"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."-HEBREWS iv. 16.

NEED! Time of need! Every hour we live is a time of need; and we are safest and happiest when we feel our needs most keenly. If you say that you are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, you are in the greatest destitution; but when you know yourself to be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, then the traveling merchantman is already standing on your doorstep, knocking (Rev. iii. 17-20). It is when the supply runs short, that Cana's King makes the vessels brim with wine.

Have you been convinced of your need? If not, it is quite likely that you will live and die without a glimpse of the rich provision which God has made to meet it. Of what use is it to talk of rich provisions and sumptuous viands to those already satiated? But when the soul, by the straits of its necessity, has been brought to the verge of desperation, when we cry with the lepers of old, "If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we sit still here, we die also", then we are on the verge of discovering the rich provision that awaits us (2 Kings vii. 8): all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies (Eph. i. 3); and all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. i. 3). There are two causes, therefore, why many Christians are living such impoverished lives: they have never realized their own infinite need; and they have never availed themselves of those infinite resources which hang within their reach, like fruit from the stooping boughs of an orchard in autumn.

Our needs are twofold. We need mercy. This is our fundamental need. Mercy when we are at our worst, yes, and at our best; mercy when the pruning knife cuts deep, yes, and when we are covered with foliage, flower, or fruit; mercy when we are broken and sore vexed, yes, and when we stand on the paved sapphire work upon the mountain summit to talk with God. The greatest saint among us can no more exist without the mercy of God than the ephemeral insects of a summer's noon can live without the sun.

We need grace to help. Help to walk through the valleys; and to walk on the high places, where the chamois can hardly stand. Help to suffer, to be still, to wait, to overcome, to make green one tiny spot of garden ground in God's great tillage. Help to live and to die.

Each Of these is met at the throne. Come, let us go to it. It is not the great white throne of judgment, but the rainbow-girt throne of grace. "No," you cry, "never! I am a man of unclean lips and heart; I dare not face him before whom angels veil their faces; the fire of his awful purity will leap out on me, shriveling and consuming. I exceedingly fear and quake; or, if I muster courage enough to go once, I shall never be able to go as often as I need, or to ask for the common and trivial gifts required in daily living." Hush, soul! thou mayest approach as often and as boldly as thou wilt; for we have a great High Priest, who is passed through the heavens, and not one who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

A PRIEST.-Deep down in the heart of men there is a strong and instinctive demand for a priest, to be daysman and mediator, to lay one hand on man and the other on God, and to go between them both. Wit and sarcasm may launch their epithets on this primordial craving; but they might as well try to extinguish by the same methods the craving of the body for food, of the understanding for truth, of the heart for love. And no religion is destined to meet the deepest yearnings of the race, which does not have glowing at the heart the provision of a priest to stand before the throne of grace; as, of old, the priest stood before the mercy seat, which was its literal prefigurement under the dispensation of the Levitical law.

A curious proof of this human craving for a priest is given in the book of Judges. On the ridge of the hills of Ephraim stood the ancestral home of a wealthy family, containing within its precincts a private sanctuary, where though there were teraphim, ephod, and vestments, yet there was no priest. Nothing, however, could compensate for that fatal lack. And Micah said to a Levite, who happened to pass by: "Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest." And when he, nothing loath, consented, Micah comforted himself by saying, "Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." But the same feelings that actuated him were shared by a portion of the tribe of Dan, on their way to colonize a remote part of the country. They, too, must have a priest; and so, while six hundred armed warriors stood around the gate, five men stole through the court, broke into the little chapel, carried off its images and other apparatus for worship, bribed the priest, by the offer of higher wage, to accompany them; and, long before the theft was discovered, the whole party had resumed their journey, and were far upon their way.

All families of mankind have followed the same general Programme. Wherever they have built homes for themselves, they have erected the wigwam, the pagoda, the Parthenon, the obelisk guarded temple, the Gothic Minster fashioned after the model of the forest glade, a leafy oracle petrified to stone; and they have chosen one of themselves, set apart from ordinary work, and sanctified by special rites to minister, treading its floors, and pleading at its altars, interceding for them in times of famine, pestilence, and plague; blessing their arms as they went forth to fight, and receiving their spoils of victory; making propitiation for sin, and assuring of forgiveness.

This craving was most carefully met in that venerable religion in which these Hebrew Christians had been reared. The sons of Aaron were the priests of Israel. They wore a special dress, ate special food, and lived in special towns; whilst every care was taken to accentuate their separation to transact the spiritual concerns of the nation. For sixteen centuries this system had prevailed, relying around it the deepest and most sacred emotions; and, like ivy, entwining itself around the oak of the national life. And, as we have seen, it was no small privation for these new converts to wrench themselves from such a system, and accept a religion in which there was no visible temple, ceremonial, or priest.

But here we learn that Jesus Christ is the perfect answer to these instinctive cravings which blindly pointed to him in all ages of human and Hebrew history. This is the aim of these opening chapters, and by two lines of proof we have been led to the same conclusion. Before us stand two mighty columns: the one is in chapters i. and ii. Of this Epistle; the other is in iii. And iv. They have a common base from which they spring, the Sonship of Christ. The first column is called, Christ superior to Angels; and this is the scroll around its capital, that Jesus, as man's representative, has entered into the glories promised in the eighth Psalm. The second column is called, Christ superior to Moses; with this scroll around its capital, that Jesus, as our representative, has entered into the Rest of God. And each of them helps to support a common chapter, the Priesthood of Christ. The first two chapters end with a description of the merciful and faithful High Priest, who makes reconciliation for the sins of the people (ii. I 7, I 8). The next two chapters close with the words on which we are dwelling now, concerning the Great High-Priest (iv. 14). In the mouth of two witnesses every word is established. We need no human priests. Their work is done, their office is superseded, their functions are at an end. To arrogate any priestly functions of sacrifice, of absolution, or of imparting sacramental grace, is to intrude sacrilegiously on ground which is sacred to the Son of God; and, however royal such are in mien or intellect, they must be withstood, as Azariah withstood Uzziah-saying, "It appertaineth not unto thee to burn incense unto the Lord, but to Jesus, our Great High-Priest; go out of his office, for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God."

A HIGH PRIEST. A Priest of priests, able to sacrifice, not only for the people, but for all the priests of his house; and alone responsible for the rites of the great day of Atonement, when every other priest was banished from the precincts of the Temple, while the high priest, clad in simple white, made an atonement for the sins of himself, his family, and his people.

We have been made priests unto God; but our priestly work consists in the offering of the incense of prayer and praise, and the gifts of surrendered lives. We have nothing to do with atonement for sin; which is urgently required by us, not only for our sins as ordinary members of the congregation, but for those which, consciously or unconsciously, we commit in the exercise of our priestly office. Our penitential tears need to be sprinkled by the blood of Jesus; our holiest hours need to be accepted through his merits; our noblest service would condemn us, save for his atoning sacrifice.

A GREAT HIGH PRIEST. All other high priests were inferior to him. He is as much superior to the high priests as any one of them was to the priests of his time. But this does not exhaust his greatness. He does not belong to their line at all, but to an older, more venerable, and grander one; of which that mysterious personage was the founder, to whom Abraham, the father of Israel, gave tithes and homage. "Declared of God a High Priest after the order of Melchisedek." Nay, further, his greatness is that of the Son of God, the fellow and equal of Deity. He is as great as his infinite nature and the divine appointment and his ideal of ministry could make him.

PASSED THROUGH THE HEAVENS. Between the holy place where the priest daily performed the service of the sanctuary, and the inner shrine forbidden to all save to the high priest once each year, there hung a veil of blue. And of what was that blue veil the emblem, save of those heavenly curtains, the work of God's fingers, which hang between our mortal vision and the marvels of his presence chamber? Once a year the high priest carried the blood of propitiation through the blue veil of separation, and sprinkled it upon the mercy seat; and in this significant and solemn act he typified the entrance of our blessed Lord into the immediate presence of God, bearing the marks and emblems of his atoning death, and taking up his position there as our Mediator and Intercessor, in whom we are represented, and for whose sake we are accepted and beloved.

TOUCHED WITH THE FEELING OF OUR INFIRMITIES. He hates the sin, but loves the sinner. His hatred to the one is measured by his cross; his love to the other is infinite as his nature. And his love is not a dreamy ecstasy; but practical, because all the machinery of temptation was brought into Operation against him. It would take too long to enumerate the points at which the great adversary of souls assails us; but there is not a sense, a faculty, a power, which may not be the avenue of his attack. Through eye-gate, ear-gate, and thought-gate his squadrons seek to pour. And, marvelous though it be, yet our High Priest was tempted in all these points, in body, soul, and spirit; though there was no faltering in his holy resolution, no vacillation or shadow of turning, no desire to yield. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."

All his experiences are vividly present to him still; and whenever we go to him, pleading for mercy or help, he instantly knows just how much and where we need it, and immediately his intercessions obtain for us, and his hands bestow, the exact form of either we may require. "He is touched." That sympathetic heart is the metropolis to which each afferent nerve carries an immediate thrill from the meanest and remotest members of his body, bringing at once in return the very help and grace which are required. Oh to live in touch with Christ! always touching him, as of old the women touched his garment's hem; and receiving responses, quick as the lightning flash, and full of the healing, saving virtue of God (Mark .28).

"Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared: though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." HEBREWS v.7, 8.

Eight ancient olive trees still mark the site of Gethsemane; not improbably they witnessed that memorable and mysterious scene referred to here. And what a scene was that! It had stood alone in unique and unapproachable wonder, had it not been followed by fifteen hours of even greater mystery.

The strongest words in Greek language are used to tell of the keen anguish through which the Savior passed within those Garden walls. "He began to be sorrowful"; as if in all his past experiences he had never known what sorrow was! "lie was sore amazed"; as if his mind were almost dazed and overwhelmed. "He was very heavy," his spirit stooped beneath the weight of his sorrows, as afterward his body stooped beneath the weight of his cross; or the word may mean that he was so distracted with sorrow, as to be almost beside himself. And the Lord himself could not have found a stronger word than he used when he said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."

But the evangelist Luke gives us the most convincing proof of his anguish when he tells us that his sweat, like great beads of blood, fell upon the ground, touched by the slight frost, and in the cold night air. The finishing touch is given in these words, which tell of his "strong crying and tears."

THE THINGS WHICH HE SUFFERED. What were they? They were not those of the Substitute. The tenor of Scripture goes to show that the work of substitution was really wrought out upon the cross. There the robe of our completed righteousness was woven from the top throughout. It was on the free that he bare our sins in his own body. It was by his blood that he brought us nigh to God. It was by the death of God's Son that we have been reconciled to God; and the repeated references of Scripture, and especially of this epistle, to sacrifice, indicate that in the act of dying, that was done which magnifies the law, and makes it honorable, and removes every obstacle that had otherwise prevented the love of God from following out its purposes of mercy.

We shall never fully understand here how the Lord Jesus made reconciliation for the sins of the world, or how that which he bore could be an equivalent for the penalty due from a sinful race. We have no standard of comparison; we have no line long enough to let us down into the depths of that unexplored mystery; but we may thankfully accept it as a fact stated on the page of Scripture perpetually, that he did that which put away the curse, atoned for human guilt, and was more than equivalent to all those sufferings which a race of sinful men must otherwise have borne. The mystery defies our language, but it is apprehended by faith; and as she stands upon her highest pinnacles, love discerns the meaning of the death of Christ by a spiritual instinct, though as yet she has not perfectly learned the language in which to express her conceptions of the mysteries that circle around the cross. It may be that in thousands of unselfish actions, she is acquiring the terms in which some day she will be able to understand and explain all.

But all that we need insist on here, and now, is that the sufferings of the Garden are not to be included in the act of Substitution, though, as we shall see, they were closely associated with it. Gethsemane was not the altar, but the way to it.

Our Lord's suffering in Gethsemane could hardly arise from the fear of his approaching physical sufferings. Such a supposition seems wholly inconsistent with the heroic fortitude, the majestic silence, the calm ascendancy over suffering with which he bore himself till he breathed out his spirit, and which drew from a hardened and worldly Roman expressions of respect.

Besides, if the mere prospect of scourging and crucifixion drew from our Lord these strong crying and tears and bloody sweat, he surely would stand on a lower level than that to which multitudes of his followers attained through faith in him. Old men like Polycarp, tender maidens like Blandina, timid boys like Attalus, have contemplated beforehand with unruffled composure, and have endured with unshrinking fortitude, deaths far more awful, more prolonged, more agonizing. Degraded criminals have climbed the scaffold without a tremor or a sob; and surely the most exalted faith ought to bear itself as bravely as the most brutal indifference in the presence of the solemnities of death and eternity. It has been truly said that there is no passion in the mind of man, however weak, which cannot master the fear of death; and it is therefore impossible to suppose that the fear of physical suffering and disgrace could have so shaken our Savior's spirit.

But he anticipated the sufferings that he was to endure as the propitiation for sin. He knew that he was about to be brought into the closest association with the sin which was devastating human happiness and grieving the divine nature. He knew, since he had so identified himself with our fallen race, that, in a very deep and wonderful way, he was to be made sin and to bear our curse and shame, cast out by man, and apparently forsaken by God. He knew, as we shall never know, the exceeding sinfulness and horror of sin; and what it was to be the meeting-place where the iniquities of our race should converge, to become the scapegoat charged with guilt not his own, to bear away the sins of the world. All this was beyond measure terrible to one so holy and sensitive as he.

He had long foreseen it. He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Each time a lamb was slain by a conscience-stricken sinner, or a scapegoat let go into the wilderness, or a pigeon dipped into the flowing water encrimsoned by the blood of its mate, he had been reminded of what was to be. He knew before his incarnation where in the forest the seedling was growing to a sapling from the wood of which his cross would be made. He even nourished it with his rain and sun. Often during his public ministry he was evidently looking beyond the events that were transpiring around him to that supreme event, which he called his "hour." And as it came nearer, his human soul was overwhelmed at the prospect of having to sustain the weight of a world's sin. His human nature did not shrink from death as death; but from the death which he was to die as the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world.

Six months before his death he had set his face to go to Jerusalem, with such a look of anguish upon it as to fill the hearts of his disciples with consternation. When the questions of the Greeks reminded him that he must shortly fall into the ground and die, his soul became so troubled that he cried, "Father, save me from this hour !" And now, with strong cryings and tears, he made supplication to his Father, as king that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from him. In this his human soul spoke. As to his divinely wrought purpose of redemption, there was no vacillation or hesitation. But, as man, he asked whether there might not be another way of accomplishing the redemption on which he had set his heart.

But there was no other way. The Father's will, which he had come down from heaven to do, pointed along the rugged, flinty road that climbed Calvary, and passed over it, and down to the grave. And at once he accepted his destiny, and with the words "If this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy will be done," he stepped forth on the flints that were to cut those blessed feet, drawing from them streams of blood.

HIS STRONG CRYING AND TEARS. Our Lord betook himself to that resource which is within the reach of all, and which is peculiarly precious to those who are suffering and tempted, he prayed. His heart was overwhelmed within him; and he poured out all his anguish into his Father's ears, with strong cryings and tears. Let us note the characteristics of that prayer, that we too may be able to pass through our dark hours, when they come.

It was secret prayer. Leaving the majority of his disciples at the Garden gate, he took with him the three who had stood beside Jairus's dead child, and had beheld the radiance that steeped him in his transfiguration. They alone might see him tread the winepress: but even they were left at a stone's cast, whilst he went forward alone into the deeper shadow. We are told that they became overpowered with sleep; so that no mortal ear heard the whole burden of that marvelous prayer, some fitful snatches of which are reserved in the Gospels.

It was humble prayer. The evangelist Luke says that he knelt. Another says that he fell on his face. Being formed in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. And it may be that even then he began to recite that marvelous Psalm, which was so much on his lips during those last hours, saying, "I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the people."

It was filial prayer. Matthew describes our Lord as saying, "0 my Father"; and Mark tells us that he used the endearing term which was often spoken by the prattling lips of little Jewish children, Abba. For the most part, he probably spoke Greek; but Aramaic was the language of his childhood, the language of the dear home in Nazareth. In the hour of mortal agony, the mind ever reverts to the associations of its first awakening. The Savior, therefore, appearing to feel that the more stately Greek did not sufficiently express the deep yearnings of his heart, substituted for it the more tender language of earlier years. Not "Father" only, but "Abba, Father!"

It was earnest prayer. "He prayed more earnestly," and one proof of this appears in his repetition of the same words. It was as if his nature were too oppressed to be able to express itself in a variety of phrase; such as might indicate a certain leisure and liberty of thought. One strong current of anguish running at its highest could only strike one monotone of grief, like the note of the storm or the flood. Back, and back again, came the words, cup . .pass . . . will . . . Father. And the sweat of blood, pressed from his forehead, as the red juice of the grape beneath the heavy foot of the peasant, witnessed to the intensity of his soul.

It was submissive prayer. Matthew and Mark quote this sentence, "Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." Luke quotes this, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done."

Jesus was the Father's Fellow's coequal in his divine nature; but for the purpose of redemption it was needful that he should temporarily divest himself of the use of the attributes of his deity, and live a truly human life. As man, he carefully marked each symptom of his Father's will, from the day when it prompted him to linger behind his parents in the temple; and he always instantly fulfilled his behests. "I came down from heaven," he said, "not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. "This was the yoke he bore, and in taking it, he found rest unto his soul. Whatever was the danger or difficulty into which such obedience might carry him, he ever followed the beacon-cloud of the divine will; sure that the manna of daily strength would fall, and that the deep sweet waters of peace would follow where it led the way. That way now seemed to lead through the heart of a fiery furnace. There was no alternative than to follow; and he elected to do so, nay, was glad, even then, with a joy that the cold waters of death could not extinguish. At the same time, he learnt what obedience meant, and gave an example of it, that shone out with unequaled majesty, purity, and beauty, unparalleled in the annals of the universe. As man, our Lord then learnt how much was meant by that word obedience. "He learned obedience." And now he asks that we should obey him, as he obeyed God. "Unto them that obey him."

Sometimes the path of the Christian's obedience becomes very difficult. It climbs upward; the gradient is continually steeper; the foothold ever more difficult; and, as the evening comes, the nimble climber of the morning creeps slowly forward on hands and knees. The day is never greater than the strength; but as the strength grows by use, the demands upon it are greater, and the hours longer. At last a moment may come, when we are called for God's sake to leave some dear circle; to risk the loss of name and fame; to relinquish the cherished ambition of a life; to incur obloquy, suffering, and death; to drink the bitter cup; to enter the brooding cloud; to climb the smoking mount. Ah! then we too learn what obedience means; and have no resource but in strong cryings and tears.

In such hours pour out thy heart in audible cries. Plentifully mingle the name "Father" with thine entreaties. Fear not to repeat the same words. Look not to man, he cannot understand thee; but to him who is nearer to thee than thy dearest. So shalt thou get calmer and quieter, until thou rest in his will; as a child, worn out by a tempest of passion, sobs itself to sleep on its mother's breast.

THE ANSWER. "He was heard for his godly fear." His holy reverence and devotion to his Father's will made it impossible that his prayers should be unanswered; although, as it so often happens, the answer came in another way than his fears had suggested. The cup was not taken away, but the answer came. It came in the mission of the angel that stood beside him. It came in the calm serenity with which he met the brutal crowd, that soon filled that quiet Garden with their coarse voices and trampling feet. It came in his triumph over death and the grave. It came in his being perfected as mediator, to become unto all them that obey him the Author of eternal salvation, and the High-Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Prayers prompted by love and in harmony with godly fear are never lost. We may ask for things which it would be unwise and unkind of God to grant; but in that case, his goodness shows itself rather in the refusal than the assent. And yet the prayer is heard and answered. Strength is instilled into the fainting heart. The faithful and merciful High-Priest does for us what the angel essayed to do for him; but how much better, since he has learnt so much of the art of comfort in the school of suffering! And out of it the way finally emerges into life, though we have left the right hand and foot in the grave behind us. We also discover that we have learnt the art of becoming channels of eternal salvation to those around us. Ever since Jesus suffered there, Gethsemane has been threaded by the King's highway that passes through it to the New Jerusalem. And in its precincts God has kept many of his children, to learn obedience by the things that they suffer, and to learn the divine art of comforting others as they themselves have been comforted by God.

There are comparatively few, to whom Jesus does not say, at some time in their lives, "Come and watch with me." He takes us with him into the darksome shadows of the winepress, though there are recesses of shade, at a stone's cast, where he must go alone. Let us not misuse the precious hours in the heavy slumbers of insensibility. There are lessons to be learnt there which can be acquired nowhere else; but if we heed not his summons to watch with him, it may be that he will close the precious opportunity by bidding us sleep on and take our rest; because the allotted term has passed, and the hour of a new epoch has struck. If we fail to use for prayer and preparation the sacred hour, that comes laden with opportunities for either; if we sleep instead of watching with our Lord: what hope have we of being able to play a noble part when the flashing lights and the trampling feet announce the traitor's advent? Squander the moments of preparation, and you may have to rue their loss through all the coming years!

"It Is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."-HEBREWS vi. 4-6.

 The sacred writer enumerates four fundamental principles: Repentance from dead works, which in the old dispensation was symbolized by divers baptisms, or washings; Faith toward God, typified by the laying of hands on the head of the victim-sacrifices; the Resurrection of the dead; and Eternal Judgment. And then he proposes not to lay them again, but to leave them. There is no thought, however, of deserting them. The great principles on which God saves the soul are identical in every age, and indispensable.

We can only leave them as the child leaves the multiplication-table, when it is well learnt, but which lies at the root of all after-study; as the plant leaves the root, when it towers into the majestic shrub, which draws all its life from that low origin; and as the builder leaves the foundation, that he may carry up stone on stone, and leans on the foundation most heavily, when he has left it at the furthest distance below him. And we are taught the reason why these principles are not laid afresh. It would be useless to do so; it would serve no good purpose; it would leave in the same state as it found them those who had apostatized from the faith. And so we are led to one of those passages which sensitive spirits have turned to their own torment and anguish; just as men will distill the rankest poison from some of the sweetest flowers.

HOW FAR WE MAY GO, AND YET FALL AWAY. These apostate disciples had been enlightened (ver. 4). They had been led to see their sin and danger, the temporary nature of Judaism, the dignity and glory of the Savior Other Hebrews might be ignorant, the folds of the veil hanging heavily over their sight; but it could never be so with them, since they had stood in the midst of the Gospel's meridian light, and had been enlightened.

So may it be with us. Not like the savage, crouching before his fetish, or roaming over the wild; not like the follower of Confucius, Buddha, or Mahomet, groping in the twilight of nature or religious guesswork; not like myriads in our own land, whose hearts are as dark as the chaos into which God commanded the primeval beam to shine: we have been enlightened. We may know that we are sinners; we may have learnt from childhood the scheme of salvation; we may be familiar with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, into which angels desire to look: and yet we may fall away.

These Hebrews, here referred to, had also tasted of the heavenly gift. What gift is that? I hear a voice, which we know well, speaking from the well of Sychar, and saying: "The water that I shall give shall be in thee, springing up into everlasting life." It is the life of God in the soul; it is Christ himself; and he is willing to be in us, like a perennial spring, unstanched in drought, unfrozen in frost, leaping up, in fresh and living beauty, like some warm spring that makes a paradise in the arctic circle.

But some are content not to receive it, only to taste it. This is what these persons did. They sipped the sweetness of Christ. They had a passing superficial glimpse into his heart. Like Gideon's soldiers, they caught up a few drops in their hands from the river of God, and hastened on their way. So we may have some pleasure in thoughts of Christ. His sufferings touch; his beauty attracts; his history moves and inspires. But it is only a taste; and yet we may fall away. They had also been made partakers of the Holy Ghost. It is not said that they had been converted, regenerated, or filled by the Holy Ghost. The expression is a very peculiar one, and it is used because the sacred writer could not affirm any of these things of them, and yet Was anxious to show that they had been brought under his gracious influences. For instance, he had convinced them of sin, had striven with them, had plied them with warning and entreaty, with fear and hope. And they had so far yielded to him as to give up some of their sins and assume the outward guise of Christianity.

Moreover, they had tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come. The first of these is obviously the Scriptures; and the second is the usual expression for the age in which we live, and which, with all its spiritual forces, was beginning to thrill the hearts of men when these words were penned. They liked a good sermon; the Bible was full of interest and charm; they had heard the prophets, and seen the apostles of the Pentecostal age. All these had been analyzed, weighed, and counted; and yet they were in peril of going back. Let us, therefore, beware!

WHAT IS IT TO FALL AWAY? It is something more than to fall. The real child of God may fall, as David or as Peter did; but there is a vast difference between falling and falling away. This latter experience can no more come to a real believer than a second flood of waters to the earth; but it will certainly find out the counterfeit and the sham.

To fall away is to go back from the outward profession of Christianity, not temporarily, but finally; not as the result of some sudden sin, but because the first outward stimulus is exhausted, and there is no true life beating at the heart, to repair or reinvigorate the wasting devotion of the life. It is to resemble those wandering planets, which never shone with their own light, but only in the reflected light of some central sun; but which, having broken from its guiding leash, dash further and further into the blackness of darkness, without one spark of life or heat or light. It is to return as a dog to its vomit, and as a sow to her filth; because the reformation was only outward and temporary, and the dog or sow natures were never changed through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. It is to be another Judas; to commit the sin against the Holy Ghost; to lose all earnestness of feeling, all desire for better things, all power of tender emotion; and to become utterly callous and dead, as the pavement on which we walk, or the rusty armor hanging on the old castle's walls.

WHY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RESTORE SUCH TO REPENTANCE. Notice, there is nothing said here of what God can do. The only question is as to the limits of human power, and the ordinary methods of influencing human wills. Also notice, we are not told that God could not save those who had fallen away; but that it is impossible to hope that a man who has passed through the experiences just described, and has nevertheless apostatized, can be reached or touched by any of those arguments or motives which are familiar weapons in the Gospel armory. If the mightiest arguments have been brought to bear on the conscience in vain; if after some slight response, which gave hopes of better things, it has relapsed into the stupor and insensibility of its former state, there remains nothing more to be done. There is nothing more potent than the wail of Calvary's broken heart, and the peal from Sinai's brow; and, if these have been tried in vain, no argument is left which can touch the conscience and arouse the heart. If these people had never been exposed to these appeals, there would have been some hope for them; but what hope can there be now, since, in having passed through them without permanent effect, they have become more hardened in the process than they were at first?

Here is a man dragged from an ice-pond, and brought into the infirmary. Hot flannels are at once applied; the limbs are chafed; every means known to modern science for restoring life is employed. At first it seems as if these appliances will take effect, there are twitchings and convulsive movements; but, alas! they soon subside, and the surgeon gravely shakes his head. "Can you do nothing else?" "Nothing," he replies; "I have used every method I can devise; and if these fail, it is impossible to renew again to life."

This passage has nothing to do with those who fear lest it condemns them. The presence of that anxiety, like the cry which betrayed the real mother in the days of Solomon, establishes beyond a doubt that you are not one that has fallen away beyond the possibility of renewal to repentance. If you are still touched by Gospel sermons, and are anxious to repent, and are in godly fear lest you should be a castaway, take heart! these are signs that this passage has no bearing on you. Why make yourself ill with a sick man's medicine? But if you are growing callous and insensible under the preaching of the Gospel, look into this passage and see your doom, unless you speedily arrest your steps.

THE NATURAL ILLUSTRATION (ver. 7). Behold that field, well situated, prepared by careful culture and arduous toil: the good seed is scattered with lavish hand; the rain comes oft upon it; the sunshine kisses it; the seasons, as they pass, woo it to bear fruit. At first it would appear as if it were about to answer the expectations freely entertained. But see, the show of green which covers its face turns out to be a crop of briars and thorns. The owner for whom it was dressed comes to visit it. "What," cries he, "have you done all you could, this, and that, and the other?" "All," is the reply. Then the decision comes back, stern and sad, "It is useless to expend more time or care. Leave it to its fate. Let no fruit grow on it henceforth and forever."

We may resemble that field; and yet, whilst there is a spark of devotion, a thrill of holy longing, a sigh after a better life, a yearning to be penitent and holy, there is still hope. The great Husbandman will not cast us off, so long as there is one redeeming feature in our condition. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He will not fail, nor be discouraged, until he has made the desert into a garden, and the wilderness like the paradise of God.