No. XVI.

ON PRINCIPLES; AND ON PRACTICE IN GATHERING.

"The questions are: 1st, Can the renewed soul, led by the Spirit, be satisfied with any turning point of conduct for itself in which it does not find the presence of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who quickened it; and, 2dly, Was it gathered (by the Holy Ghost) according to what He is, as Father gathering the adopted in the name of Christ for his own house in heaven, or merely to a corruptible testimony entrusted to man's hand."

THE descent of Noah's Ark upon Mount Ararat is a remarkable fact. In such a deluge it might have floated, sport of the elements, any where. Faith, most surely, would have recognised the place of its descent, wheresoever that had been, as the right place, because it was the choice of Him without whom not one sparrow falleth to the ground; but they whose faith is accompanied with intelligence, from the word, as to the divine counsel and plans concerning the earth, can see something of the reason of the place which was selected. Again, no one, I think, that has passed any time by the sea-shore, and beheld" also the ships, which though so great, and driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth," and, amid them, observed one vessel continuously maintaining one and the same position, spite of various currents and the veering of the wind round and round the compass, but what must have felt that there was a cause why such vessel drifted not, neither changed its place. Its carrying lights, to warn of reefs, etc., might, indeed, proclaim the object of its being there, but there are also PRINCIPLES by which its position is maintained.

Surely the so easily led human mind will never be able to maintain any definite, much less a God-honoring, position, amid circumstances in which God shakes around us all that can be shaken-that is, if it is left to itself. In speaking of shaking new, I do not advert to the mere mutability and versatile wantonness of human will-or to the quicksand character of everything in man's day

the same.

influence. So far, the way of God is still and necessarily Jesus set not aside in the least the need of the Spirit's intervention. He proclaimed its necessity as a fixed, irreversible truth-" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Far from weakening its place, He rather gave it a prominence never so clearly enunciated before, though, of course, always true.

Life, peace and sonship (while all are communicated and known by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost), are in no sense the presence of the Comforter. We have seen that the disciples possessed these privileges before the Lord Jesus ascended. They are therefore entirely distinct from the promise of the Father, which the disciples did not possess, and which none ever did or could possess till Jesus was glorified. The presence of the Comforter is clearly the distinctive blessing since Pentecost. It was never enjoyed before, though the Spirit had wrought, and wrought savingly as regards believers at all times.

The communication of life through faith (as common to all the redeemed); of the power of intelligence (Luke xxiv. 45, compare Acts i. 15-26, 1 John ii. 20-27);-of life more abundantly, as connected with the risen second Adam (life-giving Spirit, John xx. 22), which indeed was needful as the basis of sympathy with all his future services;-of the Holy Ghost personally, at once the power of testimony-the seal (the Spirit of adoption ?)-the Earnest (according to the subject, connected with the Lord of glory, which He in-wrought in the believer) is the outline which another has suggested. While the liberty of filial and fraternal love leaves the heart free to communicate the result of its researches, the Divine fulness of the written word creates (no wonder !) differences of thought and makes accurate classification next to impossible with those who know but in part.—ED.

PROPER NAMES of the Old Testament. Observe: They had, each of them, a meaning,—which, for the most part, is traceable. In some cases the cause of the selection of the name is obvious: thus, Gen. ii. 7, “ the Lord God formed man [018 Adam] of the dust of the ground [٦٥٦8 Adamah ]"; iii. 20, “ and Adam called his wife's name Eve [n Havah] because she was the mother of all living ['n Hay]"; iv. 1," she bare Cain [p gotten], and said, I have gotten n' gotten] a man from the Lord"; iv. 2, "his brother Abel an Hebel]" a breath (as was his life); iv. 25, “ called his name Seth [ne] for God .... hath appointed me [ne Sheth] another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew."

No. XVI.

ON PRINCIPLES; AND ON PRACTICE IN GATHERING.

"The questions are: 1st, Can the renewed soul, led by the Spirit, be satisfied with any turning point of conduct for itself in which it does not find the presence of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who quickened it; and, 2dly, Was it gathered (by the Holy Ghost) according to what He is, as Father gathering the adopted in the name of Christ for his own house in heaven, or merely to a corruptible testimony entrusted to man's hand."

THE descent of Noah's Ark upon Mount Ararat is a remarkable fact. In such a deluge it might have floated, sport of the elements, any where. Faith, most surely, would have recognised the place of its descent, wheresoever that had been, as the right place, because it was the choice of Him without whom not one sparrow falleth to the ground; but they whose faith is accompanied with intelligence, from the word, as to the divine counsel and plans concerning the earth, can see something of the reason of the place which was selected. Again, no one, I think, that has passed any time by the sea-shore, and beheld "also the ships, which though so great, and driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth,"and, amid them, observed one vessel continuously maintaining one and the same position, spite of various currents and the veering of the wind round and round the compass, but what must have felt that there was a cause why such vessel drifted not, neither changed its place. Its carrying lights, to warn of reefs, etc., might, indeed, proclaim the object of its being there, but there are also PRINCIPLES by which its position is maintained.

Surely the so easily led human mind will never be able to maintain any definite, much less a God-honoring, position, amid circumstances in which God shakes around us all that can be shaken-that is, if it is left to itself. In speaking of shaking new, I do not advert to the mere mutability and versatile wantonness of human will-or to the quicksand character of everything in man's day

or even to those awful periods in the human history, as the great French revolution, which (through the mercy of God) are more rare than are the phenomena of the earthquake, hurricane and volcanic eruption in nature; occurrences, in which (the usual restraints imposed by God on the injurious elements being for a time suspended) man is allowed to witness what bearing the world of his pride would have upon himself, if it were left of God in the hand of the usurping adversary (whether that world be in nature or society.) But besides versatility and changeableness being stamped on man, on the world (set up in Cain's family, Gen. iii. as a place for the flesh to be happy in, out of God's presence), and on scenes subject to Satan,-there is altogether another element of change, when God speaks of His judging, trying, changing or shaking, etc. And this is the grand leading feature of the scenes on which my mind was resting, when I asked, "How shall a definite position be maintained?"

Turn for a moment to the deluge and its attendant circumstances; to the Exodus and its scenes; to the history of the transit of the apostles from Judaism to Christianity; and say, "Who led and kept, save He that formed the people of His choice?" I ask not about the state of feeling, intelligence, or hope of the saved, but, Who kept themselves? God, and God alone, was their keeper. Stability is not a creature-quality; there is but One that changes not that knows not the shadow of a turn-and He will have mercya on whom He will have mercy, and will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. It is meet that He should; it becomes Him: higher we cannot go in accounting for why He acts as He does. As to the saved-they "found grace in His sight"; He (6 remembered his covenant" with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob; and the songs of Mary, of Zacharias and of Simeon-all ascribe the mercy found unto His grace and to that alone.

As a creature, man is clearly responsible to be subject to His Creator; if he is subject, it is, he being a sinner, only through faith in Christ; if he does not through grace believe-he is not independent, though his pride may love to think that he is—he falls necessarily into the hand of Satan and becomes a mere tool of his.

But the saved people had also the Lord's marks upon them; the word of the Lord (though known to them as being above them, "magnified above all His name") was precious in their sight; and they were desirous to be implicitly subject to it and to His Spirit. I am persuaded that amid the tryings, judgings, changings and shakings by the Lord of all things-none will stand save those that find grace in His sight: the rest will be found selfsold and self-bound, by the folly of their own hearts, to Satan; though it may be, that many a soul which should have been, as it were, improved by the trial, will be only re-made in it. If a haughty or self-confident, or self-complacent, or even an unbroken spirit is in us, or if policy and expediency have been our strength,-I am persuaded that, saints though we be, the presence of the Lord will show concerning us, both to ourselves and to others perhaps, around us, that in His presence "all flesh is grass; the grass withereth, the flower thereof fadeth away, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth thereon." Job's history is a solemn one.

The very nearness of the Lord is the abasement of the pride of the flesh. While at the same we shall prove that policy and expediency (vain against Satan and even man), will never stand in the presence of God, or be owned by the Lord. He could not own them :-they came in at the fall, when man learnt to blend his own circumstances, and used them as the cover wherewith to deceive a guilty conscience as to God's all-seeing eye; they had their allowed field marked out for them in the family of Cain, the murderer of his brother,-driven out from the presence of the Lord; they were the ruin of Saul, etc.; and are utterly incompatible with faith. For they are always the expression of present subjection to a power which seeks its own because it loves not and owns not dependance upon God, as being the alone fountain of every good gift. The door open for self is open for Satan too. Policy and expediency and human plannings will, in God's presence, I am persuaded, be found to be inconsistent with present obedience and dependance-and to be practical independance (compare Is. ii. 10-22). Jacob's experience when his name was changed illustrates this.

They cannot stop Satan, silence conscience, or meet