" merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God."  HEBREWS ii. 17.

DOST thou wonder that thy Lord was tempted and sorrowful? It is indeed the marvel of eternity; and yet not so marvelous, when we consider the beings whom he elected to succor, help, and save, and of whom each of us is one.

Had he chosen to lay hold of fallen angels, with a view of raising them from their lost estate, he would without doubt have taken upon himself their nature, and descended into the pit; identifying himself with their miseries, and paving, by his sufferings, a pathway across the great fixed gulf which intervenes between their lost estate and Paradise. But verily he took not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham; and had no alternative therefore but to assimilate himself in all points to the nature of those whom, in infinite mercy and grace, he brothered.

There are two things thou needest, reader; and not thou only, but all men, reconciliation, and succor in the hour of temptation. These instinctive cravings of the soul are as mighty and as irrepressible as the craving of the body for sleep or food; and they are as evident amid our luxury and refinement as in primeval forests, or beside the historic rivers of antiquity-the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates.

To meet these two needs, men have constituted one of their number a priest. That word has an ominous sound to our ears, because it has been associated with immoralities and cruelty. The world has never seen more unscrupulous or rapacious tyrants than its priests, whether of Baal or Moloch, of Judaism or the Papacy. All through the ages it has seemed impossible for men to receive power in the spiritual realm without abusing it to the injury of those who sought their help. Study the history of the priesthood, which murdered Christ because he threw too strong a light upon its hypocrisies and villainies, and you have the history of every priestcraft which has darkened the world with crime, and saturated its soil with the blood of the noblest and saintliest of men.

And yet the idea of the priest is a natural and a beautiful one. It is natural for men who are conscious of sin barring their access into the presence of a holy God, and demanding sacrifice in order to peace, to say to one of their fellows, "Our hands are stained with blood, and grimed with toil; our garments spotted with pollution and dust; our lives too busy for us to spare time for those rites which alone can fit the sinner to stand before the eye of God: do for us what we cannot do for ourselves; prepare thyself by holy rite and vigil and fasting from sin, so as to be able to stand in the presence-chamber of the All-Holy; and when thou hast acquired the right of audience with him, speak for us, atone for us, make reconciliation for our sins; and then come forth to us, succoring and blessing those who cannot attain to thy position, but must ever struggle as best they may with the strong, rough, bad world in which they are doomed to live."

This seems the underlying thought of the vast system which has built temples in every land, reared altars on every soil, and constituted a priesthood amid the most degraded as well as the most civilized races of mankind.

And there is great beauty in the work and ministry of a true priest. Not always engaged in the darker work of sacrificing flocks of fleecy sheep, by which alone, in those rude days, the cost of sin could be computed; the true priest would have other, and, perhaps, more congenial work. He would be the shepherd of the timid souls around him; listening to confessions whispered over the heads of the dumb victims; feeling compassion for erring and wayward ones; comforting those who were passing through scenes of sorrow, till faces shadowed with tears began to gleam with holy light; arresting the proud hand of the oppressor, as Ambrose did in lawless days, to rescue the poor from the mailed blow. Never studying self-interest; never consulting ease or pleasure or gain; never resting while one poor wanderer was away in the snowdrift or on the wild. Yes, and more: he would be the spokesman of souls, praying for those who did not pray for themselves; praying for those who knew not what or how to ask; interceding for the whole race of man. Ah! how often must such a one have been compelled by the pressure of the burden to go apart from the busy crowds to some lone spot, that he might pour out before God the long litany of need and sorrow and temptation which had been poured into his heart. Lovely ideal; Ah, how seldom realized!

All this is Jesus Christ, and more. Words fail indeed to say all that he is in himself, or all that he can be to those that trust him. And it is because of this that he is able to give such blessed help to all who need it. Let us consider that help.

IT Is SOVEREIGN AND UNEXPECTED HELP. Angels fell. Once they were the peers of heaven. They sang its songs, plucked its flowers of amaranth, and drank its tranquil bliss. They loved its King, and served him, like the sunbeam, with unpolluted brightness and unswerving direction. But, alas! they fell from heaven to hell. And for them there is no help, so far as we can learn. "God taketh not hold of angels."

But he has set his heart upon us, the poor children of dust, the creatures of the transient moments of time, who had fallen by the same sin of self-will. Here is a theme for meditation! We cannot pierce the mystery, or understand its full import. But we may, with wondering faith and joy, accept the chalice, brimming with unmerited, unexpected, undeserved grace, and drain its draughts of bliss.

IT IS HUMAN HELP. " Made like unto his brethren." The peculiarity of this phrase testifies to Christ's preexistence and glory, and indicates how great a stoop on his part it involved ere he could be like man. He had to be made like man, i.e., he was not like man in the original constitution of his being. We cannot solve the mystery of the holy incarnation. And yet the thought of it has never been quite foreign to the heart of man. Many a Greek and Hindu myth rested on an instinctive craving for the presence of God in human flesh, which became parent to the belief that such a thing had been, and might be again. Even in the highlands of Galatia, the most ready explanation of the miracles of Paul was that the gods had come down in the likeness of men.

But though there be such a profound mystery resting on this subject, yet the union of the Almighty with a human life is at least not more incomprehensible than the union of a spiritual, unmaterial principle, as the soul, with a material organism, as the human body. When the secrets of our own nature have been unraveled, it will be time enough for us to demand of the Almighty that, when he assumes our nature, lie should disrobe himself of all mystery. How exquisite is the arrangement that God's help should come to us through the Son of Man; that our Helper should shed true human tears, and feel true human pity Jew though he was, child of the most exclusive and intolerant of peoples, yet the humanity which is greater than Judaism makes us oblivious to all else than that lie is our Brother.

IT IS HIGH-PRIESTLY HELP. The full meaning of this phrase will appear as we proceed. It is sufficient to say here, that all that men have sought to realize in human priesthoods, but in vain, is realized with transcendent beauty in him. Nor is there any way of weaning men from the human priesthoods which deceive, but to present to them the all-glorious, immaculate priesthood of Christ.

It is of little use only to denounce the priests that are coming back to Protestant England through a thousand covert channels, or the people who go to them. There is a craving in their heart which impels them. It is of no use to fight against nature. But satisfy it; give it its true nutriment; supply its wants with reality; and it will be content to drop the false for the true, the paste diamond for the Golconda pebbles, the human for the divine. Men must have a priest; and they are going back to the mummeries of Rome, because there has been too scanty a presentation in our pulpits of the priesthood of Jesus.

IT IS MERCIFUL AND FAITHFUL HELP. When we are in need, we want help wedded with mercy. The patient in the infirmary does not like to be treated as a broken watch. Oh that he were at home again, to be nursed by the soft hands of his mother, which ever feel so skillful and gentle and soft! We need merciful help, which does not upbraid, is not in too great a hurry to listen, and gladly takes all extenuating circumstances into account. Such mercy is in the heart of Jesus. And his help is ever faithful, too. This word has a fine tint of meaning, almost lost in our translation, giving the idea of one who runs up at the first cry of distress. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches us with a gaze which is not for a moment diverted from us. He sees us through the storm. He sits beside the molten metal. He will help us right early -i.e., when the day breaks. You may be bereft of all power of consecutive thought, unable to utter a single intelligible sentence, frantic with agony and remorse; but if you can only moan, he will instantly respond. "He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."

IT IS HELP BASED ON RECONCILIATION FOR SIN. Sin is one of the greatest facts in our history. It is impossible to ignore it. You cannot explain man unless you take it into account. For this the world has been covered with the apparatus of sacrifice; and the cry has rung in a monotone of despair, "How shall man be just with God?"

But Jesus met the demands of conscience, echoing those of a broken law, when on Calvary, as High-Priest, he offered himself as victim, and made an all-sufficient, satisfactory, and complete sacrifice for the sin of the world.

Burdened one, groaning under the load of sin, remember that he bare thy sins in his own body on the tree. Approach the holy God, reminding him of that fact, and daring on account of it to stand unabashed and accepted in his sight.

IT IS SYMPATHETIC HELP FOR THE TEMPTED. " Them that are tempted." Within that circle we all stand. Each is tempted in subtler, if not in grosser, forms; in extraordinary, if not in ordinary, ways. You have been trying, oh, so hard, to be good; but have met with some sudden gust, and been overcome. Tempted to despair! Tempted to yield to Potiphar's wife! Tempted to become a brute! No lawn without the fowler's snare! No day without its sorrow! No night without its noisome pestilence! No rose without its thorn!

Do we not need succor? Certainly; and he is able to succor the tempted, because he has suffered the very worst that temptation can do. Not that there was ever one symptom or thought of yielding; yet suffering to the point of extreme anguish, beneath the test.

O sufferers, tempted ones, desolate and not comforted, lean your heads against the breast of the God-Man, whose feet have trodden each inch of your thorny path; and whose experiences of the power of evil well qualify him to strengthen you to stand, to lift you up if you have fallen, to speak such words as will heal the ache of the freshly gaping wound. If he were impassive, and had never wept or fought in the Garden shadows, or cried out forsaken on the cross, we had not felt him so near as we can do now in all hours of bitter grief.

O matchless Savior, on whom God our Father has laid our help, we can dispense with human sympathy, with priestly help, with the solace and stay of many a holy service; but thou art indispensable to us, in thy life, and death, and resurrection, and brotherhood, and sympathizing intercession at the throne of God!

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." -HEBREWS iii. 12.

  THE contrast between the third and fourth chapters of this epistle is very marked. The former is like a dreary November day, when all the landscape is drenched by sweeping rain, and the rotting leaves fall in showers to find a grave upon the damp and muddy soil. The latter is like a still clear day in midsummer, when nature revels in reposeful bliss beneath the unstinted caresses of the sun. There is as much difference between them as between the seventh and eighth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans.

But each chapter represents an experience of the inner Christian life. Perhaps the majority of Christians live and die in the third chapter, to their infinite loss. Comparatively few pass over into the fourth. Yet why, reader, should you not pass the boundary line today, and leave behind forever the bitter, unsatisfactory experiences which have become the normal rule of your existence? Come up out of the wilderness, in which you have wandered so long. Your sojourn there has been due, not to any desire on the part of God, or to any arbitrary appointment of his, or to any natural disability of your temperament; but to certain grave failures on your part, in the regimen of the inner life.

 The antipodes of your hitherto dreary experiences is Christ, the unsearchable riches of Christ; to be made a partaker of Christ: for Christ is the Promised Land that flows with milk and honey, in which we eat bread without scarceness, and gather the grapes and pomegranates and olives of rare spiritual blessedness.

WILDERNESS EXPERIENCES. Never did a nation occupy a prouder position than the children of Israel on the morning when they stood victorious on the shores of the Red Sea. The power of the tyrant had been broken by a series of marvelous miracles. The chivalry of Egypt had sunk as lead in the mighty waters of death. And as the sun rose behind the mountains of Edom, and struck a flashing pathway across the burnished mirror of the sea, it revealed long lines of corpses washed up to the water's edge. Behind, Egypt left forever. Above, the fleecy cloud, chariot of God, tabernacle for his presence. Before, the Land of Promise. Many a man was already dreaming of vineyards and olive yards, and a settled home, all of which lay within two or three months' easy march.

But of those six hundred thousand men, flushed with victory and hope, two only were destined to see the land flowing with milk and honey; and these not until forty weary years had slowly passed away. And what became of all the rest? Alas! their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Instead of reposing in some family burying-place in the Land of Promise, their bodies were taken up one by one and laid in the desert waste; the sands their winding-sheet; the solitude their mausoleum. It took forty years for them all to die. And to accomplish this there must have been a high percentage of deaths. How dreary those incessant funerals! How monotonous the perpetual sounds of Oriental grief moaning through the camp! What wonder that Psalm xc., Written among such scenes, is so inexpressibly sad!

The wilderness experience is emblematic, amongst other things, of unrest, aimlessness, and unsatisfied longings. Unrest: the tents were constantly being struck to be erected again in much the same spot. Theirs a perpetual weariness; and they were not suffered to enter into God's rest. Aimlessness: they wandered in the wilderness in a desert way; they found no city of habitation. Unsatisfied longings: hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

But how typical of the lives of many amongst ourselves! Life is passing away so swiftly from us, but how unideal! How few Christians seem to have learned the secret of the inner rest! How many are the victims of murmuring and discontent; or are bitten by the serpents of jealousy and passion, of hatred and ill-will! The almost universal experience tells of broken vows and blighted hopes, of purposeless wanderings, of a monotony of failure. Always striking and pitching the camp! Always surrounded by the same monotonous horizon, sand, with here and there a palm tree! Always fed on the same food, till the soul loathes it! Life passes away amid fret and chafing disappointment and weariness of existence, till we say with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

One of the scourges of the desert is the sandstorm, when the hot wind is laden with light powdery dust, which finds its way into eyes and mouth and lungs; penetrating the clothes, stinging the skin, and making life almost unbearable. An apt illustration of the small annoyances, the petty irritations, the perpetual swarm of gnat-like stings, which invade our most comfortable circumstances, and make us question whether life is worth living.

Then there is also the mirage. When from afar green glades seem to attract the weary traveler, who, as he reaches them, finds his hopes deceived and his thirst mocked. Emblem this of the disappointments to which they expose themselves who are ever seeking for some earthly good to mitigate the hardships and sorrows of their life, instead of seeking the fellowship and blessed help of the living Christ. They travel forward, thinking at every step that they are nearing an oasis in their desert march; but, as they approach, the fabric of their hopes fades away into the air.

"We are made partakers of Christ." These words may either mean that all believers together partake of the fullness of Jesus, or that they all partake with him of the fullness of God. "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." But whichever be the true rendering, the thought is inexpressibly helpful. Jesus Christ is our Promised Land, and our Joshua to lead us thither. He gives us rest. In him are orchards and vineyards, and all manner of precious things. His comfort for our sorrow; his rest for our weariness; his strength for our weakness; his purity for our corruption; his ever-present help for our need. Oh, blessed Jesus, surely it is the wonder of heaven that we make so little of thee!

THE CAUSE OF THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE. They could not enter in because of unbelief. See how unbelief raises a barrier which shuts us out of blessing. A fortune may have been left you; but if you do not believe the intelligence and apply for it, you will not profit by it. A regiment of angels may be passing by your home, with blessings in their hands that might enrich you forever; but if you do not believe the tidings that they are on the march, you will not go out to greet or welcome them. A noble character may rear itself in the neighborhood in which you live, or the society in which you move; but if you do not believe in it, you will derive no stimulus or comfort from its genial and helpful influence. So whatever Christ may be, and however near, he will be nothing to you unless you have learned to trust him.

There are three conditions in which unbelief thrives with us, as with the children of Israel: they murmured.

The first outbreak was in the wilderness of Sin (Exod.xvi.), Within a few days of the Exodus. There was no bread. The provisions hastily brought from Egypt were consumed. They had their kneading-troughs, but no flour to knead. There was no organized commissariat. "And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness: and the children of Israel said unto them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

The second outbreak was at Rephidim (Exod. xvii.). There was no water. The scanty desert brooks were heaps of scorching stones, and not a leaf of vegetation trembled in the burning sunshine. And again the sullen sounds of discontent were heard as the people muttered their belief that they had been brought out of Egypt to perish there.

But the most serious outbreak occurred shortly after they left Sinai (Num. xiii.). The green hills of Palestine at last appeared in view, and spies were sent forward to search the land. After forty days they returned laden with luscious fruits; but they had a story to tell of the strength and fortifications of the Canaanites, which filled the people with dismay; and "all the people murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and said, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt." "Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word; but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Therefore he lifted up his hand unto them, that he would overthrow them in the wilderness" (Psa. cvi. 24-26). A murmuring, complaining heart is one which has already commenced to disbelieve in the wise and loving lead of Christ, and in which unbelief will thrive.

"They departed from the living God." God is the Home and Source of life. From him, as from a fountain, all things derive their being, strength, and beauty. If Israel had remained in living union with him, there would have been no failure in their supplies; and there would have been sufficient grace to make the people calm and restful and strong amid these privations and difficulties. But they departed from him. They thought they could do better for themselves. They forsook the Fountain of living water, and went up into the hills to hew out for themselves broken, i.e., cracked cisterns, which could hold no water. Of the Rock that begat them they grew unmindful; and so became as the desert tamarisk, which inhabits dull and uninhabited wastes, in contrast to the tree whose roots are fed by rivers, and whose arms shadow generations.

Let us ask ourselves whether there has been any declension in our heart-religion, less prayerfulness, less closeness in our walk with God, less enjoyment in the worship of his house; for, if so, unbelief is sure to manifest itself, as the fungus which grows fat on the damp and foetid soil. Unbelief cannot live in the sunlight of fellowship with God.

They failed to learn the lessons of the past. They did not deny the past. They would have told you with flashing eyes the wonderful story of deliverance. But they did not trust God's love and wisdom; they did not rely on his repeated promises that he would most certainly bring them in as he had already brought them out; they did not find in the past a guarantee that he would not fail nor forsake them. At Sin they should have said, "He gave us these bodies with these appetites and needs: we may trust him to provide them with food. 'Our heavenly Father knows that we have need of all these things.'" At Marah they should have said, "He gave us manna, surely he can supply our thirst." At Paran they should have said, "God has promised to give us the land; and so, though the Canaanites are strong, and their cities walled to heaven, we will dare believe in him." Instead of this they cried, "He smote the rock, and the waters gushed out; and the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he give flesh for his people?"

As we pass through life we should carefully store our hearts with the memory of God's great goodness, and fetch from past deliverances the assurances that he will never leave, neither forsake. Has he conveyed us across the Atlantic to leave us to drown in a ditch? Has he been with us in six troubles to desert us in the seventh? Has he saved, and can he not keep? Has he redeemed us from hell, and can he not bring us to heaven?

"His love in time past forbids us to think

He'll leave us at last in trouble to sink;

Each sweet Ebenezer we have in review

Confirms his good pleasure to help us right through."

If we would guard against unbelief, we should reinforce our faith by constantly recapitulating the story of God's past dealings; and thus through the stream of memory the uplands of our life will send their deposits of blessed helpfulness to reinforce us in our daily anxieties and perplexities. "The Lord hath been mindful of us, he will bless us." "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

You were happy in your childhood; your early days were set in a golden frame; but dear ones have vanished, as the oak's shadow from the forest undergrowth, and you feel unprotected and lonely: but the God of your childhood will not be less thoughtful of you than in those happy bygone days.

You have stepped out on the waters, and as the storm threatens you, you almost wish yourself back; but he who was with you in the fair haven will be as near you when the winds rave and the waves lift up their voice. You are on the point of exchanging the flesh-pots of Egypt for the new land of Canaan, with its blessed promise; and on the way, heart and flesh fail at the new and untried scenes that daunt and perplex: but he who delivered you from Pharaoh can shield you from Amalek; he who cleft the Red Sea will divide the Jordan.

INSPIRED CAUTIONS. " Take heed lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." Unbelief is the child, not of the head, but of the heart. It is always well to know the source of disease, then the physician can attack it in its citadel. If unbelief were the creature of our intellect, we must needs meet it there with argument; but since it is the product of a wrong state of heart, of an evil heart, we must meet it there.

"This," says William Law, "is an eternal truth, which you cannot too much reflect upon, that reason always follows the state of the heart; and what your heart is, that is your reason. If your heart is full of sentiments, of penitence, and of faith, your reason will take part with your heart; but if your heart is shut up in death and dryness, your reason will delight in nothing but dry objections and speculations."

Guard against an evil heart. If the heart were in a right condition, faith would be as natural to it as flowers in spring; or as smiles on the face of healthy, innocent childhood. As soon as the heart gets into an evil state-harboring sin; cherishing things which you would not excuse in others, but condone in yourself; permitting unholy thoughts and desires to remain unchecked and unjudged, then, beware! for such a heart is no longer able to believe in God. Its head turns dizzy; its eyes are blinded; and it is in imminent peril of falling irretrievably.

Take heed, then; watch and pray; examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves! Expose yourselves to the searching light of God's Spirit. Cultivate the honest and good heart. Most of the infidelity of the present day arises from man's disinclination to retain God in his knowledge. More skepticism may be traced to a neglected prayer closet than to the arguments of infidels or the halls of secularists. First, men depart from God; then they deny him. And, therefore, for the most part, unbelief will not yield to clever sermons on the evidences, but to home thrusts that pierce the points of the harness to the soul within. "Keep thy heart beyond all keeping, since out of it are the issues of life."

Guard especially against heart-hardening. Hard hearts are unbelieving ones; therefore beware of ossification of the heart. The hardest hearts were soft once, and the softest may get hard. The chalk which now holds the fossil shells was once moist ooze. The horny hand of toil was once full of soft dimples. The murderer once shuddered when, as a boy, he crushed a worm. Judas must have been once a tender and impressionable lad.

But hearts harden gradually, like the freezing of a pond on a frosty night. At first the process can be detected by none but a practiced eye. Then there is a thin film of ice, so slender that a pin or needle would fall through. At length it will sustain a pebble, and, if winter still hold its unbroken sway, a child, a man, a crowd, a cart will follow. We get hard through the steps of an unperceived process.

The constant hearing the truth without obeying it. The knowing a better and doing the worse. The cherishing of unholy things that seem fair as angels. The refusal to confess the wrong and to profess the right. All these things harden. Beware of the deceitfulness of sin! Take heed to yourselves! Exhort one another daily.

Guard against a fickle heart. This is the sin which this epistle especially opposes. There are many around us who eagerly embrace a novelty; but when the stress comes, as it always does, like the settling of a house, there is a slackening off. We must hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope steadfast to the end. We can only become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end.

We should see not only to our own heart, but to the heart of our brethren; and exhort one another daily, watching over each other, and seeking to revive drooping piety and reanimate fainting hope. Let us take heed to these things today. Now is God's time. The Holy Ghost saith, Today. Every day of delay is dangerous, because the hardening process becomes more habitual. Today restore what you have taken wrongfully; adjust a wrong, promote a right. Today renounce some evil habit, some unhallowed pastime, some unlawful friendship. Today reach out after some further realization of the fair ideal which beckons you. Today leave the wilderness forever, and enter by faith the Land of Promise.

"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.  "-HEBREWS iv. 9.

THE keynote of this chapter is Rest. In the second verse it is spoken of as a gospel, or good news. And is there any gospel that more needs preaching in these busy, weary days, through which our age is rushing to its close, than the Gospel of Rest? On all hands we hear of strong and useful workers stricken down in early life by the exhausting effects of mental toil. The tender brain tissues were never made to sustain the tremendous wear and tear of our times. There is no machinery in human nature to repair swiftly enough the waste of nervous energy which is continually going on. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the symptoms of brain tiredness are becoming familiar to many workers, acting as warning signals, which, if not immediately attended to, are followed by some terrible collapse of mind or body, or both.

And yet it is not altogether that we work so much harder than our forefathers; but that there is so much more fret and chafe and worry in our lives. Competition is closer. Population is more crowded. Brains are keener and swifter in their motion. The resources of ingenuity and inventiveness, of creation and production, are more severely and constantly taxed. And the age seems so merciless and selfish. If the lonely spirit trips and falls, it is trodden down in the great onward rush, or left behind to its fate; and the dread of the swoop of the vultures, with rustling wings, from unknown heights upon us as their prey, fills us with an anguish which we know by the familiar name of care. We could better stand the strain of work if only we had rest from worry, from anxiety, and from the fret of the troubled sea that cannot rest, as it moans around us, with its yeasty waves, hungry to devour. Is such a rest possible?

This chapter states that such a rest is possible. "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest." Rest? What rest? His rest, says the first verse; my rest, says the third verse; God's rest, says the fourth verse. And this last verse is a quotation from the earliest page of the Bible, which tells how God rested from all the work that he had made. And as we turn to that marvelous apocalypse of the past, which in so many respects answers to the apocalypse of the future given us by the Apostle John, we find that, whereas we are expressly told of the evening and morning of each of the other days of creation, there is no reference to the dawn or close of God's rest-day; and we are left to infer that it is impervious to time, independent of duration, unlimited, and eternal; that the ages of human story are but hours in the rest-day of Jehovah; and that, in point of fact, we spend our years in the Sabbath-keeping of God. But, better than all, it would appear that we are invited to enter into it and share it; as a child living by the placid waters of a vast fresh water lake may dip into them its cup, and drink and drink again, without making any appreciable diminution of its volume or ripple on its expanse.

What is meant by God resting? Surely not the rest of weariness! "He fainteth not, neither is weary." Though he had spread forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, and had invented ten thousand differing forms of being, yet his inventiveness was as fresh, his energy as vigorous as ever. Surely not the rest of inactivity. "My Father worketh hitherto," said our Lord. "In him we live, and move, and have our being." True, he is not now sending forth, so far as we know, suns, or systems, or fresh types of being. But his power is ever at work, repairing, renewing, and sustaining the fabric of the vast machinery of the universe. No sparrow falls to the ground without him. The cry of the young lion and the lowing of the oxen in the pastures attract his instant regard. "In him all things consist." It was the rest of a finished work. He girded himself to the specific work of creation, and summoned into being all that is; and when it was finished he said it was very good: and at once he rested from all his work which he had created and made. It was the rest of divine complacency, of infinite satisfaction, of perfect content. It was equivalent to saying, "This creation of mine is all that I meant it to be, finished and perfect. I am perfectly satisfied; there is nothing more to be done; it is all very good."

This, then, is the rest which we are invited to share. We are not summoned to the heavy slumber which follows overtaxing toil, nor to inaction or indolence; but to the rest which is possible amid swift activity and strenuous work; to perfect equilibrium between the outgoings and incomings of the life; to a contented heart; to peace that passeth all understanding; to the repose of the will in the will of God; and to the calm of the depths of the nature which are undisturbed by the hurricanes which sweep the surface, and urge forward the mighty waves. This rest is holding out both its hands to the weary souls of men throughout the ages, offering its shelter as a harbor from the storms of life.

But is it certain that this rest has not already been entered and exhausted by the children of men? That question is fully examined and answered in this wonderful paragraph. The Sabbath did not realize that rest (ver. 3). We cannot prize its ministry too highly. Its law is written, not only in Scripture, but in the nature of man. The godless band of French Revolutionists found that they could not supersede the week by the decade, the one-day-in-seven by the one-day in-ten. Like a ministering angel it relieves the monotony of labor, and hushes the ponderous machinery of life, and weaves its spell of rest; but it is too fitful and transient to realize the rest of God. It may typify it, but it cannot exhaust it. Indeed, it was broken by man's rebellion as soon as God had sanctified and hallowed it. Canaan did not realize that rest (ver. 8). The Land of Promise was a great relief to the marchings and privations of the desert. But it was constantly interrupted, and at last, in the Captivity, broken up; as the forms of the mountains in the lake by a shower of hail. Besides, in the Book of Psalms, written four hundred years after Joshua had led Israel across the Jordan, The Holy Spirit, speaking by David, points onward to a rest still future (Psalm xcv. 7). Surely, then, if neither of these events has realized the rest of God, it remains still, waiting for us and all the people of God. "There remaineth, therefore," unexhausted and unrealized, "a Sabbath-keeping to the people of God."

And there is yet a further reason for this conviction of God's unexhausted rest. Jesus, our Forerunner and Representative, has entered into it for us. See what verse 10 affirms: "He that is entered into his rest; " and who can he be but our great Joshua, Jehovah-Jesus? He also has ceased from his own work of redemption, as God did from his of creation. After the creative act, there came the Sabbath, when God ceased from his work, and pronounced it very good; so, after the redemptive act, there came the Sabbath to the Redeemer. He lay, during the seventh day, in the grave of Joseph, not because he was exhausted or inactive, but because redemption was finished, and there was no more for him to do. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High; and that majestic session is a symptom neither of fatigue nor of indolence. He ever liveth to make intercession; he works with his servants, confirming their words with signs; he walks amid the seven golden candlesticks. And yet he rests as a man may rest who has arisen from his ordinary life to effect some great deed of emancipation and deliverance; but, having accomplished it, returns again to the ordinary routine of his former life, glad and satisfied in his heart. Nor is this rest for Christ alone; but for us also, who are forever identified with him in his glorious life. We have been raised up together with him in the mind and purpose of God, and have been made to sit with him in the heavenlies; so that in Jesus we have already entered into the rest of God, and have simply to appropriate it by a living faith.

How, then, may we practically realize and enjoy the rest of God ?-( 1) We must will the will of God. So long as the will of God, whether in the Bible or in providence, is going in one direction and our will in another, rest is impossible. Can there be rest in an earthly household when the children are ever chafing against the regulations and control of their parents? How much less can we be at rest if we harbor an incessant spirit of insubordination and questioning, contradicting and resisting the will of God! That will must be done on earth as it is in heaven. None can stay his hand, or say, What dost thou? It will be done with us, or in spite of us. If we resist it, the yoke against which we rebel will only rub a sore place on our skin; but we must still carry it. How much wiser, then, meekly to yield to it, and submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God, saying, "Not my will, but thine be done!" The man who has learned the secret of Christ, in saying a perpetual "Yes"to the will of God; whose life is a strain of rich music to the theme, "Even so, Father"; whose will follows the current of the will of God, as the smoke from our chimneys permits itself to be wafted by the winds of autumn, that man will find rest unto his soul.

We must accept the finished work of Christ. He has ceased from the work of our redemption, because there was no more to do. Our sins and the sins of the world were put away. The power of the adversary was annulled. The gate of heaven was opened to all that believe. All was finished, and was very good. Let us, then, cease from our works. Let us no longer feel as if we have to do aught, by our tears or prayers or works, to make ourselves acceptable to God. Why should we try to add one stitch to a finished garment, or append one stroke to the signed and sealed warrant of pardon placed within our hands? We need have no anxiety as to the completeness or sufficiency of a divinely finished thing. Let us quiet our fears by considering that what satisfies Christ, our Savior and Head, may well satisfy us. Let us dare to stand without a qualm in God's presence, by virtue of the glorious and completed sacrifice of Calvary. Let us silence every tremor of unrest by recalling the dying cry on the cross, and the witness of the empty grave.

We must trust our Father's care. "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." Sometimes like a wild deluge, sweeping all before it, and sometimes like the continual dropping of water, so does care mar our peace. That we shall some day fall by the hand of Saul; that we shall be left to starve or pine away our days in a respectable workhouse; that we shall never be able to get through the difficulties of the coming days or weeks; household cares, family cares, business cares; cares about servants, children, money; crushing cares, and cares that buzz around the soul like a swarm of gnats on a summer's day, what rest can there be for a soul thus beset? But, when we once learn to live by faith, believing that our Father loves us, and will not forget or forsake us, but is pledged to supply all our needs; when we acquire the holy habit of talking to him about all, and handing over all to him, at the moment that the tiniest shadow is cast upon the soul; when we accept insult and annoyance and interruption, coming to us from whatever quarter, as being his permission, and, therefore, as part of his dear will for us, then we have learned the secret of the Gospel of Rest.

We must follow our Shepherd's lead. " We which have believed do enter into rest" (ver. 3). The way is dark; the mountain track is often hidden from our sight by the heavy mists that hang over hill and fell; we can hardly discern a step in front. But our divine Guide knows. He who trod earth's pathways is going unseen at our side. The shield of his environing protection is all around; and his voice, in its clear, sweet accents, is whispering peace. Why should we fear? He who touches us, touches his bride, his purchased possession, the apple of his eye. We may, therefore, trust and not be afraid. Though the mountains should depart, or the hills be removed, yet will his loving kindness not depart from us, neither will the covenant of his peace be removed. And amid the storm, and darkness, and the onsets of our foes, we shall hear him soothing us with the sweet refrain of his own lullaby of rest: "My peace I give unto you; in the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace."

"The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."   HEBREWS iv. 12.

WE all have to do with God. "Him with whom we have to do." You cannot break the connection. You must do with him as a rebel, if not as a friend; on the ground of works, if not on the ground of grace; at the great white throne, if not in the fleeting days of time. You cannot do without God. You cannot do as you would if there were no God. You cannot avoid having to do with him; for even though you were to say there was no God, doing violence to the clearest instincts of your being, yet still you would breathe his air, eat his provender, occupy his world, and stand at last before his bar.

And, if you will pardon the materialism of the reference, I will follow the suggestion of my text, and say that the God with whom we have to do has eyes. "The eyes of him with whom we have to do." "Thou art a God that seest" was the startled exclamation of an Egyptian slave girl whose childhood had been spent amid the vast statues of gods who had eyes with faraway stony stare, but saw not. And she was right. "The Lord looketh from heaven; his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men."

Those eyes miss no one. " There is not any creature not manifest in his sight." The truest goodness is least obtrusive of itself. It steals unnoticed through the world, filling up its days with deeds and words of gentle kindness, which are known only to heaven; and herein it finds its sufficient reward. It prays behind closed doors; it exercises a vigorous self-denial in secret; it does its work of mercy by stealth. Thus the great blatant world of men, with its trumpets and heralds and newspaper notices, knows little of it, and cannot find the nooks where God's wild flowers bloom in inaccessible heights, for his eye alone. But the Father seeth in secret. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him. Do you want guidance? Look up! those eyes wait to guide by a glance. Are you in sorrow? they will film with tears. Are you going astray? they shall beckon you back, and break your heart, as Peter's. You will come to find your heaven in the light radiated by the eye of God, when once you have learned to meet it, clad in the righteousness of Jesus.

Unconverted reader, remember there is no screen from the eye of God. His eyes are as a flame of fire; and our strongest screens crackle up as thinnest gauze before the touch of that holy flame. Even rocks and hills are inadequate to hide from the face of him that sits upon the throne. "Whither shall I go from thy presence?" That question is unanswered, and unanswerable. It has stood upon the page of Scripture for three thousand years, and no one yet of all the myriads that have read it has been able to devise a reply. Heaven says, Not here. Hell says, Not here. It is not among angels, or the lost, or in the vast silent spaces of eternity. There is no creature anywhere not manifest to his sight. He who made vultures, able from immense heights to discern the least morsel on the desert waste, has eyes as good as they. And think how terrible are the eyes of God! When Egypt's chivalry had pursued Israel into the depths of the sea, they suddenly turned to flee. Why? Not because of thunder or lightning or voice; but because of a look. "The Lord looked out of the cloud, and troubled the Egyptians." Ah, sinner, how terrible will it be for thee to abide under the frown of God! "With the froward he will show himself froward."

Those eyes miss nothing. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." It is said of the Lord Jesus, on one occasion, that he entered into Jerusalem, and into the Temple; and when he had looked round about on all things, he went out. It was his last, long, farewell look. But note its comprehensiveness. Nothing escaped it. We look only on parts of things, and often look without seeing. But the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. "Naked and opened." This is a sacrificial phrase, indicating the priestly act of throwing the victim on its back before him, so that it lay, exposed to his gaze, helpless to recover itself, ready for the knife. Ah, how eagerly we try to hide and cloak our sin! We dare not pen a truthful diary; we dread the illness which would unlock our tongues in wholesale chatterings; we shrink from the loving gaze of our dearest. We deceive man, and sometimes ourselves; but not our great High-Priest. He sees all, that secret sin; that lurking enmity; that closed chamber; that hidden burglar; that masked assassin; that stowaway; that declension of heart; that little rift within the lute; that speck of decay in the luscious fruit. And thus it is that men are kept out of the Canaan of God's rest, because he sees the evil heart of unbelief which departs from himself; and on account of which he swears now, as of old, "they shall not enter into my rest."

Is it not a marvel that he who knows so much about us should love us still? It were indeed an inexplicable mystery, save for the truth of the words which so sweetly follow: "Seeing, then, that we have a great High-Priest." He has a priest's heart. His scrutiny is not one of morbid or idle curiosity, but of a surgeon, who intently examines the source of disease with pity and tenderness, and resolves to extirpate it as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Is it not frequently the case that fuller knowledge will beget love, which once seemed impossible? There are some people whose faces are so hard, and their eyes so cold, that we are instantly repelled; but if we knew all, how they have been pierced and wounded, and disappointed, we should begin to pity them, and pity is close kinsman to love. The Savior has known us from all eternity, our downsittings and uprisings, our secret possibilities of evil, our unfathomed depths of waywardness and depravity; and yet he loves us, and will love us.

"He knows all, But loves us better than he knows."

And out of this love, which wells up perennially in the heart of Jesus, unfrozen by the winter of our neglect, Unstanched by the demands of our fickleness, there comes the stern discipline of which this passage proceeds to speak. In majestic phrase, the Apocalyptic seer tells how he beheld the Word of God ride forth on his snow-white steed, arrayed in crimson robes, whilst the many crowns of empire flashed upon his brow. Two features are specially noted in his appearance. His eyes were as a flame of fire; this characteristic looks back over the words we have considered. Out of his mouth goeth a sharp two-edged sword; this looks forward to the words which now invite us. We must never divorce these two. The eyes and the sword. Not the eyes only; for of what use would it be to see and not strike? Not the sword only; for to strike without seeing would give needless pain, this would be surgery blindfolded. But the searching tender vision, followed by the swift and decisive flash of the sword of amputation and deliverance. Oh, who will now submit to that stroke, wielded by the gentle hand that often carried healing and blessing, and was nailed to the cross; guided by unerring wisdom, and nerved by Almighty strength? Not death, but life and fruitfulness, freedom and benediction, are all awaiting that one blow of emancipation. That sword is the Word of God.

THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING. The words he speaks are spirit and life (John vi. 63). Wherever they fall, though into dull and lifeless soil, they begin to breed life, and produce results like themselves. They come into the heart of an abandoned woman; and straightway there follow compunction for the past, vows of amendment, and the hasty rush to become an evangelist to others. They come into the heart of a dying robber; and immediately he refrains from blasphemy, and rebukes his fellow, and announces the Messiahship, the blamelessness, the approaching glory, of the dying Savior They come into hearts worn out with the wild excesses of the great pagan ages, and ill-content, though enriched with the spoils of art and refinement and philosophy in the very zenith of their development; and lo! the moral waste begins to sprout with harvests of holiness, and to blossom with the roses of heaven. If only those words, spoken from the lips of Christ, be allowed to work in the conscience, there will be forthwith the stir of life.

THE WORD OF GOD IS ACTIVE, i.e., energetic. Beneath its spell the blind see, the deaf hear, the paralyzed are nerved with new energy, the dead stir in their graves and come forth. There are few things more energetic than life. Put a seed into the fissure of a rock, and it will split it in twain from top to bottom. Though walls and rocks and ruins impede the course of the seedling, yet it will force its way to the light and air and rain. And when the Word of God enters the heart, it is not as a piece of furniture or lumber. It asserts itself and strives for mastery, and compels men to give up sin; to make up long standing feuds; to restore ill-gotten gains; to strive to enter into the strait gate. "Now ye are pruned," said our Lord, "through the word that I have spoken to you." The words of Christ are his winnowing-fan, with which he is wont to purge his flour, whether in the heart or the world. We are not, therefore, surprised that a leading tradesman in a thriving commercial center said that the visit of two evangelists, who did little else than reiterate the Word of God, was as good as a revival of trade, because it led so many people to pay up debts which were reckoned as lost.

THE WORD OF GOD IS SHARP. Its sharpness is threefold. It is sharp to pierce. On the day of Pentecost, as Peter wielded the sword of the Spirit, it pierced three thousand to the heart; and they fell wounded to the death before him, crying, "What shall we do?" Often since have strong men been smitten to the dust under the effect of that same sword, skillfully used. And this is the kind of preaching we need. Men are urged to accept of the gift of God, and many seem to comply with the invitation; but in the process of time they fall away. Is not the cause in this, that they have never been wounded to the death of their self-esteem, their heart has never been pierced to the letting of the blood of their own life, they have never been brought into the dust of death? Oh for Boanerges! able to pierce the armor of excuses of vain hopes, behind which men shield themselves, that many may cry with Ahab, pierced between the joints of the harness "Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded!"

It is sharp to divide. With his sharp knife the priest was accustomed to dissect the joints of the animal, and to open to view even the marrow of the bones. Every hair was searched, every limb examined; and thus the sacred gift was passed, and permitted to be offered in worship. And God's scrutiny is not satisfied with the external appearance and profession. It goes far deeper. It enters into those mysterious regions of the nature where soul and spirit, purpose, intention, motive, and impulse, hold their secret court, and carry on the hidden machinery of human life. Who can tread the mysterious confines where soul and spirit touch? What is the line of demarcation? Where does the one end, and the other begin? We cannot tell; but that mystic Word of God could cut the one from the other, as easily as the selvage is divided from the cloth. It is at home in distinctions which are too fine drawn and minute for human apprehension. It assumes an office like that which Jesus refused when he said, "Who made me a judge and divider over you?"

It is sharp to criticise and judge. "Quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." Christ is eager about these. Because what a man thinks and intends in his heart, that he will be sooner or later in life. We must expect to have our most secret thoughts, relations, and purposes questioned, criticized, and measured by the Word of God. No court of inquiry was ever presided over by a more exact inquisitor than this. The corpses of the dead past are exhumed; the old lumber-rooms with their padlocked boxes are explored; the accounts of bygone years are audited and taxed. God is critic of all the secrets of the heart. As each thought or intention passes to and fro, he searches it. He is constantly weighing in the balance our thoughts and aims, though they be light as air.

On one occasion, when Saul had spared the spoils of a doomed city, together with its monarch, the latter came to Samuel, not as a criminal, but delicately, as a pampered friend. And Samuel said, "As thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord." Thus it is that we have spared too many of our sins, at the risk of our irreparable rejection from the throne of true manhood and righteousness. How much better to let Christ do his work of amputation and excision! If we do not know ourselves, let us ask him to search us. If we cannot cut off the offending member, let us look to him to rid us of it.

Do not fear him; close after these terrible words, as the peal of bells after the crash of the storm on the organ at Freiburg, we are told that "he was tempted in all points like as we are," and that " we have not a High~Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." "Does she sing well?" asked the trainer of a new operatic singer. "Splendidly," was the reply; "but if I had to bring her out, I would first break her heart." He meant that one who had not been broken by sorrow could not touch the deepest chords of human life. Ah! there is no need for this with our Lord Jesus; reproach broke his heart. He understands broken hearts, and is able to soothe and save all who come unto God by him.