other stubble, on the one foundation. Some will have an abundant entrance administered unto them into the everlasting kingdom of their God and Saviour, whilst others are likened to persons grasped by an almighty hand, and drawn through the flames of their burning habitation.*

Here then again we find a reason for distinguishing very carefully between such sanctification as must attach to all believers if they are believers at all, and such growth in practical sanctification as should indeed mark believers, but very often does not mark them. The possession of new life through the Spirit, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost, and the ceasing habitually to tread the old Egyptian paths which once we trod, and an entrance into new paths, are tokens which must be found in every real member of the family of faith. But to belong to the separate path, and to advance therein with firm and vigorous step, are different things. The Philippians advanced steadily; but we read of some to whom, though belonging to the path of faith, the Apostle had reason to say, "when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need of milk and not of strong meat ;" and the Corinthians, although they had been truly brought into the separate path of faith, yet stumbled, and wandered, and dishonoured God grievously. The Holy Spirit is through God's grace, because of Christ, sent to dwell in believers for ever; but it does not therefore follow that they may not in many things grieve that Spirit and hinder His blessed operations.

To this subject, however, I hope on another occasion to return. At present I will only observe on the error of the doctrine of those who teach that whilst our judicial title to heaven is founded on the work of Christ for us, yet that our meetness for heaven depends on our growth in grace, and in practical conformity to His will through the work of the Holy Ghost in us. In that case, what would have become of the Galatians and Corinthians, some of whom were even chastened unto death? We cannot say that believers who are cut off under chastisement have grown in grace, or adorned the doctrine of their God and Saviour. Nor could any conceivable degree of advance in holiness here, give practical meetness for Heaven. Practical meetness for Heaven implies absolute perfectness. None will stand before the Throne in glory except those who are altogether conformed

See 1 Cor. iii. "Yet so as through the fire"-ws dia πupos not dra in the sense of "by means of."

to the image of Christ. But how do they become this? By discipline? By effort? By growth in grace here? Was Paul practically meet for Heaven, when, after he had been caught up to Paradise a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him lest his proud heart should be exalted by the abundance of the revelations granted unto him? No one knew better than that Apostle the value of service, and fruitbearing, and conformity to the will of his Lord and Master: but he looked to none of these things as giving practical meetness for Heaven. Whilst the flesh remained, he knew that no such meetness could be. He looked forward, therefore, to the time when his risen Lord should return, and the trumpet of grace and of power sound, and when earthiness and corruption should depart, and likeness to the Lord in glory remain. Nothing short of this change into the likeness of the second man, the Lord of glory, will ever give us practical meetness for Heaven. But this the covenant of grace secures for all believers. It is the result-the necessary result of having been "sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus once." As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." "Whom he justified, them he also gloried." We shall be satisfied at last, satisfied even with ourselves, but not till we "awake up in His likeness."

[To be, D.V. continued.]

On the Song of Solomon,

FROM CHAPTER II., 8 TO VERSE 17, INCLUSIVE.

NOTHING can be more marked than the contrast between the present condition of the Church of God, left for a season amidst the darkness and evil of earth, and the condition of its risen Head, in the rest and liberty and joy of His heavenly home. The dispensation in which we live is emphatically termed in Scripture, an "evil day." Not only does the whole creation groan, even as it began to groan when sin first entered, but the very blessings dispensed by God in the midst of the earth's ruin have been so used by man as to be turned against Him who gave them. The resources of the earth are great and various. It has its watered vallies and its fruitful plains; its gold and its silver; its brass and iron and marble-many things goodly and beautiful: and man's intellect and taste and skill have known how to avail themselves of these resources and to use them. But how have they been used? Have they fallen under the control of a hand meekly submissive to God and to Christ, or have they been grasped and wielded by the hand of unregeneracy and pride?

It is in the history of the family of Cain that we first read of the builded city, and of "the father of such as have cattle, and of such as handle the harp and organ, and of the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." Hence the origin of the civilization of man. Civilization if ordered and guided by the Spirit of Christ, how blessed! The earth needs it and groans for it, and in due season shall have it. But the present is the day of the civilization of unregenerate man. Its sun indeed has not yet attained the height of its meridian brightness. It will shine wondrously for a moment. But it will be but for a moment; for it is "to set at noon"—it is "to go down whilst it is yet midday"-to be quenched in the blackness of darkness for ever.

The eighteenth of the Revelation gives us

the maturity of that greatness which germinated in the family of Cain. Cain at the commencement-Nebuchadnezzar and Pilate in the centre-Babylon and Antichrist at the close, are names which sufficiently indicate what the character of "human progress" has been, and will be, till the end. Yet "human progress" is that in which even Christians glory, prophesying of it smooth things, blessing that which the Lord has not blessed.

But however great and excellent the natural gifts of God's creative goodness, there are other blessings far more precious than they. TRUTH has been made known by direct revelation from heaven. Israel first, and then Christendom, became the sphere of that light which came through Prophets and Apostles, and through the Son of God Himself. Israel first, and now Christendom, have received "the oracles of God."

But what was Israel, and what is Christendom? Has Truth found there its place of triumph and rest; or, its prison-house and grave ? May it not be now said of Christendom what was once said of Israel, that the name of God is blasphemed among the heathen because of its iniquities? Governmental power also, without which order would have ceased to be, and evil have run riot throughout the earth, is another gift that God has given. The Chaldæan and Persian, Greek and Roman Empires, have successively inherited a power which has made them during their respective periods, the centres of governmental influence in the earth. But their power has been systematically used against God, and the Ten Kingdoms into which the Roman World is soon to be divided, are they that will weave the last chaplet of human glory, and place it on the brow of Antichrist. The foundations, therefore, of all things are out of course. The very blessings given by God against darkness and against evil, have been so used by man as to increase darkness and to cherish evil. Well therefore may the present season of our militancy be termed an "evil day."

There are, from time to time, some in the Church of God whose hearts feel the truth of these things. They cannot rest, and they do not desire to rest, in things in which the Spirit of their Lord rests not. They know that there are many scenes which, though they shine like the plains of Sodom with Eden-like beauty (see Gen. xiii. 10), are yet plains of Sodom still. They know that the cities of human greatness are but so many places in which secular or ecclesiastical evil has enshrined itself and concentrated its energies against

God. They know that the fruitfulness of the Day of man is in Scripture symbolised by that "vine of the earth" whose clusters are to be cast into the "winepress of the wrath of God." They cannot, therefore, rest in these things: they shrink and retire from them like Noah's dove retired from those tossing and death-covered waters, where the raven that fed on death rested, but where she could not rest. Of such, the distant and lowly valley-the valley of the mountains of "separation," becomes a refuge. There they find their "valley of vision." There they can meditate on One who once knew the sorrows of earth, but now knows them no more for ever. Whatever clouds may brood over the valley, the light of the everlasting morning-the light of the day of the new creation, rests upon the height of "the mountains of Bether."* There there is severation from the circumstances of earth. There is that sphere of free and joyful liberty comparable to the liberty of "a roe, or a young hart that comes leaping on the mountains, skipping upon the hills." What liberty more complete! What freedom more joyous! Man and his ways are unknown on the high tops of the mountains of severation. They rise above the clouds: they are far away from the darkness, and turmoil, and sorrow of earth.

In the passage before us we find her whose wanderings form the subject of this Song, seeking in the valley at the foot of these mountains of separation, the place of her rest. It was not an evil or unholy place of rest. It was not that kind of rest which on one occasion afterwards she was tempted to seek in the stately mansions of the City. But still it is very evident that the full energies of her faith and service were, to a certain extent, relaxed. The meditativeness of retirement is not always favourable to the strengthening and development of faith. The separate dwelling-place in the lowly valley is not necessarily the place of energy and strength. There is a time for all things-a time to act, and a time to rest; a time to strive, and a time to be still. Desire after a life of seclusion and repose may be the result of timorousness, or of a natural love of quiet, or it may spring from inertness. Discouragement too or disappointment may unnerve our strength, and may cause the hand to hang down, and the knee to be feeble; and, in that case, our rest may become the prolonged rest of exhaustion rather than the rest of the soldier, sought only that it may reinvigorate for toil.

"Bether" means separation or severation.