perfect a type of And if we take

nature; in Joseph, the Christ-like life, so the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. the intervening lives we shall be no less clear that in their spiritual meaning they are in perfect and orderly progress between the former and the latter. The seven lives are, in short, the perfect picture of the believer from the time the light first breaks in upon the darkness of nature till he attains the image of the heavenly in the kingdom that cannot be moved.

Now this, it is plain, answers to what we find in the six creative days. Moreover the third day is, as it were, divided into two by the twice-spoken fiat of creation. Now, if we apply these to the seven lives we shall find that they correspond in a wonderful way with one another.

Thus we have in Adam the first day light bringing out the ruin, and speaking dimly of the remedy; in Abel, and those that follow in his line (for Seth is in the room of Abel, whom Cain slew), the strife between the old nature and the new, linking, more dimly it may be, with the second day; in Noah, the third of these lives, the third day resurrection, where we pass through the judgment of the flesh into a new world of peace and blessing; in Abraham, resurrection fruit, the pilgrim's life on earth; in Isaac, the peaceful consciousness of sonship, as Gal. iv., where "the child of the freewoman" becomes our type; in Jacob's life of discipline, that which answers so remarkably to the lesson of the fifth day; finally, in Joseph, the highest stage is reached in one who stands before us as pre-eminently a type of Christ Himself, where the path of suffering leads up to the kingdom.

I have done. May the God of all grace only be pleased to bless us with a spirit of more humble, holy reverence for His blessed Word, that truth, even in fragments, may be gathered up as too precious to be lost. And may we be sanctified by it.

F. W. G.

The above is the development of thoughts which appeared in a paper in the thirteenth volume of the Present Testimony, entitled "The Typical Character of Genesis i. ii. 3.”—F. W. G.

"I, NOT I."

THE apostles are the doctrinal foundation of the Church, We are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone."

Whilst, in the mercy of God, the apostles were inspired to teach with authority the doctrines connected with and flowing from the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, they present themselves to us as disciples in the school of Christ, learning under Him, as their Master, the value and preciousness of those doctrines, to the instruction of their own souls. This gives a peculiar character to apostolic teaching. It is not like a master occupied in the laborious task of teaching a pupil certain rudiments in which he takes no interest himself, but as one finding an increasingly absorbing interest in that which he teaches others. Thus the apostle Paul, in writing to the Philippians, says, "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe." It was safe for them that the apostle should teach them "line upon line, line upon line ;" but this was not irksome to him; his one subject was the Lord, and joy and confidence in Him. He was, therefore, writing from a heart filled with that in which he desired others to participate.

There are occasions in which the apostle Paul turns from a general statement to his own individual apprehension or experience of the doctrine he is propounding. Of this we have one very notable instance in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans. In that chapter he is discussing the question of law-taking up under one view the previous passing notices of "law," and proving that which he had asserted. In chap. iii. he had asserted, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." How amply is this proved in chap. vii., "I had not known sin but by the law." Again, in chap. iii., 66 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." But how it is established we learn not till chap. vii., when the weighty conclusion, law is holy," is brought out against all man's reasonings to shift responsibility from himself, and to cast blame on the law. In chapter vi. 14 we have the statement, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the

"The

law, but under grace." How fully is it demonstrated in chap. vii., that one quickened by the Spirit, if he knew not redemption, and were set under law, would yet be under the dominion of sin.

66

But how does the apostle conduct these demonstrations? This is the interesting point. He is not only the demonstrator, but the subject of the demonstration; not only the teacher, but the scholar; not only the asserter of a broad, general principle, but, in his own person, the exhibition of the power of that principle. The change from we" to "I," in this part of his writing-from truth generally recognized, to that very truth known in power in the individual conscience-is very noticeable. It is a great thing to bow the mind to the authoritative declarations of the word of God; but when that same word, as "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," enters into the conscience, and demonstrates itself as the word of God by laying us naked and bare before Him with whom we have to do; then do we justify God in His sayings, and clear Him when He is judged. God has been pleased to teach us what law necessarily is when applied to man in his actual condition (either as "in the flesh" or as quickened by the Spirit), by allowing one under the most favourable circumstances so to experimentalize on himself as to be able to hold up himself as an illustrious proof of the doctrine he teaches others. Saul, the persecuting Pharisee, by the aboundings of the grace of God over his sin, becomes Paul, the minister of the gospel of the grace of God, and the expounder of law as the strength of sin. Under the law himself, and knowing redemption through the CROSS of Christ as his deliverance from under the power of a most grievous and galling yoke, he could sympathize with those who were still groaning under the same yoke. Them that were under the law he approached, as full well knowing what it was to be under the law; and that too in a much deeper sort, by his deliverance from it, than when he was actually under it.

There is a brief but interesting period noticed in the Acts, in which, it can hardly be doubted, Saul the Pharisee went through a deep and searching process. "He was three days without sight; and neither did eat nor drink." A brief period; but if the Lord be the teacher; if He is taking in hand a man, even as a wild ass's colt to tame and break in; if He is showing that there must be an entire surrender unto

Himself, and that every effort at self-justification is a fresh kick against the pricks, and only adds to our own misery, what depth of truth may not be learned in so brief a period!

Saul was arrested by the glory of Jesus and by the voice which said to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?" He asked, "Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

Saul was then in a singular state for three days-blind to all external objects, and secluded from society. He knew that the despised Jesus was the Lord of glory, and that he had persecuted Him; but as yet he knew not fully the grace of the Lord Jesus, and his own need of that perfect grace. The thought still pressed on him, "What wilt thou have me to do?" How innate is this thought in man, the moment he begins to have to do with God. But this innate thought had, in Saul, been strengthened by his previous training under the law. Like those who were attracted to Jesus by His satisfying their hunger in the wilderness, he could understand labour on his part, but not GIVING on the part of the Lord. (John vi. 27, 28.) But now, Saul had to see light in the light of the Lord. The law itself would appear in a very different aspect, since the Lawgiver was revealed, from what it did before. Tenacious of the law, persecuting Jesus (in His disciples) in his zeal to maintain it, he had never really known what the law was. At the very time he was most self-satisfied as to his righteousness in the law, he really was "without the law." But now, having seen the Lord, the law too comes in its proper light. "The commandment came; it flashed upon him in all its length and breadth: instead of having kept it, he now finds by it the knowledge of sin; and he “establishes" the law, in his own righteous condemnation. "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." "Where

fore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." "What wilt thou have me to do?" must be given up; no one can attain to the knowledge of righteousness in that way. By the law can only be the knowledge of sin.

At the end of the three days, through the ministry of His servant Ananias, the Lord, even Jesus, removed the scales from his eyes, and filled him with the Holy Ghost, and gave

him another sight, even to see that same Jesus whose glory had overwhelmed him, in all the fulness of His grace, and as being Himself to him the righteousness of God—a righteousness far higher than that he had hoped to attain by the law. (See Phil. iii. 9.)

But did this knowledge of righteousness put the law in a more favourable light? or did it only tend to make it known in a deeper power of condemnation, so that death to the law and deliverance from it, by the body of Christ, became an equally apparent necessity, as death to sin, by Christ's having borne his sins in His own body on the tree? What says Paul, with his eyes open, and filled with the Holy Ghost? "We" (viz., all quickened by the Spirit) "know that the law is spiritual;" it is intended to reach the thoughts and intents of the heart, and the spiritual acquiesce in the exposition of the Lawgiver Himself as to its exceeding breadth. (See Matt. v.)

The apostle, however, passes from "We" to "I." His new perception of the law gives him, at the same time, a new perception of himself. "The spiritual man judgeth all things," and to judge himself is one of the main offices of this power. And now, what is Saul the Pharisee as seen in this new light? "I am carnal, sold under sin." The application of the spiritual law to such a subject only tends to bring out his misery in the strongest relief. It is now something more than, "the commandment came." It is "the holy, just, and good commandment," making manifest "that sin dwelleth in me;" so that with my knowledge that the law is spiritual, if even now put under it, "sin would have dominion over me." See my honest struggle. It shows how I consent to the goodness of the law, how entirely I acquiesce in its demands. It is no less my happiness than my duty, to love God with all my heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and my neighbour as myself. But the moment that I, in earnestness of purpose, make the effort to fulfil this, I am made conscious of a counteracting force in me, too strong for me to contend with, and I am aroused to the consciousness that "sin dwelleth in me." It is no accident, no habit, but an innate principle. I am forced therefore to separate myself from myself. "It is no more I, but sin that dwelleth in me." Such a discovery, made under honest struggle, is very different from the reception of the doctrine that sin dwelleth in us, and the use of this as an apology for sin. There is the