to it. The truth is accredited by the person, and not the person by the truth. "And," said 'the Truth' Himself, "because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." Any dogma of an accredited teacher would have been received; but the truth was unpalatable in itself and not received because of Him who spoke it. In what little power is the truth which we do know held; because doctrines are received rather on the credit of man than of God.

The revealed order of God's dealings with his accredited people shews that, notwithstanding His long-suffering, He allows things to take their course and to work out to their legitimate end; and not only is it positively stated in scripture, but it is confirmed by analogy, that the end will be idolatry. The long-suffering of God affords indeed the occasion for separating that which is essential, and cannot fail from that which, by being entrusted to man's responsibility has failed, but it does not hinder evil principles introduced at the outset of the Church working out to their necessary result.

The perversion of the gospel, as among the Galatians, is the almost accredited order. Rituals, formed from Judaism, prove that the Church has fallen into the very form of error against which the apostle so solemnly warns in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Religious sentimentalism, mysticism (and asceticism in measure), the Colossian danger, have well nigh supplanted "the head;" and the glorying in men, ministers of Christ though they be, tends to eclipse the glory of Christ himself, and to nullify the great doctrine of the other present Comforter, "the Spirit of truth to guide into all truth."

ye

"Neither be idolaters as were some of them." It is a standing, and not a temporary warning. Let us give it a due place in our souls. There is but one safeguard,the occupancy of the soul immediately with Him "who is the image of the invisible God." Has the person of Christ its due place in our hearts? Has He no_rival there? Is there a holy craving to "know Him?" Is the thought of everlasting blessedness associated in our souls with being "ever with the Lord?" What is there lacking which we do not find in Him? Are we lost in the immensity of contemplating the Godhead? "In Him

dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Do we find the need of a medium of communication between our souls and God? "There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Only let us be alive to our danger-our own hearts-our own reasonings-the reasonings of others who combine with Satan himself to intercept the immediate intercourse of our souls with Christ. Even service, apparently done to Him, may distract our souls from Him. We need the exhortation" to continue in the grace of God," and "with purpose of heart to cleave unto the Lord." We need awakened jealousy for His honour. The duty of upholding the dignity of His person and the perfectness of His work is as incumbent on us as on the apostles. May the unction from the Holy One deeply teach us the words of the beloved disciple-"We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. LITTLE CHILDREN KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS. Amen." PRESBUTES.

A FRAGMENT.-"God has not forgotten the Church which he gave to Christ; neither has the Lord forgotten it, nor yet the Holy Ghost.

If Satan decked the flesh in worldliness once, and made a counterfeit of this church, in Romanism,—God owned it not as His Church. And if, by actings of God in providence, and of the Spirit by the word, many have been delivered, through grace, from the counterfeit-have they got into the enjoyment of the privileges and position God has reserved for them while still on the earth, as thus escaped? Protestantism, if it presents the proof that God is redeeming from Babylon, no where presents the redeemed in their proper scriptural position together as such.

If escaped from Babylon, let them look to it that they are not in Egypt, like Sarai in Pharaoh's house; and if consciously seeking the Lord's glory, let them not think they have escaped while on earth from the enmity and malice of the adversary. He hates them still, because he hates their Lord and all that is His. Hinder their coming into the glory he cannot; but he will do all he can to hinder their abundant entrance into it, and to mar the present testimony of the Lord for Himself, in and through them while on earth as an escaped few."

No. XIV.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF JOHN, ETC. TRULY Wonderful and infinite is the blessing which is opened out for us in the fourteenth and following chapters of John. I desire to trace it a little.

We will notice first the commencement of all, the way to the Father, "I am," says Jesus, "the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Father, but by me." No way, but through Him-through his blood-the new, and living way now made open for us into the holiest of all, even the presence of God (the point of connexion between this and ver. 1 to 3 being, that they who have access or entrance to the Father by him, have of course entrance also to the Father's house.)

We next learn the blessed truth, that by coming through Jesus, we not only come to the Father, but we get the Father. "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen Him." The poor weak heart, ignorant of its full blessedness in Jesus, would embody its soul in that language, "Shew me the Father and it sufficeth me." Only let me know that the Father too is mine, and it is enough-it is all. And that satisfaction is nigh at hand-"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." We cannot separate between the two-we cannot get Jesus, without getting the Father. Because the Father was-is, in Jesus. If by faith we have looked upon Jesus crucified and risen for the forgiveness of our sins-if we have thus seen Jesus, we have seen the Father, if we have thus got Jesus, we have got the Father. Too much have these things been separated between-Jesus looked at as an Averter between us and an offended God; so that the love of Jesus has been honoured, to the disparagement of the love of the Father that gave Him (John iii. 16),-that raised him up from the dead when his work was completed (1 Pet. i. 21), “ that our faith and our hope might be in God."

It was the Father's love that provided the Son's satisfac

tion-the sheet is let down from Him and takes us back to Him.

Surely therefore here we find full satisfaction. Blessed truth!-to know that God even our Father's countenance ever rests upon us now in love (2 Cor. iv. 6). It can never, in reality, change. As Christ is, so are we; and His position now is so blessedly opened to us in spirit (Ps. xxi. 6). And the Lord says, " Ye know him." What a nobility there is in the saint! It is not only that our sins are forgiven, and we are in an acceptable relation to him; the poorest saint can say, what the proudest, most lofty amongst men cannot say with truth, by nature, "I know God." And surely this is eternal life in its truest sense. to know Him the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. "I know him," and "He is mine," I suppose constitute the full blessing of our portion.

This thought of the union of the Father and the Son brings in another thought, I think, viz. of our union in them. But I will pass on now to preserve more order. The next truth I`notice is union with Christ. This is our full joy. "In that day [the Spirit being come] ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Blessed truth! We may say it is the centre truth of God. Union for the Church-union for the individual. The Church His body-the individual bone of His bone, etc. I would notice here that I believe the Spirit is here spoken of as the Witness and Agent of this our union with the Head, taking ver. 17, 18, 20. in connection. He is the Jacob's ladder.

I would notice now what two important truths we have here together, opposite, yet connected. As to our union with Christ, we know, blessed be God! that it does not depend upon our walk and doings; it is settled and secured for us by Him in Christ Jesus. It does not depend upon our frames and feelings. It ever exists. But the realization of that union is closely connected with our walk. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them," says the Lord, "he it is that loveth me (ver. 21); and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Yea He has something more than manifesting to speak

VOL.II. PT.II.

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of. He does not come alone in the 23rd verse, but and they come to abide.

another with Him; Father with Him abode with him."

"We [the

will come unto him, and make our How important to see these two! That our union is established irrevocably in Him, thus giving full rest to our souls, independent of our works,and yet so to walk as to have its full joy in us.

This union with Christ brings in another thing, which I passed over before:-our position here of power as in union with Christ, having the Spirit, (ver. 12) "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

Our place now in the world, if we use it aright, is one of power. I do not mean necessarily external power, at all; because we are united with Him who is in the

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place of power, gone to His Father" (ver. 12), "exalted by the right hand of God," says Peter (Acts ii. 33.), “glorified" (iii. 13.) This was, I judge, a great power of their testimony just then. I suppose this was quite verified at Pentecost, when the Spirit was given, when three thousand souls were added to them in that day. "The time of power, the demonstration of power was come, because Jesus was glorified" (perhaps this thought is a little conveyed to us in the words "the day of Pentecost was fully come"). The fruits of the seed which He had sown were quickened. Remark in (John vii. 37, etc.) the beautiful connexion between Jesus glorified, and the Spirit present-the power of our union with Him; "He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." And let us remark, this is equally our portion now, though it may be modified in application by apostasy-"we are in union with Jesus, we have the indwelling Spirit." We ought therefore to shew forth the power of Him with whom we are in union, that good Vine, into which we have been grafted. Our to do this is shewn in John xv. 4, power A further way of our power is shewn in xiv. 13,— how regulated xv. 7.

8.

When I add to this the teaching of chap. xv. our power of service as in the living Vine,-our relation to