No. XIX.

MEDITATIONS ON SUBJECTS OF INTEREST.

1.-DISPENSATIONAL TRUTH.

WHEN souls surrender dispensational truth, they have committed themselves to the ocean of feelings and demands without a compass. If dispensational truth be not God's present revelation what is it? And if it be -can I expect to walk in the present scene acccording to His mind, without the light which He, in His grace, has supplied me? Man knows nothing of God, except through revelation; how inconsistent, then, for a child of God to admit that he cannot see the necessity of adhering to that which is the revelation for this present time; for, as a Christian, he must own that, if it were not for revelation, he must have sunk into eternal darkness; and he has no right to reject, or be indifferent to one part of the revelation, because it does not immediately bear on the question of his salvation.

God's revelation, in its full sense, and comprising all His arrangements on earth, is a structure of many stories, if I may say so. All the stories were not lighted up at once; but according to the need of those who would make use of the light. At one time it might have been sufficient to light up one story, but as the darkness increased (for in spite of what rationalists say, men are getting, in the spirit of their minds, every day further from God); there was of necessity a need for increase of light, which God, in His grace, vouchsafed for the use of those who would use it. Prophecy contained a suited and inexhaustible supply of the needed light; but this light could not act serviceably on any one who did not apprehend the order of God's counsels on earth. Such an one neither occupied the right story, nor did he (from not understanding his calling) seek or receive that knowledge from God, which would have

made him, not only know his proper place before God, but would also have furnished him with grace and power to act therein according to God's pleasure. How can God give a soul light to see the future of His purposes, if he be ignorant of, or indifferent to, the present? He who knows dispensational truth imperfectly, car never know prophetic truth rightly. If I disregard the manner of God's arrangements-the position of His people now according to His mind-how can I expect Him to unfold to me more distant things? "To him that hath shall more be given." It is no excuse to say that the Church is in ruins; for if I cared for God's counsel in the Church, the more inexpressive of that counsel I found the materials to be, the more should I seek to maintain it.

God will not swerve from His own counsel; and surely it is marvellous grace that He should allow us to learn it; and still more, that according as we know, and submit ourselves to it, He should entrust us with further purposes of His mind. The more difficult the times become, the more do I need dispensational truth.

What

other chart have I? How can I solve any of the incongruities that encompass me, or discover a clue to my right course in them, if I do not know the order and intention of God, and how that has been counteracted and disturbed by the wickedness of man. From the smallest remnant of the Church, I ought to be able to put together what the Church should be in God's counsels; and, therefore, to serve it according to His thoughts and love. In this relation to it, I should most truly estimate what damage it had suffered, and what had inflicted the damage.

2.-GUIDANCE.

One of the greatest evidences of how much Israel gained by leaving Egypt, was that God marked out their way for them, and always guided them. At His word (of which the cloud was the expression) they journeyed, and at his word they encamped. The two grand characteristics of the wilderness journey, were the

guidance and the manna. Practically speaking, we are now in the wilderness; and if we are enjoying manna we may surely conclude that we are entitled to enjoy guidance. Few saints would deny their title to this great privilege; but many who would aver that they receive and feed on spiritual meat, would hesitate to say, with anything like confidence, that they are guided as distinctly and positively as were the Israelites in the wilderness.

Now, this should not be so; for one is on the same ground as the other; the cloud was attendant on the wilderness-march as much as was the manna. True, to Israel both were visible to the natural eye, and both are spiritual now; but they are not more difficult of realization to the spiritual man; and if I can asseverate with thankfulness that I am divinely fed day by day; and if I can only know this spiritually, ought I not, with equal certainty, to be conscious of my guidance in the spiritual mind? If I am entitled to one, I am equally so to the other; both are connected with the wilderness; blessed evidence of God's care of His people, thus cast on Himself.

Why, then, is one spiritual blessing admitted and owned, while the other, though valued, is little known, and, more or less doubtfully expected? The feeling of Israel in the wilderness was, that they did not know their way, they had no idea of it; and were so completely cast on God for guidance, because there was no one else there that could guide them; nor had He, blessed be His name! any other thought than to lead them Himself.

The first feeling in my soul, then, for guidance must be, that I am in a wide desert, and that I have to depend on God, and on Him alone, to direct me. But how? By circumstances? Never. He did not guide Israel by circumstances improvised for the occasion, but by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. These were His own appointed agencies. Anything below this is not guidance, in its proper sense. It is true, our gracious God, who, in spite of ourselves, and our lack of dependence, will not allow us to lose our way, often uses cir

cumstances to correct us and drive us back into the path of faith; and, when in the path, He may allow them, as helps to our weakness, but they do not mark the path, they are never intended to guide us; and I believe the watching of circumstances, as indications of the path, is a preventive to many true-hearted souls from enjoying this their real, and rightful privilege in the wilderness

way.

Ps. xxxii. gives us the filling up of the Lord's grace to us as to this blessed privilege. "I will instruct thee in the way thou shalt go." "I will guide thee with mine eye." This is His appointed agency for us, as distinctly as was the cloud and the pillar of fire for Israel. But how am I to discern His eye? I must watch for it. If I do, I shall surely see it; if I do not, I cannot be guided by it. Where His eye is looking, there I ought to look. Unless I am spiritual, unless my soul is near Him, this will not be; I shall not look where He looks, and if I am looking to anything else for guidance, I shall not see His eye; but never is that eye hidden from the soul that watches for it. The "bit and the bridle" are God's alternatives for the soul that will not depend on Him, and be led by His eye; but the eye is there, lighting up the wilderness track for any who will discern and make use of it.

The Spirit has now come down to guide us into all truth; the spiritual man discerneth all things. The soul should wait on God, unable to proceed without Him, reckoning on His instructing it, and depending on nothing else for instruction but the spiritual sense of the direction of his own eye.

If I do this, I shall, as I go here or there, be assured that the eye of my Lord is directed that way; that such is the peculiar spot searched out by Him for me in the wilderness. The Lord lead us to exercise our souls more in this blessed nearness and dependence.

3.-THE APPOINTED PATH.

The effect of the presence of the Lord on His disciples was always to constrain them into the mind of God, sc that he could say, "While I was with them in the worl

I kept them in Thy name." Wonderful is the effect of a presence which commands our veneration, while controlling us into fellowship with itself. If we have no liking or drawing to it, we soon retire from it, for we cannot endure a restraint entirely foreign to our tastes. The taste may not be strong enough to sway us into the same line, which the presence of one supremely powerful will sway us into if there be any real taste for it.

In John xi. we find that Martha, when the conference with the Lord becomes close, escapes from it. Not so with Mary, the closer it becomes, the more swayed is she by His all-controlling presence, and she walks according to God, side by side with her Lord-fulfilling everything in her path. Her grief at the death of her brother was none the less, nor her joy at seeing him raised up, and yet all the time her soul was gathering up that ointment of spikenard which was to be expressed at the proper time. She was lovely in the common walks of life; and, learning the heart of her Lord there, and walking with Him there, she could say to Him, when He came into His own house, "While the King sitteth at table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." She was beautiful and useful in every position; she abode in the Lord, and therefore brought forth much fruit.

It is a very harassing and profitless occupation to lose time asking oneself "What shall I do now"? If I were near the Lord I should see in a moment what He would not have neglected; and the next thing to be done, is always at the very doorway; for the smallest thing often leads, to the greatest results; and it is in neglecting these, that the greatest misadventures have occurred. Nothing is neglected by God.

If at any time I am at a loss to know my true path, I shall ascertain it better by drawing near to the Lord han by cogitating the various bearings of the circumstances. I may be very laboriously fishing all night and have taken nothing; but if the Lord is with me, I shall surely find the difficulties vanish.

While He was with the disciples they lacked nothing; He was both a purse and a sword to them; but when He was going to leave them, He says, "He that hath