well as physically renewed; perhaps for our sake, that we might have a powerful parabolic lesson, a striking enforcement of Divine truth, repeatedly illustrated in Divine action, Jesus Christ required the exercise of faith as a constant condition of His healing power.

II. OUR RETURN TO GOD. The mighty work which Christ works for us is that which He works within us; it is that by which our relation to God, our Father, is altogether changed. This is the work " greater than these things" (these miracles) of which He spoke so encouragingly to His Apostles (see John xiv. 12). And this work, in the nature of things, cannot be wrought without faith on our part. We must believe that Christ can heal us, that He can redeem and restore us. This is so whether we have regard to-1. Our restoration to God's favour. God would include us all in the embrace of His friendship, His parental joy, His abiding favour. But how can He do so, while we repel His Son and refuse His salvation? 2. Our sense of His Divine favour. God would have us live in the sweet sunshine of conscious acceptance with Himself, of "the peace of Christ," of rest of soul in Him (Matt. xi. 28, 29). But we cannot receive this invaluable gift at His hand except we take Him at His word. If we will insist on trying to earn or to deserve the fulness of redeeming love, we shall never be assured of its possession. If, however, we will believe that "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. vi. 23), if we will but believe that God is not reluctant, but ready and glad to bestow upon us all the abundance of His mercy and His love which Christ's redeeming work has secured us, we shall not stand outside the gate in the cold shadows of doubt and fear, but enter into the light and warmth of filial confidence and joy. 3. Our likeness to our Lord. "This is the will of God, our sanctification." God desires

that we should be pure as He Himself is pure, holy even as He is holy, as full of magnanimous love even as He, our Divine Father, is. (See 1 John iii. 3; 1 Peter i. 16.; Matt. v. 43-48.) But He cannot work this mighty work for us unless we have faith-(1) to realize His near presence with us, His pleasure in our obedience, and His displeasure with us when we fail to serve Him, and His generous acceptance of our service; (2) to pray for His indwelling and renewing Spirit, and to look for the fulfilment of His promise. With this living faith, He will fashion us into

NO. I.-VOL. I.-THE THINKER.

His own likeness, and our spirit and our life will resemble His own.

Jesus

III. THE RECOVERY OF OUR RACE. Christ is engaged in the mighty work of establishing the kingdom of God on the earth, of rescuing mankind from the dominion of sin and bringing it unto the liberty of the children of God. He has "committed unto us the word of reconciliation." He is accomplishing His sublime purpose through human instrumentality. What, above all things, we need in order that we may do our part is a living faith. Let us believe in-1. The possibilities of our human nature; that to whatever depth of degradation it has fallen, it is able to rise when it hears the voice and feels the touch of the Son of God. 2. The exquisite adaptation of Christian truth to our human necessities; that in Christ there is everything our nature needs and craves for the removal of its sin and sorrow. 3. The power of a present Christ; that by the energies of His Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ has "all power" to lift up the fallen, to heal the paralytic and leprous soul, to recall the spiritually dead to newness of life. If we do but believe this, we shall go forth into the slums of our great cities, to the centre of dark continents, into the midst of savage islands, into the heart of old and venerable superstitions, with the living truth and the conquering love of Christ, and He will work through us His mightiest work for the recovery of the whole human race to God.

THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER

EPIPHANY.

THE PRIVATIONS OF GODLESSNESS. For what is the hope of the godless, though he get him gain, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call upon God at all times?-JOB Xxvi. 8-10 (R.V.).

JOB So far meets his friends in their contention that he acknowledges that God is working against the sinner; and through the greater part of this chapter he gives a striking delineation of the doom of the ungodly. It is of the godless (R. V.), or of the impious (S. Cox), rather than of the hypocrite (A.V.) that he is speaking now. In the text he pictures the privations of impiety, and these few touches bring them graphically before us. The ungodly or impious man—

F

I. HE HAS ΝΟ REFUGE IN TROUBLE. When "trouble cometh upon him" he cannot cry unto God with any hope of being heard and answered (ver. 9). What shall we think of the man who, in the ordering of his life, does not take trouble into his account? He is like the captain who sets sail upon the sea without readiness for a storm, or the general who goes out into the open unprepared to meet the enemy. "Man is born unto trouble' (chap. v.7); it is much more than an occasional incident, it is a very large element of his life. To be unprovided for it is to be cruelly negligent of one of our greatest needs. But what refuge has the godless man in trouble? Can he hide himself in God as in a sure rock? Can he betake himself to his Divine Friend and appeal to His promise? Can he expect that Almighty hand to interfere on his behalf whose perpetual bounties he has been guiltily forgetting? To the godly man the nearness (Ps. xxiii. 4), the sympathy (Ps. xxxi. 7; ciii. 13, 14; Heb. iv. 15), and the delivering grace of God (Ps. xci. 15; cxxxviii. 7) are of priceless value. But the godless man only remembers God to be troubled by the thought that, having forsaken him in prosperity, he cannot claim His succour on the dark day of adversity. Yet is there here one qualifying truth. It may be that trouble brings the unholy man to God in penitence, to Jesus Christ in faith and self-surrender. Then he may cry, and he will most surely be heard; but then he is a "godless" man no longer.

II. HE HAS NO HOPE IN DEATH. What is his hope" when God taketh away his soul"? As there is uncertainty as to the measure and the character of our trouble, so is there also as to the time of our death. But there is no uncertainty as to the fact of its coming. Shall this indisputable and most serious fact be entirely disregarded by us; shall we move on absolutely unaffected by the thought of it? To the man who "dwells in the secret place of the Most High," to the man who is "in Christ Jesus," the thought of death is affecting indeed, but not afflicting. He has no reason to shrink from it, to summon other and different thoughts to crowd it out from his mind. To him death means departure indeed, but it means also entrance, welcome, liberation, enlargement, amplitude, home-going. His hope is great and high. But "what is the hope of the godless?" His best hope is escape into nothingness; escape from judgment and eternity into the black

void of non-existence. But it is an abuse of language to call this a hope at all. It is rather a miserable and pitiable despair. Of what a "living hope " (1 Peter i. 3), of what a "glorious hope" (Col. i. 27), of what a "blessed hope (Titus ii. 13), even of eternal life" (Titus i. 2; 1 John ii. 25), does the godless man deprive his soul! III. HE HAS NO JOY IN GOD. "Will he delight himself in the Almighty?" Job evidently thinks that the true man might and should do that. It is an advanced and elevated thought. To delight in God-not merely to look for favours from Him, but to find our heritage in Him, in all that He is in Himself and in all that He is to us; in (1) our sense of His near presence with us; in (2) our realization of His close relationship to us as our Divine Father; in (3) our keen appreciation of His watchful care of us, and of His acceptance of our every act of obedience and submission; in (4) our joy in the fellowship we have with Him in His glorious work of redeeming love to find in this the sweetness of our cup, the prize of our contest, the crown of our career, our supreme satisfaction, our "exceeding great reward" (Gen. xv. 1);-this is human life at its best, human nature at its highest. Of course the godless man misses this mark entirely. He has no conception of it, much less any participation in it.

IV. HE LIVES WITHOUT THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER. Will the godless man "call upon God at all times"? The value of prayer is twofold. 1. It is a constant source of blessing to our heart and life. To live in daily, even hourly communion with God, to be holding fellowship with the absolutely holy and the perfectly loving One, must be a spiritual condition charged with highest good, must exert an elevating and purifying influence upon us of the finest order and of the greatest strength. Who can calculate or imagine the good of which the prayerless deprive themselves by their deliberate distance from God, by their refusal to seek His favour and ask His guidance and His help? 2. It is our one resource in special need. How great is the destitution of that man's spirit who, when his heart is breaking, cannot go unto Him who binds up the broken heart and heals the wounded spirit!

In the face of all these privations, what a poor thing is "the gain" of the godless. What numbers of houses, what acres of land, what titles of honour will be a substitute

for refuge in trouble, for hope in death, for joy in God, for the privilege of prayer? Surely the godless man is he who not only spends his days in sin, but who strips his life

of all that would most bless and brighten it, of all that would fill it with sacred worth and crown it with elevating joy.

WILLIAM CLARKSON, B.A.

THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.

ISA. xi. 1-10.

VER. 1. A branch shall grow out of his roots. Like some stream which, long hidden underground, reappears again in the daylight, or some vein of precious ore, recovered after some extensive "fault," so it was believed the royal race and spiritual prowess of David might be obscured for ages, but must be illustrated again before the world. God blesses the world by great men, by houses and tribes. There is a principle of providential selection running through life. The thought of the seeming extinction, yet destined revival of David's house, may remind us of the imperishableness of the germs of good (Pulpit Commentary). A great cause may have an unpromising beginning. The greatest inventors were at the outset poor men, and their experiences disheartening. Lichens, of little value in themselves, prepare the way for important vegetation (J. L. Hurlbut). The sprout, shooting out below the soil, becomes a tree, and this tree gets a crown with fruits; and thus a state of exaltation and completeness follows the state of humiliation (F. Delitzsch). Ver. 2. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. It was the "Spirit of the Lord" that had made men true heroes and judges in the days of old (Judges xi. 29 ; xiii. 25). It was on the "Spirit of the Lord" descending on Jesus of Nazareth and abiding on Him (John i. 33), that men were taught to see the token that He was the Christ of God. And in this case the Spirit was to give more than the heroic daring which had characterized Jephthah and Samson (Dean Plumptre). In this manner He is here promised to rest upon Jesus Christ, even as the symbol of the Divine glory rested of old upon the tent of the congregation. It was not a temporary influence, as in the case of Saul (R. Macculloch). Spirit of Wisdom-understanding-of counsel —might—of knowledge—the fear of the Lord.

The

His qualities are arranged in three pairs, but all spring from one Source, "the Spirit of Jehovah," which rests permanently upon Him (comp. xlii. 1). They are (1) moral and intellectual clearness of perception; (2) the wisdom and bravery which befit a ruler (comp. xxxvi. 5); (3) a knowledge of the requirements of Jehovah (Micah vi. 8), and the will to act agreeably to this knowledg (T. K. Cheyne). In Him Israel's ideal would be realized; for Israel was called to exhibit before all nations a model of wisdom and understanding (Deut. iv. 6), so that mankind might at length be stricken with a conviction of the beauty of holy obedience, and say, "Surely this nation is a wise and understanding people" (Speaker's Commentary). Canon Kingsley, in one of his "Westminster Sermons," says that all the attributes mentioned in this verse are characteristic of love. Experience shows that the Spirit of love is the same as the Spirit of wisdom; that if any man wishes to be truly wise and prudent, his best way-one might say his only way—is to be loving and charitable. If we do not understand our fellow-creatures, we shall never love them; but it is equally true that if we do not love them we shall never understand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good feeling and fellow-feeling, breed endless mistakes and ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances. gives "counsel and might," prudence and practical power; sees how to deal with human beings, and has the power of winning them to obedience. There is nothing so blind as harshness, nothing so weak as violence, nothing so strong as love. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. In the Authorized English Version it is translated as above, and in the Revised Version, "His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord," and on the margin the literal meaning of delight is given as scent. But the phrase may as well mean, "He shall

Love

draw His breath in the fear of the Lord." It is a most expressive definition of sinlessness-which was the attribute of Christ alone. We, however purely intentioned, are compassed about by an atmosphere of sin. We cannot help breathing what now inflames our passions, now chills our warmest feelings, and makes our throats incapable of honest testimony or glorious praise. As oxygen to a dying fire, so the worldliness we breathe is to the sin within us. We cannot help it, it is the atmosphere into which we are born. But from this Christ alone of men was free. He was His own atmosphere, drawing breath in the fear of the Lord. Recall some day when, leaving your close room and the smoky city, you breasted the hills of God, and into opened lungs drew deep draughts of the fresh air of heaven. What strength it gave your body, and with what a glow of happiness your mind was filled! What that is physically, Christ has made possible for us men morally. He has revealed stretches and eminences of life, where, following in His footsteps, we also shall draw for our breath the fear of God (G. A. Smith, M.A.). Ver. 6. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The awful responsibility of man's position as the keystone of creation, the material effects of sin, and especially the religiousness of our relation to the lower animals (G. A. Smith, M.A.) Ver. 9. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. This was for the prophet the consummation of the work of redemption. More than all removal of physical evil, He thought of a victory over moral and spiritual darkness. Even as the waters of the Mediterranean (the sea which must have suggested the prophet's comparison) washed the shores of the far-off isles of the Gentiles, the coast of Chittim (Numb. xxiv. 24), as well as those of Israel, so should the knowledge of the truth of God expand beyond the limits of the people of Israel Dean Plumptre). There shall be seen to be a sufficiency in the Gospel of the Saviour to cover the entire earth, to meet the wants of the entire population of the globe (Pulpit Commentary). The root of Jesse. I. The surroundings by which the Redeemer would be connected-"a root of Jesse." II. The attitude which the Redeemer would assume.

He was

to "stand an ensign for the people." III. The influence which the Redeemer would exert. He was to afford a glorious rest (Homiletic Review). A portrait of humanity

66

(vers. 6-9). I. The moral varieties of the age. Men are represented by different irrational creatures wolf," "lamb," "leopard," "kid," &c. The physical, mental, moral varieties of men-some savage, cunning, venomous, and harmless. II. The Gospel reformation of the age. 1. It extracts social antipathics. 2. It implants social sympathies. III. The social harmony of the race (D. Thomas, D.D.) The qualifications of Christ for His mediatorial office.-I. The birth and family of the Messiah. The preceding chapter foretold vengeance coming on the Assyrians, and the destruction of the army of Sennacherib (chap. x. 33, 34). Here we have an abrupt transition to Christ and His kingdom. This prophecy is too comprehensive to be restricted to Hezekiah or Zerubbabel: "Then shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse' Why is "Jesse" named rather than David? To point out the birthplace of the Messiah. Jesse always appears to have lived at Bethlehem, whereas David resided the greater part of his life at Hebron and Jerusalem. Jesse was in more humble rank of life than Jesse's son, so set forth the humble circumstances of Christ's life. It was also out of the stem of Jesse that the rod was to come forth, when cut down and dry. The glory of David's house was gone. 2. "And a branch shall grow out of his roots." What noble fruits have hung on that Branch! What Churches have clustered around it! The birth of Christ has changed society. But having described Messiah in His birth and family, let us consider-II. His full qualifications for His office. 1. "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him." He is to be the Anointed One; God gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him. The Saviour never was without the full graces of the Holy Spirit, even in His human nature. His conception; His baptism. The Holy Spirit comes to others for Christ's sake. The Divine Spirit rested on Him in His office of Mediator. 2. "The spirit of wisdom." His work and office required wisdom. He must have a perfect apprehension of God in His nature, works, and ways; of salvation; of the mind of man. How wise to win souls was Jesus. His wisdom was for us. 3. "The spirit of understanding shall rest upon Him." The Saviour had a quickness in understanding what might be for the glory or dishonour of His heavenly Father. No tinsel could hide from Him the foul deformity of sin. Piety

does not narrow the mind, it elevates the understanding. 4. "The spirit of counsel." He is the "Wonderful Counsellor"; He has advice suited to every case. He counsels the sinner to repent. 5. "The spirit of might." His work required an undaunted spirit. With what moral courage did He face adversities. 6. On Him, too, we are told is "the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Christ had a filial, reverential regard to His Father. Thus, you see, that Christ was qualifying for His great work.— (J. Hambleton, M.A.)

A SONG OF SALVATION.

ISA. xxvi. 1-10.

VER. 1. This song be sung. The prophet appears once more, as in chaps. v. 1, xii. 4, in the character of a psalmist, and what he writes is destined for nothing less than the worship of the new city of the heavenly kingdom (Dean Plumptre). Walls and bulwarks. God would establish "salvation "-His own saving might as walls and ramparts; to replace the perishable fortifications which were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (Lam. ii. 8) (Speaker's Commentary.) The walls of the heavenly city are not of stone or brick, but are themselves as a living force, saving and protecting (Dean Plumptre). A strong city suggests to us a place of absolute safety. The spiritual idea underlying this is that the Salvation of God is immutably sure and certain. It is not a salvation which may be prevailed against. There shall no trial come upon a true child of God that shall finally overcome him. In any case, when salvation prevails both within the city and without, there will be no need of walls, save for adornment. If within, the people of God are all righteous, and without, the nations are all living under the irresistible rule of Messiah's righteousness, then the city's defence will be in the prevailing salvation. When there is "peace on earth and good will among men " there will be no need of walls and bulwarks (G. F. Pentecost). God is Hezekiah's strongest defence. He is the safeguard of the Church. The bulwarks of the Church are-1. The watchful providence of God. 2. The promises of God. 3. The special presence of the Almighty. Ver. 2. Open ye the gates. The city was already peopled, for it was the City on the Mount of the Lord spoken of in Ps. xxiv., whose gates were opened at the approach of the King of

3. Amid

Glory. Its warders are now bidden to open the gates for the admission of fresh citizens, the new-created Israel, the righteous nation, gathered in from all the ends of the earth (xxiv. 16). These gates are shut against the unworthy, and opened to those who have a right to enter though the gates into the city. Ver. 3. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace. If they maintain their fidelity, He assuredly will not be wanting on His part. The inner life is said to be "firmly settled" when it has a firm hold within itself, and this it has when it keeps a firm hold on God (x. 20). Το depend on God, to be resigned to Him, brings stability and peace (F. Delitzsch). Perfect peace: I. The promised gift-peace ; not freedom from sorrow, not self-complacency. There is peace-1. Amid personal anxieties. 2. Amid the contests of the world. the struggles of sin and the assaults of the evil one. 4. In the conflicting emotions of sickness, the pain of death, and the realities of a future world. II. The condition exacted. Faith, "whose mind is stayed on Thee." This act assures us of the promise. 1. Because it is the carrying out of the Divine requirement. 2. Because it is in itself a calming, sanctifying act. III. The safe assurance, "Thou wilt keep." 1. Here is the source of all strength. He is able. 2. Here is the source of all love. He is willing. 3. He is the supplies of all comfort, the refuge of all oppressed (Homilist). Perfect peace: I. God the Author. II. The peace is perfect-1. In its source. 2. In its measure. 3. In its adaption to our needs. III. If this peace is to be ours, we must link ourselves to God by faith (D. Magee). Ver. 4. Trust ye in the Lord for ever. Jehovah ought to be the sole object of our confidence. Cease therefore from man whose breath is in his nostril. Trust not in the world, in natural endowments, nor moral qualifications. 1. Confide in the glorious perfections of Jehovah. 2. Rely on His kind providence (Ps. xxxiii. 18). 3. Depend upon His faithful promises. 4. Trust Him for ever (R. Macculloch) Ver. 5. For He bringeth down them that dwelleth on high. It is not eminence, but pride that provokes the Divine anger (G. Rawlinson). Ver. 7. The way of the just is uprightness; or the path of the just is straight (Ps. iv. 8; xxvii. 11; cxliii. 8). They are for the most part free from perplexity as to the line of conduct which it behoves them to pursue. Ver. 9. With my soul have I desired Thee in the night. The