"made children of grace," and "called to a state of salvation," we must " pray to God to give us His grace to continue in the same [state] unto our life's end."

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. From our parents we inherit a corrupt sinful nature. (See David's confession, Ps. li. 5.)

That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The Spirit works in us to will and do what is pleasing to God, daily renews us (Titus iii. 5), "helpeth our infirmities" (Rom. viii. 26), and assists us to "grow in grace;" hence we are warned not to "grieve" and "quench" Him (Eph. iv. 30; 1 Thess. v. 19).

Marvel not, &c. Nicodemus probably showed by his looks, as he did by his last question, that he could not understand the mode of this new birth.

Listeth. It chooses.

And thou hearest the sound thereof, i. e. thou hearest the wind in its operation, and seest its effects.

But canst not tell, &c. Its source is a mystery.

So is every one that is born of the Spirit, i. e. thou canst not describe the working of the Spirit in men, any more than thou canst speak with certainty of the source and operation of the wind,- -an invisible agent in the natural world.

Art thou a master in Israel? i.e. a teacher of the law of Moses. The word here translated "master" means a teacher. The same word is translated "teacher" in Rom. ii. 20.

Ye receive not our witness. As if He had said, Ye Jews will persist in understanding My words in an earthly sense, whereas they have a spiritual meaning.

But He that came down from heaven. At first sight, the connection between this and the foregoing is not very apparent. It probably means, "I the Lord from heaven have power to explain these spiritual things, but My countrymen will not receive My testimony.

And as Moses lifted up, &c. As if He had said, "The very occurrences in the history of My nation have a spiritual meaning; even the uplifting of the brazen serpent typified My crucifixion." (For the final history of the brazen serpent, see 2 Kings xviii. 4.)

That whosoever, &c. A true faith will lead us to look to Christ, just as faith in the remedy presented by Moses led the Israelites to look on the serpent. It is our own fault, therefore, if we are not saved.

Application.

1. As our natural birth was the beginning of our earthly course, so must we begin our spiritual life by the new birth in the Spirit. Let it be your endeavour to second the work of God's Holy Spirit in you, lest, by striving against Him, ye be found to fight against God.

2. As, in order to be healed of the bite of the fiery serpent, the Israelites were to look upon the uplifted serpent, so must we look

to Christ on the cross as our only deliverance from the power of sin and from eternal death.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Read Luke xvi. 19-31.

[This is generally classed among our Lord's parables, but some have imagined it to be a real history; among these are Irenæus and Tertullian. In delivering it, Jesus returns (says Grotius) to the subject treated of at the beginning of His discourse,-the use and abuse of riches, the effect of avarice and the want of charity.]

He is called Dives

A certain rich man. in consequence of his riches.

Purple and fine linen. The dress of people of high rank. All courtiers were styled by the historians Purpurati.

Fared sumptuously, i. e. lived on the choicest meats.

Lazarus, or Eleazar, which signifies "help in God." His wounds were not

Full of sores. closed up with ointment.

With crumbs. The smallest morsels would have been gratefully received; and he was at the gate to accept them, and remind Dives as he passed in and out of his starving condition.

Dogs came and licked his sores. Dogs found him whom the rich man shunned. Whether this circumstance is mentioned to heighten our ideas of the sufferings of Lazarus, or to remind us that the brute creation showed him more attention than Dives did, we cannot say.

Into Abraham's bosom. A Jewish expression, meaning Paradise, or the unseen world, whither the Jews imagined the good were carried by angels. Thus one of their writers says of the Rabbi Judah after his death: "This day he sits in Abraham's bosom" (see Lightfoot).

And was buried. A quaint writer says, "And this, then, is the difference in their disappearance; the rich man is buried perhaps with pomp and parade."

In hell, being in torment. In Hades, or the unseen world, but in that part of it set apart as the abode of the wicked. "Hades" simply means the hidden world, without reference to the state of the good and bad; but here the word torment is added, to show that the rich man was in the part of it called by the Jews Gehenna, while Lazarus was in the other, which they called Paradise. The popular idea among the Jews was, that Paradise and Gehenna were near, and opposite to each other; and Jesus conforms to it when He represents the rich man as seeing and addressing Lazarus and Abraham.

Cool my tongue. The tongue which had uttered no kind word to Lazarus when at his gate, the palate which had enjoyed all kinds of dainties, are now burning like fire itself. Still he sees Lazarus in happiness. And all this, not because he had been rich and Lazarus poor, but because he had lived

a life of ease and self-indulgence, shut out the claims of charity, and left duties undone. Receivedst thy good things. What thou didst esteem the only good things. They are all thou livedst for, and all thou wilt have.

A great gulf fixed. As a Jewish writer says, "God hath set one [place] against the other. How far are they distant? A handbreadth." (The Greeks imagined that the good and bad abodes, Elysium and Tartarus, had the river Cocytus, or Acheron, or some impassable gulf, between them.)

I have five brethren. He wishes them to be warned in time. Possibly they had been his companions in irreligion and indifference, and perhaps through his own bad example. The consolation of giving them timely warning is denied him; and so mind, as well as body, suffers indescribable agony. Save us, O Lord, from an end like his!

Moses and the prophets, i. e. their books, read in the synagogues every Sabbath (Acts xv. 21).

Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Trench says (Notes on the Parables, p. 456), "This shows that faith is a moral act of the will and affections no less than of the understanding; something which cannot be forced by signs and miracles. When the other Lazarus was raised, the Pharisees were not by this miracle persuaded of the Divine mission and authority of Christ. A greater, too, than Lazarus has risen. Yet though multitudes acknowledge the fact, as setting a seal to all His claims to be obeyed, they are not brought at all nearer to repentance.

[The main design of this parable seems to be, to warn us of the danger of living for this world only, of ministering to our ease and self-indulgence, and disregarding that charity which is the fulfilling of the law. Dives is not accused of gross crimes; there is nothing to make us think him other than a reputable man in the world's esteem. He is not called an oppressor, a thief, &c. His sins were, carnal unbelief and a want of charity.]

of the completion of the preparations for the feast.

To make excuse. Their occupations are not said to have been sinful in themselves; they became so only when they allowed them to interfere with higher objects.

Piece of ground; Yoke of oxen; Married a wife. These were the objects of their present indifference to the gracious invitation offered them. "I have married a wife" would, according to the Levitical law, have been a sufficient excuse why he should not have gone to a battle; but it is not why he should not have come to the feast (Deut. xxiv. 5).

The poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind. Those, as it were, in less repute among the citizens.

And yet there is room. The preparations and accommodation were on so extensive a scale, that we behold therein: (1) the great power or wealth of the master of the house; (2) his exceeding charity or bounty.

Highways and hedges. Where they would find the meanest vilest wanderers, those generally shunned by the richer and nobler section of society.

Compel them to come in. Not compel by bodily force, but constrain them by earnest entreaty. We cannot suppose the single "servant" thus commanded could drive in from the country a body of unwilling guests; but besides this, the Greek word, which in this passage is translated "compel," is used in Matt. xiv. 22, Mark vi. 45, in the sense of "to lead by example or exhortation."

For I say unto you, &c. Throughout the parable one servant has been addressed; here the word "you" in the original means more than one, as if the master were now addressing his whole household. Those who slighted his invitation should not be admitted even if they asserted the claim of having once been invited to the banquet.

[To understand this parable, the teacher should consider the circumstances under which it was delivered. (See Luke xiv. 1-15.) Those first invited were the Pharisees, scribes, and doctors. The supper represents the Gospel privileges, which they contemptuously disregarded. They who were next invited were those of the people whom the Pharisees despised on account of their ignorance-"the publicans and sinners, as they termed them. These embraced the kingdom of God, or the Gospel, before the proud Pharisees. Last of all, the pagans, the abject Gentiles, those afar off from God, were invited; and they pressed eagerly into the kingdom thus opened to them. The parable has a teaching for every one who scorns the message of the Gospel, or who "thinketh he standeth."]

Application.

Draw three lessons: (1) That there is yet "room" at the Gospel-feast for those who

Two sons. This close relationship accounts for the father's delight, described in ver. 20.

The portion of goods that falleth to me. The inheritance that falleth to me by right. It was common among the Syrophoenicians (if not among the Jews) for sons to receive property in their fathers' lifetime to trade with.

He divided unto them his living. He divided the property which he could not legally withhold.

Not many days after. He took time to consider; and then not hastily, as an angry man, but deliberately set out on his journey, having converted his valuables, as we may suppose, into money, or property which could easily be carried with him.

Wasted his substance. He spent it in gratifying his evil appetites, and in the company of profligate persons.

A grievous famine. A great scarcity of food.

To feed swine. As a Jew he must have considered this employment of tending unclean animals most degrading. Even in Egypt the swineherds were excluded from the temples.

Would fain, i. e. would gladly or willingly.

With the husks. Not the pods of some other fruit, but the fruit itself of the "carobtree." It is curved in shape, something like a sickle; hence its name keration, a little horn.

No man gave unto him. Whether this may mean, that owing to some reason he could not obtain the husks, or what is more likely, that no one gave him proper food or sufficient money to purchase it, it certainly completes the picture of his suffering.

When he came to himself. When he began to reflect and recover his better feelings.

Yet a great way off. As if the father had never ceased to think of the wanderer, and hope for his return almost against hope.

A ring on his hand. A mark of honour (Gen. xli. 42; James ii. 2); a proof that his father had forgiven him.

Was dead, i. e. like one dead to his friends; or rather, perhaps, dead in trespasses and error (1 John iii. 14; Eph. ii. 1).

[The remainder of the parable is simple enough, and the class should read it to the end. We may now endeavour to trace its design. It was occasioned by the murmuring of the Scribes and Pharisees, because Jesus received and ate with sinners. Two other parables-the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Piece of Money -arose out of the same circumstance; hence we may conclude, that, like these, it was intended to describe the repentance of the sinner, his return to his father, and his father's willingness to receive him once more into favour. In this sense, as has been observed, "the parable is for all times and ages of the world." (See Lonsdale's Exposition of the Parables, p. 103.) But the same author remarks, "The parable seems to have reference to the case of the Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles, after having been long far from God, returned at length to Him through the Gospel, and God willingly received back His outcast children. The Jews, like the elder brother in the parable, were indignant at the thought of the Gentiles being admitted to the same rights and blessings as themselves, and refused to come into that Church which was opened to the Gentiles also."]

Application.

Deduce by questions the following lessons: (1) Men are prone to leave God. (2) While away from Him, they are blind by reason of sin. (3) Trouble and suffering often make them reflect. (4) The recollection of past innocence and happiness adds to their agony. (5) When by God's grace they return in repentance and prayer, their Heavenly Father is glad to receive them. [Dwell here on the danger of leaving God's laws, since we cannot be sure of having time for repentance.]

It was

ARTILLERY. This word occurs 1 Sam. xx. 40, where it evidently means "bow and arrows;" also 1 Macc. vi. 51, where the marginal reading is "mounds to shoot;" Geneva Vers., "instruments to shoote." used long before the invention of gunpowder to denote missile weapons in general: thus, Pol. Verg. (Camden Soc. Transl.), p. 67, "Caractacus.... chosinge suche place for the plantinge his artillerie." The word is French; and seems connected with art. See also Notes and Queries, 2 S. ii. 414.

ASP (Heb. pethen, Gk. aspis), a kind of small serpent, whose bite is said to be so very poisonous that it kills almost instantly, without a possibility of applying a remedy. Calmet says, "It is affirmed with great confidence, that this animal stops its ears to prevent its hearing the voice of any one who would charm it." In four out of the

five passages where the word occurs in the Bible, poison is joined with it. In Ps. lviii. 5, xci. 13, pethem is translated adder; whilst, on the other hand, in Ps. cxl. 3,