where the strength of our resolutions or the integrity of our intentions is to be tested. Let the scene be changed. Peter is sleeping in the garden when the Lord is in agony; "He could not watch with the Lord one hour." The Lord could draw the line, which Peter could not, and which it would be dangerous for His disciples to attempt to draw in their own case. "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Weak in reality, although strong apparently; for Peter, aroused from his slumber to fleshly confidence, "stretched out his hand, drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest and smote off his ear." Brave action to fight single handed against a multitude-"But the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God," and to watch and pray, and to have no confidence in' the flesh, is far harder. Jesus is deserted by His disciples; despised and rejected of men. Will Peter now stand by Him? Will he lay down his life for Him? Will he stand by his former confession? No. He equivocates, denies, curses, swears, "I know not the man." The Lord had now shown that He knew Peter's heart better than Peter knew it himself. He restores him with a look; but Peter went out and wept bitterly.

The history of Peter shews us the connection between the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart. Little did he know that cursing and swearing were there ready to burst forth on the occasion being opened. Is there a Christian of any experience who does not know the shame of confessing Jesus before men to be more powerful than the most upright resolution? How deceitful are our hearts in making us willing to pass as one of the company in which we are, instead of maintaining our vantage ground of confession unto Jesus. It is comparatively easy when we are among many who acknowledge Jesus also to acknowledge Him; easy to fall in with the common-place religious conversation, but for Christ to be the only object, for the Lord to be always before us, necessitates the cross. If we do not take it for granted on the authority of Him who "knows what is in man," that our "hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," so that we are led to watch and pray, we shall enter into temptation and

make the experiment to our own cost, although it may lead us to "justify God in His sayings, and clear Him when He is judged." Let us rather marvel that any are kept (for what can keep but the faithful power of God) than at Peter's fall. "If any man thinketh that he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall." "The flesh is weak," by no means consciously weak, but the reverse; strong, bold, and confident. "Let not the mighty man glory in his might." Many are the instances of undaunted human resolution. But human resolution is not the spirit of him who is the witness of Jesus. It has need to be broken, and to know that it is but weakness. "Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I

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go thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." Had the Lord rushed armed to battle at the head of His followers, in all likelihood Peter would have followed Him reckless of danger. But such boldness is weakness; for the path of faith, instead of following Jesus to battle, has to follow Him unto rejection. Such was the path of the Master. Ought not Christ to suffer, .... and to enter into His glory.' Such is the path for the servant, the way to glory is only through the But when Peter had learnt that the Lord knew him better than he knew himself, when he had learnt to suspect the deceitfulness of his heart, so that he would rather the Lord should read it than he himself;-when Peter had learnt the true secret of turning the Lord's omniscience to a practical personal account-"Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee-" then no longer prepared to glory in his "wisdom" or in "his might," the Lord could "signify to him, by what death he should glorify God," and say unto him, "Follow me." What Peter could not do in his own time, and way, and strength, the Lord enabled him to do in His time, His way, and His strength.

"What, then, shall we say to these things"? First, a Christian is "a truth-doer, and should habitually come to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." This will prevent not only

his acting a character, but also that subtle snare of using the character he has among others as a blind to conceal his own faults. Secondly, we must remember, that God's end and object is to glorify not us, but His own Son Jesus Christ. This is ever the object of the Holy Ghost, and when He "writes up" the names of the Lord's people, he hesitates not to record their sins, failings, and blemishes, sometimes even without comment, that we may learn the impossibility of any flesh glorying before the Lord. Of the best it can only be said, " to the praise of the glory of His grace;" and if that is but very imperfectly learnt here, it will be very evident when we shall know even as we ourselves are known. But lastly we are taught, both historically and doctrinally (it may be experimentally), that such is the deceitfulness of the heart, that no gifts of the highest order, no graces received out of the fulness of Jesus, no honest zeal for His name, no devotedness of past service, no activity of present service are a safeguard against it. We can only be "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.' And the unrescinded rule prescribed for our safety by Jesus is, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." The flesh in the saint is shewn in its fearful evil, by its very contiguity to the Spirit. But the heart deceitfully thinks that it needs not to be continually guarded against, and it readily gives new names to old lusts and passions; but the verdict remains unrepealed, "the flesh profiteth nothing." While watchfulness and prayer are ever needed, he only will be blameless, and shameless, and without offence, who walks in the solemn conviction that he has to fear the outbreak of the foulest sins; and unless his soul be occupied with Jesus. The sin from which his heart would recoil, if deliberately presented, may be the very one into which he is insensibly led from one step of temptation to another. "Now unto Him that is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

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No. XXI.

THE LITTLE CHILD.

MATT. XVIII. 1—22.

WE must receive the kingdom of God as a little child. Yes, indeed; and the moral of that thought is very beautiful.

The Lord Jesus, the Son in flesh, has by His death atoned for the sin which brought in death. But He also, in His life and passage through the world, acted on principles which were the very opposite and contradiction of that sin. Surely He did. He did not remove the penalty, and leave the transgression uncondemned. This He could not have done. By His death, He suffered the judgment; but in His life, He practically and thoroughly gainsayed the sin which had incurred the judgment.

This must have been so. He could not accredit the sin while suffering its judgment. The sin was pride or creature-exaltation-man seeking to be as God, affecting the place, and rights, and majesty of God. The life of Jesus, in full contradiction of such sin, was that of the self-emptied Son-the subject, obedient Jesus. The station in the world which He assumed, the trade He followed, the family He was born into, the company He kept, the circumstances He lived in, all tell us this.

Again, we may say, it could not have been otherwise. But, let me add, from the beginning God has been exercising His elect in this same lesson, humbling them while blessing them, leading them out of the original penalty or judgment into light and blessing again; but leading them by such a way as taught them, that man should not again exalt himself. And this He has done by taking up the weak, and the foolish, and the poor, in whom to illustrate His holy principles, and by whom to carry on His gracious operations.

Noah and the ark of gopher-wood; Abram, and the

call from home and kindred to be a stranger here, without friend or inheritance; the barren wife and the younger brother of the Book of Genesis; the captives in the Egyptian brick-kilns, and the infant cast out among the flags of the Egyptian river; the rod and the uplifted hand of Moses; the feet of the priests; the lamps and pitchers of Gideon; Samson with the ass's jaw-bone; David with his stone and sling; all witness this lesson, that while bringing to us and securing to us all blessing, the Lord would humble the pride of man, and throughout the wondrous story of His doings, expose the folly and the wickedness of the first departure from Him in selfexaltation.

And the elect, thus exercised and thus used of God, have rehearsed the beautiful moral of all this, and said-" Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, give glory." Daniel did so when he declared to the king, that it was not in him, but in God, to interpret dreams; as did Joseph, also, long before. But again, I say, the life of Jesus, from first to last, was speaking this language in forms of beauty and perfection, such as have glorified God beyond all that His rights and majesty were of old gainsayed in the garden of Eden. And this is very principal in the reckoning of our souls, when we are spiritually awake to the mysteries of God.

But, I ask, Has God ceased to teach this lesson? Now that we are in the Church, and on the road to the heavenly, country, has God ceased to teach this lesson? We might rather judge that He is teaching it with increased emphasis. And is it not so? Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," answers this. A little child is nothing in this world-a cipher in its great account-a weak thing a foolish thing-a thing to be passed by, not worthy of being either courted or dreaded in the important game, of the world's rivalries. It may have its own things, but they are toys. And so the Church. She has her own things, and peculiar things they are, but just such as must be esteemed toys, or childrens' playthings, by those who are concerned in the contentions of pride and selfishness on the earth.