pit, and makes all the enemies of Christ lick the dust: "then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The strange presentation of Christ in the opening chapters of the Revelation, as the Son of Man" with eyes as a flame of fire, and a sharp two-edged sword proceeding out of His mouth," may well intimate the character of His mission to the Seven Churches. The responsible witness on earth was thus tested; whether it faithfully maintained the place of separateness to God, to Christ, and to truth in which grace had set it; and, on the other hand, whether these churches were exclusive of all evil? Alas! the first had left her early love, and into the others Satan had introduced all the corruptions, whether religious, ecclesiastical, or social that were contrary to the light in which God dwells, and opposed to the fellowship of the Father and the Son into which men in Christ were called, and in which they were originally set. The Lord Himself says of the last form of the Laodicean evil "because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

Moreover, God in righteous government visits the ripening iniquity of the world under the guidance of Satan, by the seven trumpets, the seven thunders, and the seven vials; "but men blasphemed God the more for the plagues." On the other hand, "the door opened in heaven" shows how God has gathered to Himself, in peace and blessing, the church which He had purchased with the blood of His own. All that is born of God goes up to the Father in the triumphant hour of Christ's coming, and is presented in His presence, faultless and with exceeding joy. That which is of Satan-yea, the Dragon himself, and the Beast, and the False Prophet, and all the wicked living are driven to their own place in outer darkness where no light is. The world itself is cleared of all its pollutions by the besom of destruction, and riddance made for the establishment of righteousness and holiness.

If we pass on to the close of Rev. xix., it describes the judgment of God on the great Babylon-the concentration of the proud systems of human enterprise and

greatness. "Alas! alas! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, for in one hour so great riches is come to naught." Thus the sources and active agents of the great apostasy are judged and put aside: the gigantic growth of systematic corruption, "the mother of harlots," is burned with fire, and all the glory of man is withered like the grass of the field, but only to give place to what comes down from God out of heaven with His glory. Good and evil, light and darkness, clean and unclean, once measured in the balances of the sanctuary, or maintained in their relative distances by the perfectness of Christ when on earth, or since by the Holy Ghost, in the man in Christ and in the church, are now separated for ever by the judgment of God. Right things suited to God and Christ, to holiness and truth must now come in and take their proper places upon the foundations of jasper and sapphire. "Come hither, I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's wife," and the angel "showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious." "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." God has separated from Himself everything contrary to Himself, and has excluded it from His presence. Life, light, and love are now together, no longer encumbered by their opposites; but free and unfettered in their own enjoyments, where all is according to God in true holiness. The first man of the earth, earthy, and all the consequences of the fall are superseded, either by sovereign grace to the redeemed, or by terrible judgment on the lost: and the second man, the Lord from heaven, is the heir of all things-the beginning of the new creation of God.

Finally, this book closes by the revelation of God and the Lamb, as the light of the heavenly Jerusalem. A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeds out of the throne: the nations of them that are saved walk in the light thereof. In the midst of the street, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, whose

leaves were for the healing of the nations, and they shall bring their glory and honour to it. Blessed scenes! where God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes, when sorrow and sighing shall flee, and all the catalogue of the former things connected with the flesh, the world, and Satan passed away, be forgotten and out of mind. Nothing remains but God, the Father of all the redeemed families in the heavens and on the earth: nothing is heard from the sea and upwards but one universal song of thanksgiving and praise: nothing from the highest heaven downward but rejoicing and the voice of melody. Life, light, and love are with God, and where God is. Sin, darkness, and death are with Satan, and where Satan is shut up; never to come in sight of each other again, throughout the countless ages of eternity.

J. E. B.

N. V.

REMARKS UPON "THE BRITISH CHURCHES IN RELATION TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE;"

BY E. MIALL.

I FIND for my own spirit that the Christian has to watch against being brought under the pressure of what is going on around; if he give heed to it, even as a part of the ways or judgments of God. We are called to heavenly things; to have our conversation in heaven; to be occupied with Christ, sanctified by the truth, in that He has sanctified Himself, that we may be sanctified by the truth. We have to be simple concerning evil, and wise concerning that which is good; a blessed and most admirable precept, such as Christianity alone can bring about. We are warned that in the last days perilous times shall come. The terrible description of that state of things morally is given; but how simple the remedy when the perception of such a state exists: "from such turn away. Turned away we are free to be occupied with Christ, and those heavenly things which sanctify us practically now, and are our everlasting portion. No

state of things can alter the Word. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God ; to them who are the called according to purpose. We are purified to Christ to be a peculiar people-a people appropriated to Himself. May we remember it. With this caution, which I find needed for myself as well as others, it is well to be aware, and the Spirit of God has made us aware that there are perilous times, and that in the last days, in which we are.

One of the great questions in these days is that of ministry, or as I may also call it, the clergy. It may interest your readers to see how this subject is viewed by leading and intelligent dissenters. I refer to and shall quote from a book published some time ago; but which, occupied with my own labours, I had never seen before; the occasion of it was the discussion in the Congrega tional Union of England and Wales, of the question of the general indifference of the working classes to our religious institutions. With many things in it I cordially agree; but there are in it the fatal and general errors of looking for good in the natural man, and looking for the development of that good by the liberty of the will. The Christian kindness, which in taking a place with the poorest-a hearty, willing, and ready place, as all alike before God and in grace-seeks to win sinners to Christ and to their own blessing, which takes this place as the very spirit of Christ and Christianity, I cordially accept and desire to walk in. We are all alike before God, and, if there be any difference, He thinks most of the poor; and so ought the Christian, and so did Christ. But to confound this with letting loose natural will is a deception denying the sinful state of man. The confusion of these two things is so common now-a-days, and where we do not keep close to Christ there is such a pandering to evil instead of bringing good with the hope to win thereby, that it is well to note the difference. Let Christians be the meekest and humblest on earth as Christ was; it is what they ought to be, and that will bring them into contact with every need as it did Christ; but let them not flatter sinful man to his ruin, and fancy that that is the same thing. The path of wisdom is one

which the vulture's eye hath not seen; death and destruction have heard the fame of it; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of it, the path of Christ its perfection in this world; a new divine path He is and was, that divine wisdom in His walk here-the wisdom of God and the power of God. I have been led to say thus much in alluding to this book, as a principle needed always and especially in these days; but I turn to the book itself, to bring into notice the statements as to ministry and how Scripture affects other minds too when searched into. I find a confusion (which in earlier times, I myself fell into, so that I could ill reproach anyone else with it) of gifts and ministry with elders, as if this last was the exercise of a gift; and there may be other misapprehensions such as we are all liable to; but in the main, what brethren are so much reproached with, is here admitted to be the true Scriptural path; and what they are reproached with giving up, is treated as one great hindrance to usefulness. The writer attacks pulpits. I would not do so, provided they are not used in what are the assemblies of the saints, properly speaking.

The gifts of ministry exist in the assembly, not properly in an assembly; and we may exercise them individually, and either evangelize or teach in our individual capacity, or as meeting in the assembly of the saints. In this last a pulpit is out of place. In it one is no longer with the saints. But when I teach as an individual (and as a servant of Christ I may do that), I am not with the saints, but teaching them according to the gift given me. The positions are different and yet both Scriptural and right. With this remark I give the quotations. They are from Mr. E. Miall's "The British Churches in Relation to the British People," 2nd edit., p. 172.

"

"Next, in the natural order of the arrangements now under our review, comes ordination. If there is little in the new Testament to sanction the common notion of a ministerial order, there is less to sustain that of ordination. A few passages in which mention is made of specific appointment to "eldership" in the Churches-two or three which imply such appointment to have been expressed, as, indeed, appointment to office usually was in the East, by imposition of hands-and an apostolic phrase, here and there, intimating the communication of some super