banqueting-house, without seeing that we are provided not only with entire title to enter, which the wedding garment expresses, but that we are invested with the panoply of God, so as neither to be prevented nor dislodged. I must see that I am suited to the host; I mus: wear costume which He has provided, viz., the enjoyable apprehension of how He accepts, "accepted in the beloved"; but if I am in an enemy's country (as we are while left below), I must also see that the host's enemy will be powerless in his attacks on me. Though in's hostile country, the army of occupation may be feasting with the general; that is no reason that the guard shoul not be mounted. On the contrary, the guard should be all the more careful and watchful at such a time, leg there should be any surprisal. In other words, though I may be prepared to enjoy my Lord in the condition worthy of Himself, I must also be provided and armed against all the attacks of Satan, who would try to disturb my happiness; and this can only be by the Word which, dwelling in us richly, will in the end make melody in our hearts.

The study of Scripture, which is really invigorating, is that which does not dwell with abstractions, but with a person. The enunciation of a precept or an idea by a person, Himself the witness of it, not only enforces conviction, but communicates power to retain it.

The soul feels the gradual adoption of the truth in power, not so much from the conclusiveness, or the authority with which it has been propounded, as from the imprinting on it by the personal application. You cannot abide (mentally and morally abide) with a greater without adopting his likeness.

A glass which has covered an engraving for a certai time, will often show the outlines of the picture for a day or two, after which it will fade away, the similitude only depending on the association with the original, which must ever be kept up. This is a faint illustration of what association with the Person in the study of the Word would produce on us.

"Our failures are worked into the texture of the eterna plans which cannot fail, and never falter."

No. XIII.

THE HOPES OF THE COMING.

IT is remarkable, that Paul, in his epistles to the assemblies, only twice addresses any of them as "in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ." Both of these occasions were in his writing to the Thessalonians. He addresses them in the first epistle as "in God the Father," and in the second epistle as "in God our Father;"a but with the exception of this variation, the superscription is the same to the Thessalonians on both occasions, and is peculiar to the letters addressed to them.

The first of these epistles shows us many of the blessed bearings of the coming of our Lord Jesus; the second guards against the abuses of the doctrine. But in both letters the Hope of the Coming has a place preeminent. This is recognized by all; and is, indeed, evidently on the face of each of the chapters.

Among the first, if not itself the first, of Paul's epistles, this 1 Thessalonians is supposed to be. This, if so, gives a peculiar appropriateness to the superscription, even as the superscription certainly is peculiarly appropriate to the doctrine of the two epistles. For in Scripture there is moral connexion between the various parts of things treated of, and a responsiveness of one part to another constantly to be traced.

And, indeed, what could be more natural than that as the infant church became first manifest to the eye of the Apostle, his thought from the Spirit should be of it, as

The expression "in God the Father," has higher, larger, and fuller scope and range in it than that of "in God our Father." The former suits well with the doctrine which he is unfolding; and the latter is quite in keeping with the guarding us from the misuse of it by others.

being in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church was a divine thing, something for God, as much as of God and by God, and it had no human precedent as had the kingdom; it was something, too, for heaven, and as to earth merely a pilgrim on it. With the Church in its early infancy, there seems to be as much consistency in the words, "in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ," rising to an inspired apostle's mind and dropping from his pen,-as there is harmony and consistency between the commencements and the salutations found in connexion or with the first appearing of her Lord in the gospels.

The Lord Jesus Christ in God the Father (in heaven), and a Church sentient and conscious of such its place on high, and on earth of grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:-such is the blessed revelation to us, through the Apostle's pen. Well might he give thanks to God always for them; well might he remember such a people always in his prayers (ver. 2); and that not only because he knew the spring opened for them on high, where their fountain and spring was, and what the blessed streams were that flowed down from on high to them; but that he knew that (ver. 3) they also, even as he had been, were partakers of the faith, love, and hope of the gospel of a risen and ascended Lord The God, whose love they now knew by faith, would realize to them, in due time, a glory and a portion worthy of Himself and of the Lord they served; and this, too, they knew.

God had been manifested in flesh and seen on earth; the Son of Man is now seen by faith in heaven, on the throne of the Father in the majesty of the highest, and seen there as our Life. "Ye are dead and your Life

b Eve in the garden of Eden, Joseph's wife, and Moses' and Solomon's were figures in a certain sense of it; but were not! understood as such, until life and immortality were brought to! light by the Gospel, and man had no plan to make good even in those shadows.

• See, for instance, Matthew i. 1, 18, 25; ii.; iii.; iv.; Luke i. 28-37, 42-55, 68-79; ii. 8; iii. 15, 25-39; John i., etc.

is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3); " for the time. spoken of by the Lord is come, in that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and ye in me and I in you." (John xiv. 19, 20.)

In connexion with such a blessing as Paul had tasted and knew to be a portion and blessing common to himself and the Church, or assembly, of God-there were three things as he states them to the Corinthians in his first epistle and thirteenth chapter-faith, hope, and love; or, in the order in which he names them here, faith, love, and hope. These three were not found in connexion with Judaism, or with the law, or with the governmental ways of God in the same way as they are with Christianity. Paul knew very well that, while he was Saul, these three were not known, to him; that when he was converted, he learnt somewhat about faith, love, and hope-such as he never knew before, and that what he had learnt that he had to preach. For the governmental ways of God are not the same as the revelation of His heavenly grace.

Sight or sense, righteousness and possession-rather than faith, love and hope-had characterized him while he was Saul. And there were two reasons for this; one on God's side, the other on man's. Until Christ came, man was being tried, to see whether any thing could be made of him, in himself. This necessarily supposed that God, restricting His action to what man was, should deal upon the ground of what was in man, and upon the ground of righteousness, and of what was seen to be in man. On the other hand, man, being a sinner, while under the process was blinded; had a veil over his heart; was self-righteous; and really self-deceived. The law was the claim of the King of Israel, as creator too, over Israel for works; Sinai was a visible display; there was no aggressiveness of love in the law. It blessed a man if perfect, cursed him utterly if short of perfection in one single thing. It restricted itself to Israel, and shut Israel up in itself,-upon the ground of righteousness too, and of blessings already received. The gospel was the opposite of all this. It was by the foolishness of preaching; faith not works,-faith built upon a report of

something in heaven, and not seen down here as yet; love too came out, for its proclamation was that God was seeking the lost, and this upon the ground that His Son had died for those who were His enemies, sinners without strength; and it taught strange and marvellous things to come. Judaism, the law, governmental ways had a being and something tangible to sense, apart from any thing to come and believed in. Christianity is a delusion-if there is not an unseen world of invisible realities, and if there is not a world to come. Faith. love, and hope, were new doctrines of Paul-they were not his while he was Saul.

The declaration-The seed of the woman shall bruise thy [the serpent's] head was the expression of God under the circumstances of the fall of man, and presented the truth in itself, that to man as ruined, an unseen God was the alone stay and deliverer. Surely His character shined out therein; and, where He is known, His cha racter communicates itself to those that rest on and hope in Him. When "Hope shall change to glad fruition,— faith to sight and prayer to praise" then, still LOVE will abide. God will then be known as a present God, in whose blessed presence we shall be,-whose glory we shall then enjoy;-Himself, God, is love; ourselves filled into all the fulness,-for God shall then be all in all. Though man kept not his first estate in Eden's paradise, God will introduce the believer who hopes in Him into the paradise of God; the world, the flesh, and Satan, notwithstanding.

The faith, love and hope of the Thessalonians were theirs, and exercised by them "in the sight of God and our Father" (chap. i 3). His presence were the springs of these-faith, love, and hope; and faith, love, and hope -in them too, were in exercise (happily for them) in the presence of God and our Father. Yet, on the other hand, they were spoken of by the world, and by the men in it among whom their practical results were seen (ver. 7-10). It is only when He, who is in the presence of God, and is the object and subject of faith, love, and hope, is seen by us, as ourselves being in that presence," that there is vigour and power in us: but, when we live