But we desire at present to direct attention more particularly to the mission of Jesus, at His first coming to that people as their Messiah, the promised seed of Abraham and of David. There are very many passages in the history of His earthly life which are utterly confounding and inexplicable, and, in fact, the whole character of His public ministry will be misapprehended, if we fail to recognize His peculiar relations to His own nation. These relations are made very prominent in the prophetic announcements of His birth. Thus, the Angel said to Mary: "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever." He was born King of the Jews; and in this character He was welcomed by the faithful of that day, who were waiting for the consolation of Israel.

Before he entered upon His public ministry, His messengers went before Him, proclaiming the kingdom of God as nigh at hand, a proclamation which He Himself takes up in His personal ministrations; and when He sent forth His apostles to the towns and villages of Judea, it was to make the same proclamation, charging them strictly to confine their mission to Judea, on the ground that "He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He appeared as the rightful heir of David's throne, claiming the allegiance of His own people. God, who had so often in the past found occasion, in Israel's ingratitude, to magnify the riches of His forbearance, was visiting them again with mercy, according to this promise; and the crowning proof of this grace furnished the crowning proof of their unworthiness. He who knew the end from the beginning was not taken by surprise when they finally rejected Him; nevertheless, He offered Himself to them in good faith as their King, failing in no tenderness of persuasion, and in no faithfulness of warning. He was revealed in grace and power as fully equipped for the estab

lishment of His kingdom, and the bestowment of all its promised blessedness. His miracles of help and healing, which had no limits except in the preparation of the people to receive the blessing, attested His ability to remove the curse and destroy the works of the Devil. And from first to last it will be found that all His public teaching and His mighty works have this aspect of His mission continually in view; nor does He speak a single word or perform a single act that is inconsistent with it. He does indeed privately instruct His disciples regarding His anticipated rejection, and privately gives them instructions which might prepare them for the place they were to occupy in a dispensation which was to follow. But to the Jews He presents Himself in one attitude, and says not a word which would impair their responsibility in dealing with His claims upon their allegiance, until after His formal entry into Jerusalem, in accordance with the predictions of their Scriptures, as their King, and after their formal and public rejection of Him, He testified: "The kingdom shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it." Up to this time, if He spoke any thing in the hearing of the Jews which implied their rejection of Him, or related to a subsequent dispensation of grace, it was in parables, which sometimes he explained to His disciples in private.

The most convincing proof of the correctness of this view of the national relations and design of our Lord's earthly ministry, may be found in the record we have of the manner in which, in three instances, He extended His grace to those who were not of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, instances which might have been expected to furnish a refutation of our position. The cases to which we refer are those of the woman of Samaria, the centurion whose servant He healed, and the Syrophenician woman, out of whose daughter

He cast a demon. Amidst all else that is remarkable and instructive in the record of these cases, this is not to be overlooked, that in every one of them there is a recognition of Israel's place and calling, before these foreigners can receive a blessing through Israel's King.

The woman of Samaria, by the questions she proposed to Him who sat on Jacob's well, wearied with His journey, evinced a preparation of heart to renounce the God-dishonoring claims of her people, and to acquiesce in the sovereign purpose of Jehovah in the calling of Israel. And her subse quent recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, attested her acquiescence in His claim that "salvation is of the Jews." In the case of the centurion, there is a recognition of the calling of Israel, and an acquiescence in the sovereign choice of Jehovah, at least equally marked. For the ground upon which the centurion's claims upon the compassion of the Lord were based, is thus stated by those who came to plead for him: "He is worthy for whom he should do this, for he loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue." The whole bearing of the man expresses his own humble sense of his true place, in relation to the King of Israel.

But the most remarkable instance of all is that of the woman of Canaan, who came out of the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, seeking help for her daughter, who was grievously vexed with a devil. We cannot for a moment doubt that when Jesus retired, grieved and worn, from the petty persecutions of the leaders of His own nation, His heart yearned to meet that afflicted mother, whose sorrow and whose faith His omniscience discerned afar off. And whatever may be said of His purpose to try her faith, there is something inexplicable in the restraint of His wonted tenderness; and something altogether inconsistent with His whole character, in the seeming harshness and even cruelty of His treatment,

which is not redeemed even by the gracious issue of it, if you view that trial as arbitrary, and not absolutely necessary in His official position.

Look at her position and at His. He the King of the Jews; she the representative of a race which had been the most bitter and unrelenting of the enemies of God's chosen people and of God. She appeals to Him as the Son of David; but what can the Son of David have to do with the accursed race of Canaan? It is in reply to the entreaties of His Apostles that He says: "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." And when, having heard this avowal, she renews her plea, by the very act assenting to His true claims, He replies, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs;" she hears in this not a personal insult, outraging her misery, but a meet vindication of the God of Israel from the lips of her King, addressed to her only as the representative of a race upon whom the just sentence of God

rests. In her reply she too vindicates God, and in all humility takes her proper place as the recipient of a blessing which the true heirs of it were rejecting, wasting their bread. Every barrier to the free flow of His pent-up compassion was removed; and without dishonor to the God of Israel, or inconsistency with His proper mission, the word of grace can now be uttered: "O woman, great is thy faith! be it unto thee even as thou wilt!" We have but glanced at a truth which will be found to furnish a key to much that is otherwise mysterious in the life and teaching of Jesus. "He came to his own, and his own received him not." Sublime climax of Divine Mercy! Sad climax of human ingratitude! After all that was past, the kingdom of God was preached, and the violent took it by force, the wicked husbandmen said: "This is the heir: come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours." This is the summing up of the mission of Jesus to the Jewish nation.

ON THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA.

INTRODUCTORY EXPOSITION OF REV. I. 1-6.

Ir is important, in attempting to interpret the Epistles, addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ, our great Redeemer, to the seven Churches of Asia, to consider certain preliminary questions having a bearing on their import. The author, design, occasion, and circumstances, of a communication, in any case, must not be overlooked, if we would fully understand its meaning. The consideration of these in their present application, will lead to interesting and valuable truth.

The book in which these Epistles are found is entitled, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." It claims, therefore, to be from the highest source, and, as such, to deserve our unbounded confidence. Other infallible communications have been made by Him who is emphatically "the light" and "the truth," ""the faithful and true witness." It is but one among many-properly speaking, a Revelation - yet by common consent, it has been regarded the Revelation preeminently, the last, the greatest, and the most wonderful.

The question of its authenticity has been long and often agitated. No Book, in the whole volume of the Scriptures, has been so pertinaciously subjected to severe scrutiny. Yet has it survived every attack made upon it, and is acknowledged, at this day, as it has been in ages past, and by