beauties, appropriate its blessings, and rejoice in its Creator. All things are the property of the good. "All things are yours," &c.

Fourthly: It is free. For whom is this wealth? Here is the answer in the twelfth verse—“ What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that He shall choose." It does not matter who he is if he has religion. He makes a lodgment in the realm of goodness; he enters into this inheritance. Here then is the true otium cum dignitate of souls-dwelling at ease.

V. The way of DIVINE FRIENDSHIP. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant." The man who walks in the way God would have him walk gets so friendly and so intimate with Him, that he becomes initiated into His secrets, gets acquainted with His counsels. There is no mystery in this. Establish a strong mutual sympathy between any two minds, and the one, without formal communication, shall know the hidden thoughts and counsels of the other. Or bring two minds under the government of the same moral sentiments and dispositions, and the one, without any utterance, shall understand the hidden things of the other. The godly man is brought into vital sympathy with God, brought under the domination of the same moral sentiments, and hence he knows God. Love interprets love. "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1 John i. 4.)

Spiritual sympathy with God gives the soul the eyes of the seer, makes men prophetic, enables them to tell what men will do to-morrow and a thousand ages hence. The greatest prophets have always been the best men. Hearts united in love think with one brain.

"Mine eyes are

VI. The way of ULTIMATE DELIVERANCE. ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net." First: Men are entangled in dangers. Evil has laid nets for

the soul here in every path of life. The devil has laid his traps in all directions.

Secondly: True men will be delivered. "For He shall pluck my feet out of the net." Deliverance is sure to come, the net will be broken, the snarer confounded, and the soul, like an uncaged eagle, shall soar into the sunny realms of freedom and joy.

Thirdly: Hence true men always keep their eyes on the Lord. "Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that He have mercy upon us" (Ps. cxxiii. 1, 2). God fills up the horizon of a good man's soul.

A Homiletic Glance at the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians.

The student is requested to keep in mind the following things, which will throw much light upon the Epistle. First: The circumstances of the writer when he wrote. He was a prisoner in Rome. During his residence there, in "his own hired house" (Acts xxviii. 30, 31), from the spring A.D. 61 to 63, he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, and to the Ephesians. It is generally supposed that this Epistle to the Ephesians was the first he wrote during his imprisonment. Secondly: The circumstances of the persons addressed. They lived, it is thought, in Ephesus, an illustrious city in the district of Iona, nearly opposite the Island of Samos, and about the middle of the western coast of the peninsula commonly called Asia Minor. It had attained in Paul's day such a distinction as in popular estimation to be identified with the whole of the Roman province of Asia. It was the centre of the worship of the great goddess Diana. Paul resided here on two different occasions. The first, A.D. 54, for a very short period (Acts xviii. 19-21); the second, for a period of more than two years. The persons therefore addressed in this letter are those whom he had converted from paganism, and in whom he felt all the interest of a spiritual father. Thirdly: The purpose of the letter. The aim of the Epistle seems to be to set forth the origin and development of the Church of Christ, and to impress those Ephesian Christians, who lived under the shadow of the great temple of Diana, with the unity and beauty of a temple transcendently more glorious. For the minute critical exegesis of this apostolic encyclical, we direct our readers to the commentaries of Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Jowett, Harless, Stier, Eadie, Hodge, and last, though not least, Ellicott. Our aim will be to draw out, classify, and set in homiletic order, the Divine ideas reached by the critical aid of such distinguished scholars.

Subject: SOUL MILITANCY.

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ́ For

we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."-Ephes. vi. 10-17.

ANNOTATIONS.-Ver. 10.-"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." "St. Paul again and again compares himself and the Christians to whom he writes, to soldiers, and their lives to warfare. And it was natural that he should do so. Everywhere he went, in those days, he would find Roman soldiers ruling over men of different races from themselves, and ruling them, on the whole, well. Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Egyptians-all alike in his days obeyed the Roman soldiers, who had conquered the then known world. And St. Paul and his disciples wished to conquer the world likewise. The Roman soldier had conquered it for Cæsar-St. Paul would conquer it for Christ. The Roman soldier had used bodily force-the persuasion of the sword. St. Paul would use spiritual force-the persuasion of preaching. The Roman soldier wrestled against flesh and blood. St. Paul wrestled against more subtle and dangerous enemies-spiritual enemies, he calls them-who enslaved and destroyed the reason, and conscience, and morals of men. St. Paul and his disciples, I say, had set before themselves no less a task than to conquer the world. Therefore, he says, they must copy the Roman soldier, and put on their armour as he put on his. He took Cæsar's armour as he put on Cæsar's uniform. They must take the armour of God, that they may withstand in the evil day of danger and battle, and having done all— done their duty manfully as good soldiers-stand; keep their ranks, and find themselves at the end of the battle not scattered and disorganized, but in firm and compact order, like the Roman soldiers, who, by drill and discipline, had conquered the irregular and confused troops of all other nations."-Charles Kingsley. Probably the very circumstance in which the Apostle was now placed suggested to him the military imagery which he now employs. He was a prisoner at Rome, under the guard of a soldier, to whom he was actually chained, and he must have constantly witnessed the parades and reviews and daily discipline of the emperor's Prætorian guard, the picked soldiers of the Roman army, since we know that the Gospel was preached, apparently by himself, certainly by his companions, in their barracks. His first exhortation is to muster strength for the inevitable conflict. "Be

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strong in the Lord" (or, as Alford has it, "Be strengthened in the Lord") "and in the power of his might." This may mean, have Divine courage: an invincible bravery is essential to a true soldier.

Ver. 11.-" Put on the whole armour of God." The word rendered "whole armour here (navonλíav, panoply) means complete armour, offensive and defensive. "That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." The devil is a personality; a personality against men, a personality that uses stratagems to gain his malignant ends. He is wily, cunning, and fights not visibly, but in ambush; fights not by force, but by craft.

Ver. 12.-" For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." "One of the most learned among ancient expositors interprets the formidable enemies thus contrasted with 'flesh and blood,' or feeble men, to be 'the spiritual powers of innate passions which work by means of our natural desires.' Moreover, in all the old English versions of the Bible, the word translated ‘high places' is interpreted to mean heavenly things, that is, matters pertaining to God's kingdom; so that the teaching of the whole passage is, that the Christian warrior does not fight, like the earthly soldier, against visible antagonists, but against the sin which reigns in his heart, and the spiritual powers of evil which tyrannize over his will, quench his heavenly aspirations, and would fain hurry him to eternal ruin."-Bishop Cotton. "Spiritual wickedness in high places." Ellicott renders this, "spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly regions." The evil spirits are supposed to occupy the lofty regions of the atmosphere: hence their chief is called "the prince of the power of the air."*

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Ver. 13.-" Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." "In the evil day." The evil day is the day of temptation, the day of assault, the day when the evil spirits seek to come into the soul like a flood. The whole day of a man's life on earth is more or less an evil day. Ver. 14.-" Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." "The girdle which surrounded the loins of the Roman soldier kept together all the separate pieces of the panoply. It was a kilt much like what the Highlanders wear now."-Kingsley. The girdle of the spiritual soldier is "truth." Truthfulness-reality-are essential to moral soldiership, the very girdle to bind all the other parts of the panoply together, and to protect the vitals of the soul. No man can fight this true fight who is insincere and dishonest; he must be true to the core; there must be no crack in the metal of his being, it must ring out music to every touch. Having on the breastplate of righteousness." The breastplate defended the most vital organs of the man. Righteousness or justice must be this breastplate in the moral campaign. The man who lacks integrity can offer no successful defence to the foe.

* See a sermon on this "Homilist," First Series, vol. iv., page 217.

Ver. 15.—“ And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.” "The Roman soldier had his preparation, which kept him prepared and ready to march through the world. And of that St. Paul was thinking, and had need to think; for he had heard the sound of it in every street, on every high road from Jerusalem to Ephesus, ever since he was a child-the tramp of the heavy nailed boot, which the Roman soldier always wore. The Roman soldiers were proud of their bootsso proud, that in St. Paul's time they nicknamed one of their royal princes Caligula, because, as a boy in camp, he used to wear boots like the common soldiers; and he bore that name when he became emperor, and bears it to this day. And they had reason to be proud, after their own notion of glory. For that boot had carried them through desert and through cities, over mountain ranges, through trackless forests, from Africa even into Britain here, to be the conquerors of the then known world; and wherever the tramp of that boot had been heard, it had been the sound, not of the good news of peace, but of the evil news of war."-Kingsley. The boot of the true spiritual soldier is to be the Gospel of peace." With this boot he will stand firm, he will never be tripped up or moved from his place. The sound of its tramp strikes terror into the heart of the foe.

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Ver. 16.-" Above all [that is, not above all in point of value, but over all as the soldier holds his shield in defence of himself], taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." The shield guarded those parts of the soldier which the rest of the armour did not protect; it warded off the arrows, the stones, and the darts. Faith-faith not in creeds, but in Christ-is the true shield in moral soldiership. This is a shield that will ward off all the fiery missiles of our spiritual enemies.

"The helmet was a cap head, and was usually

Ver. 17.-" And take the helmet of salvation." made of thick leather or brass, fitted to the crowned with a plume, or crest, as an ornament. Its use was to guard the head from a blow of the sword, or war-club, or battle-axe." The helmet was to be the "hope of salvation." That is, of safety. "Not merely," says an author already quoted, "of being saved in the next world-though of course St. Paul includes that-but of being saved in this world of coming safe through the battle of life; of succeeding; of conquering the heathen round them, and making them Christians, instead of being conquered by them. The hope of safety was to be his helmet, to guard his head-the thinking part. We all know how a blow on the head confuses and paralyses a man, making him (as we say) lose his head. We know, too, how, in spiritual matters, terror and despair deal a deadly blow to a man's mind,-how if a man expects to fail, he cannot think clearly and calmly-how often desperation and folly go hand in hand; for, if a man loses hope, he is but too apt to lose his reason. The Christian's helmet, then,—that which would save his head, and keep his mind calm, prudent, strong, and active,—was the hope of success.' "And the sword of the Spirit which is the Word