indeed, but the prospect was not that of a good land flowing with milk and honey; but rather must they have recoiled from the view of the wilderness through which they were to pass, as from a land of trouble and anguish. The world was not to be their resting-place. It was to be all wilderness-land to them, till they got to the other side of Jordan. The bridegroom was about to be taken from them, and then they should fast in those days.

Under these circumstances, Jesus brings before them the most divine topics of consolation. This setting sun beamed the softest, loveliest radiance on the landscape so soon to be enveloped in darkness. The home which he went to prepare for them,