able to say that we are "heirs according to the promises," we had sinned. There was no difference in this respect between ourselves and any poor Jew or Gentile, we were all "by nature children of wrath, even as others;" "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind." (Eph. ii. 3.) The state of soul was the same. Perverseness of will was there, the determination to do our own will, and the pleasure of doing it, instead of the will of God.

Christ took all this upon Himself. He charged Himself with responsibility, instead of putting man under it. He underwent to the full the last effect of sin, as the result of the wrath of God, and of the power of Satan, as well as of the weakness of man. He bore the curse. He went down into the grave. But He was still the "Holy One," and (though He might imputatively take sin), it was not possible that He could be holden of the cords of death. Therefore He rose again-HEAD of a new family of men, a new world, a new creation-HEIR according to the purposes of God, of all the promises, and Heir for ever.

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He has accomplished everything, all that was needed for the remission of our sins, and besides that broken the power of Satan, under which man lay in the very seat of that power. 'Through death He has destroyed him that had the power of death." (Heb. ii.) Most blessed truth! Christ has put Himself into the condition of man in death, the last stronghold in which Satan held man captive by the judgment, and under the sentence of God Himself. He rose out of it, and became the source of life, and heir for us of all the promises. Grace has found its way into death, and "out of the eater" has brought forth sweetness.

If we look at death-the Prince of Life has tasted death. If at the power of Satan-Christ has broken and destroyed his power. If at the wrath of God-He has borne it all, drunk the cup to the very dregs. "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves."

But further, He is the righteous. Inheritor of all the promises; as it is said, "All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen," and we through grace can add, "to the glory of God by us."

How then did we come in? As heirs together with Him in life, united to Him, one with Him. Our standing before

God is in Christ, the New Man, as having no more part in the flesh, though we have as yet to struggle against it. Death is abolished. Life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel; and that because the responsibility question has been settled in the death of Christ.

"But it is " by faith." How blessed this! How true of God! How blessed for us? By faith we receive all the promises in Christ. By faith we find every thing done. It is only to believe. Faith produces all manner of fruit in us, there is wondrous power in it, but still it is only to believe, that is all. Just as though you had been deeply in debt, and some kind friend had paid the amount, and when that was done had sent you word. The person comes and tells you that your debts are paid, and you believe it. Now your believing produces joy and gladness doubtless in your heart, but of course it does not in any measure go to liquidate the debt. So as to salvation. The debt has been paid, Christ has finished the work, and the believing soul enters into all the blessed results. (v. 22.) Faith is exercised upon that which has been already accomplished. "It is of faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be true to all the seed." Nothing redounds to the glory of the creature. It is a person simply depending upon the truth of God.

When the soul is made hopeless in itself (and this must always be the case when the conscience is really honest under the sense of responsibility), it turns to see what God is. The more the truth of God's requirements is known, the more wretched that soul becomes. The end of all is seen in that exclamation of the apostle, "O wretched man," &c. I am a man, and therefore a wretched being, one having the curse resting upon me.

God in the gospel sees man wicked, miserable, rebellious, lost; but He sees him according to His infinite compassions. The Lord Jesus has begun altogether a new thing, not demanding what man is required to be before God, but accomplishing what God is towards man-grace. We find in Christ, it is true, and to perfection, what man is required to be before God; but more than that, what God is towards man. Grace came by Jesus Christ. So that the moment any person, let it be a convicted sinner, stood before Christ as what he was, he found Christ to be grace. If he came as what he was not, Christ laid him bare; but if he came as what he was, then, no matter what he was, a poor helpless

sinner, a wretched adulteress, or the thief upon the cross (that was not the question-the question was, what was Christ, Christ came not to judge, but to save), all was grace.

Having found Christ, we have found one who has all the promises of God. And since He took those promises as a consequence of what He had done in putting away sin, there can be no further question about sin before God. Our sins are necessarily left outside, because Christ Himself has borne them all, as it is said, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." He stood in our place, and took upon Himself our iniquity, and bore the judgment due to us; went down into the grave, but rose again from the dead in the power of a new and endless life; ascended up on high, even unto the Father's presence, as our representative. There He stands; we stand there in Him. As He is before God, so are we, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight, partakers of His life, joint-heirs with Him of all the promises.

This, beloved friends, is our position before God, this our standing in Christ. There is an entirely new Headship int the Second Adam. We are presented in a new character to God, such as man never had before-man without sin in the very presence of God, the very pattern of God's mind and delight. We find difficulty, it may be, in apprehending it, because of the weakness of the flesh. The moment I look at myself I have another man full of failure.

But I stand there as having had sin for ever put away. The knowledge of this gives peace, and we worship. Make sin what you please, let it take what form it may, you cannot mingle the state of man under law with the condition of the new, the heavenly man in heaven.

The Lord grant us to know what we are in His love. (1 Cor. i. 30; Heb. x. 14.)

ESTHER.

"The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility."-PROV. xv. 33.

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."-PROV. xvi. 18.

Suffering first, and then glory, mark the due path or history of the saint. This has been illustrated from old time. Joseph, Moses, and David may be remembered in connection with this truth. But it is the common history, in a great moral sense the necessary history, of those who adhere to God, in a system or world that has departed from Him, and set up its own thoughts. For such must ever be stemming a contrary

current.

But there is more than this. The moment of deepest depression has commonly been the eve of deliverance.

In Egypt, the burthens of the Israelites had grown to their highest, just when the Lord was preparing Moses's deliverance for them. In the ministry of the Lord, just as He was bringing redemption, the devil would commonly throw his poor captive in the midst, or cause him to cry out under a still sorer affliction. Our own souls are led to Jesus and salvation by a light, which has discovered to us our full moral ruin and degradation; and in the latter day, when Israel's "strength is gone," and "there is none shut up or left," and the enemy is coming in like a flood, then the Spirit of the Lord will lift up His standard. "For the hour of preparation, for a better order of things," as has been said, "is not a time of favourable appearances, but the reverse.'

All this, however, is happy and encouraging. The bud is bitter, the very moment before it opens to the scented flower. So that it is not only sufferings first, and then glory, but sufferings, commonly, in their sorest form, just before the glory and salvation break forth.

But there is a truth standing in company with this, yet, as I may say, over against it. I mean the pride first, and then the overthrow or judgment of the man of the world, and that too in the hour of his highest, loftiest arrogancy.

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The builders of Babel were in one great confederacy, the proud design which filled their heart, and which their

hand was stretched out to accomplish, was nothing less than to raise a tower that was to reach to heaven. But in that hour of proudest daring the Lord comes down in judgment. (Gen. xi.) Pharaoh had been raised to be the first man in the world, and in the thought of his greatness, and in the pride of his independency, had forgotten Joseph, and declared that he knew not the God of Israel. But it was then that the vials of wrath from the Lord's hand began to be poured out upon him. (Ex. v.) Nebuchadnezzar walked in his palace, and admired his magnificence, and said, "Is not this great Babylon that I have builded?" But the Lord was watching upon that evil, and while the word of pride and importance was in his mouth, he that exalted himself was abased. (Dan. iv.) And Herod, after all this, was lauded as a god, and in a moment the judgment of God made a spectacle of him. (Acts xii.)

These were awful visitations in the hour of such prosperity and mighty pride of heart. And such things are foretold in prophecies, as well as illustrated in histories. The "Lucifer" of Isaiah, the "Prince of Tyrus" of Ezekiel, the "Man of sin" of St. Paul, and the "Beast" of the Apocalypse, are all prophetic of the doom of a proud one in the moment of loftiest presumption.

These serious and interesting truths-the exaltation of the righteous in the moment of deepest depression, and the abasement of the proud in the hour of their stoutest selfsufficiency-may easily connect themselves with our recollections of the book of Esther. It closes the volume of the historical books of the Old Testament, and it is of all parts of Scripture the most full and vivid expression of these two great principles; and thus, at the close of the histories, we get, in fit and beautiful season, the most complete illustration of the sweet springs of the whole movement.

In the catalogue of those proud ones, who meet their doom in their height of pride, I might have mentioned Haman, the Agagite. He was of the genuine seed of Amalek, with whom the Lord had a controversy for ever, and who of old defied the glory as it began to unfold its brightness in the gloomy desert, in the freshest moments of Israel's history. (Ex. xvii.) Prosperity had attended him in a remarkable manner. He had the ear, the hand, and the ring of his master, the Persian (the chiefest monarch upon earth) at his command. And his pride, because of all this, could brook no refusal-and if the