tide of wrath, and could say, All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over Me;" the fire of God's wrath consumed Him, as it did the burnt-offering in the Jewish tabernacle, and yet He was not destroyed. He passed through the gates of death, and yet it was not possible He could be holden of it; God did not "suffer His Holy One to see corruption." He burst its bands; He ascended triumphant o'er the grave. "He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification." In His release the believer's full discharge may be read. If He who took our place is free, then we, believing it, receiving it, are free. Still, God does not save people against their will; nay, they are "made willing in the day of His power." If any of you who read this are lost, it will not be because there was no door of escape opened to you, or no remedy provided, but because you deliberately turned away from it, and rejected the means of safety which your Creator had placed within your reach. A terrible gulf separates the unholy sinner from the Holy God, but this gulf is bridged across in Christ. Job earnestly desired "a days-man who could lay his hands upon both;" but, with a clearer light than prophetic vision, even the full blaze of gospel liberty, we can see One stooping from His throne of glory above to touch the poor leper, saying, "I will; be thou clean." Dear readers, accept the Mediator; God looks with complacency upon Him: may He become "all your salvation and all your desire." If you know Him as your go-between, as the poor labourer did, you will also know Him as your Advocate and High Priest. Then you will be able to make the language of this beautiful hymn your own: "O sin, thou art vanquished, Oh, sing hallelujah! be joyful and sing; Who now can condemn us?-Christ Jesus is King!" E. H. Looking Down-Looking up. THE WOMAN WHO WAS BOWED TOGETHER. HE accounts of the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ which we read in the gospel narrative, were surely not written only as records of His power or His love, but have been handed down to us for our comfort and teaching. They were not to be as a glorious exhibition raised far above us, which we can look at and admire and wonder, but which has nothing at all to do with us. They were recorded by the Spirit of the Lord, who "knoweth our frame, who remembereth that we are dust," who knoweth what is in man, and what is the heart's need of each one, and who knoweth how to speak a "word in season to him that is weary," and, as a wise and skilful physician, to apply the various treatment that each constitution requires. So we may comfort ourselves now and again by the recollection of the different miracles of our Lord, and see how now one, and now another, comes home to our sense of need, bringing the teaching and help which shall send us on our way stronger for having considered this or that wonderful work of Christ. Let us pause for a few moments to notice one of these, recorded only by St. Luke.1 Many who came to Jesus to be healed were afflicted with painful or deadly disease; but many upon whom His power was exercised were troubled by some bitter physical defect or infirmity, some "thorn in the flesh," which took the joy out of their lives, without any prospect of shortening the time of trial. Such a case we have before us in this poor woman, who 66 was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." We may learn something from the time and place at which this miracle was performed. It was on the Sabbath day, and in the synagogue, where the people had assembled for the public worship of God. As in the case of the man with the withered hand,2 we find this poor woman's infirmity 2 Mark iii. 1-5. 1 Luke xiii. 10-17. did not prevent her from going to the sanctuary. And here is a tacit reproof to many who make the slightest illness or hindrance an excuse for absenting themselves from God's house, the indisposition of the body being made a cover for the indisposition of the mind towards good things; they have no heart for them, and therefore they make no effort to overpass the obstacle. Both these poor people carried away a blessing from having been in contact with Jesus; and so will every waiting soul that pleads the fulfilment of God's promise, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." The enemies of Jesus were always seeking occasion against Him; and here the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, in his zeal for the outward observance of the Sabbath, reproving the poor woman whose crippled condition had attracted the attention of the compassionate Great Physician; but he in his turn was reproved by the Lord of the Sabbath, and called a hypocrite for his want of discrimination. The wants of the brute creation were attended to by their masters without exciting remark; that being the case, "ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen. years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” A blessed thing it was for that poor woman that her infirmity had not prevented her from honouring the Sabbath! And a blessed thing it is for any soul when the bonds wherewith it is bound are loosed by the hand of the Lord. "Bound of Satan," "oppressed of the devil," is not this written down of many now? Are there not many yet "bound in affliction and iron," bowed down by reason of sin or the crushing power of a bad habit, till, like this poor woman, they can in no wise lift up themselves? There is a great deal of oppression in the world, the strong oppressing the weak, hard hearts turning a deaf ear to the cry of the sorrowful; but the worst oppression of all is the oppression of the devil. There are a great many in the world who set themselves to redress wrongs, who make it the business of their life to try "to help those to right that suffer wrong," or at least to comfort the weary sorrowful ones under oppression; but the only One who can do it perfectly, and who can deliver from the oppression which is at the root of all the system of wrong, is the Deliverer mentioned by Peter, "Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." When He was on earth, the obstinacy of a malady was no bar to the exercise of His healing power. It mattered not of how long standing was the infirmity, whether eighteen (as in the case of this poor bowed-down woman) or thirty-eight years (as in the instance of the poor man lying at the pool of Bethesda), whom Jesus knew "had been now a long time in that case."2 It needed but the reassuring words, "Thou art loosed from thine infirmity," but the putting forth of the healing power, and the miracle was wrought. It needed but contact with Jesus; "He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight." And it is the same now. Not always manifestly for our bodies, as it may not always be good for us to lose the teaching reminder of the thorn in the flesh, but always most certainly for our souls. Truly the state of this poor woman is a fit picture of ours. “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions ;" and now we are bent double, with eyes fixed on the ground, on earthly things, and we can in no wise lift up ourselves. That is one of the first lessons we have to learn-our inability to lift ourselves, to look above the deadening influences around us. We hear a great deal about elevating the masses, and raising ourselves, but we can do no good thing of ourselves," we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves," and until Jesus gives us the power we make only vain efforts. See how some are tormented, bowed down by the power of a bad habit, which they are continually resolving to overcome; a bad temper, which they determine not to give way to; a spirit of sloth, which ruins their prospects for life, or the temptation to 2 John v. 6. 1 Acts x. 38. 99 66 indulge the body, to give way to the drink, for which they loathe themselves in their sober moments. Can we break through these things, or any other which is our besetting sin? It is out of our power, and we don't begin to struggle rightly against them until "strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man," and then the cry is often heard, "To will is present with me, but how to perform I know not," "for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." So we know only where we must lose the heavy burden of sin which crushes us down and prevents us from walking uprightly; where Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, lost his at the foot of the cross of Christ. When he reached that point in his journey his burden fell off, and he went on his way rejoicing. If we have not got so far as that, if we have not yet been taught by the Spirit of God to say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me;" if by faith we cannot yet rest our hopes of acceptance with God on the atonement made by Christ crucified for men, no wonder that we go mourning, saying, "Mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me;" for "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me." Satan likes to keep a soul looking down; he cannot bear that we raise our eyes to look unto Jesus. But look up, faint heart; ask for the help and teaching of that Holy Spirit whose office it is to "take of the things of Christ and show them unto us." Hear the word, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ;" and if you wish to be saved from your sins, to be loosed from your infirmity, from the bondage of sin and Satan, it shall be even as you will, for God "willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should repent and live." M. S. P. |