men have their names in the book of life, and all shall there abide except they provoke their own extrusion, we can perceive no harmony between those texts; the one of which, speaking of the temples of the Holy Ghost, who alone shall withstand the beast, calls them those whose names have been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life (Rev. xvii. 8); and the other of which makes those alone enter into the New Jerusalem who are written in the Lamb's book of life (Rev. xxi. 27). Indeed, the book of life evidently relates to the secret things of God: for, as the day of Christ the Judge is the day of the manifestation of the sons of God, who, though now sons, do not yet appear (Rom. viii. 19; 1 John iii. 2); so we read that when the judgment shall be set, and the books shall be opened, there shall be opened also another book, which, while the rest are books of works for every man, is a book of charter for the election of the Father; the invisible election being then manifested when every other secret thing is brought to light. And this affords the true interpretation of that precious word in the Hebrews," Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God" (Heb. x. 7; Ps. xi. 7); the exact quotation of which from the Psalms shews that the Book of Psalms cannot be the volume or the book referred to; and of which the true rendering is, εν κεφαλίδι βιβλιον, at the head or title of the book; books being made in the East in the form of a roll, and the head or title of the roll appearing at its first opening. In Heb. x. 5, the Apostle first sets forth wherein consisted a sacrifice acceptable unto God-namely, in obedience to his will, especially his holy will regarding sin. This living sacrifice our Lord rendered, when, living by faith, he became obedient unto death, "condemning sin in the flesh:" and this we render in acceptance through Christ, when we present our bodies living sacrifices: as it is written, for both Head and members, "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord" (Ps. iv. 5). And, secondly, he sets forth the method by which the Son, equal with the Father, came into that condition in which he could offer unto all eternity such a sacrifice to the Father, namely, by the fashioning of a body for him. The words, owμa kaтηpтiow μo, although they do include the incarnation of Christ personal, embrace the much wider and more glorious truth of the Christ mystical. They relate to that body of which he is the Head-that body which by the work of redemption is now a-building unto God; just as in the work of creation, which is its type, the worlds or ages were built unto God (Heb. xi. 3;-that body, the church, without which Christ is not full and complete, and by which God purposes, through the ages to come, to instruct all other intelligences in his manifold wisdom; -that spiritual body, by the acquisition of which God the Son

becomes, in the largest and eternal sense, the Father's obeyer. And, after, thus shewing, on the one hand, how the Son of God came into a condition of fulfilling the great end of obedience to the Father's will by the creature for ever-namely, by acquiring a church-the Apostle proceeds, at verse 7, to give the counterpart of the picture, by shewing how the church, although a mere collection of creatures, becomes able to express the will of God; namely, by being in a book of life, and having at her head the Son of God, in that condition of Divine condescension in which he is the receiver of life from the Father; the saved one of the Father; the exalter and manifester, not of himself, but of the Father; the head worshipper of God; the example of all our trust; the assurance that we shall not trust in vain; he whose faith and holiness and victory form the only reason why there is faith and holiness and victory in any man on the face of the earth. So that we have here a sure interpretation of the book of life. And if, then, that book, with the Son of Man's name at its head, is at its opening to reveal the sons of God, the appearance of our names in it at the day of Christ is just another form of expression for our confession by Christ in that day. For they who are alive to God, do shew forth his will: his law is within their heart and, as God knoweth, they do not refrain their lips, or hide his righteousness (Psalm xl. 8-10). So they confess Christ, who was the great confessor of the Father, educing in the sight of the world, and to the contradiction of all liars, the invisible Godhead in truth and Christ stands pledged to confess all who confess him; that is, all who follow him at all hazards; even as at all hazards, even unto death, he clave unto his Father. The addition, "before his angels," has an emphatic reference to the object of the church's confession namely, not only to glorify God, but to gratify all those intelligencies who desire to look into these things; who cannot but by the church see God's greatest wisdom and love; and who were once, indeed, above man in rank, but now rejoice to be the ministers and subjects of that glorious company, who, headed by and included in the Son of Man, do by victories of faith, while on this globe, and in this frail flesh, at once seal up against the devil's intrusion the security of God's universe, and strike those leading notes of thanks and glory to God whereof the glorious orchestra of heaven can only give the echo.

In conclusion, we see how a careful attention to the one branch of this promise, as the mere counterpart of the other, removes at once the apparent inconsistency between the infallible perseverance of the saints and the implied possibility of any man's name being blotted out of the book of life. For if the promise that such a thing shall not be done, be in truth just the promise of confession by Christ at his glorious appearing as Judge, then,

if it does not affect the doctrine of perseverance to say that he alone that overcometh shall be confessed by Christ, it as little affects it to say that every one who does not overcome shall have his name blotted out. For although the elect of God shall come to know him, and, knowing him, shall persevere; still their only bond of union with Christ, their only strength, their only life, their only assurance, is faith. They are entitled, in the absence of faith, to draw nothing from their election, or the assurance of their perseverance, however much these may comfort them in the actings of faith. Though the elect alone are saved, they are saved by faith, not by election. Though they whom God seeth not meet to arrest in the turning away of their faces, as all men would naturally do, from Christ the light of every man, shall assuredly perish for ever; they perish not by the hand of God, but by an act of self-murder ; trampling under foot him whom, once a Lamb for them, God hath made his King for them; doing despite to the Spirit of grace, through whom is shed down for them the whole fulness of God, the whole grace which the Father poured into the Son of Man; and revolting against the most complete, affectionate, intelligible, and personal display that can possibly be given to the moral character of the living God. In short, it is a living tie and a present apprehension, and not a dead proposition or a remembrance of the past, by which we are one with Christ. For they who are one with him, are so as he was one with the Father: and he was at every instant one with the Father, not merely by contemplating the words of the Scriptures, on which, like every man of faith, he fed, nor by remembering that he had once been with the Father, nor by thinking that he was at the time the Elect One of God (Isaiah xlii. 1; Luke xxiii. 35), but just by actually drinking the streams of the Father's life, and presently beholding the Father's face. We are all, as the people, living on the promises of God; but these speak no healing words of comfort to carelessness. They say not, This thou shalt undoubtedly have; but, Trust God undoubtingly for this, and this thou shalt undoubtedly have. If the former, they would extinguish faith as a personal confidence; as the latter, they extinguish every security but that of personal confidence. To tell a man, that, though he overcome, his name may yet be blotted out, would be to abolish all hope: to tell him that he has any security against that but in the actual victory, which is faith, would just be to give a bounty on unbelief. God, in threatening that in forty days Nineveh should be destroyed, meant merely that unrepentant Nineveh should then perish: accordingly she repented and was spared. In like manner, when he says that if a man overcome his name shall not be taken out of the book of life, he merely expresses that abiding in the

book is inseparable from abiding in the faith. The excellency of God's faithfulness is to be looked for, not so much in the ulti mate deliverance of the persons of his saints, as in the ultimate reward of the confidence which they have reposed in him. Thou standest not by election, though thou wast elect before the worlds; else thou mightest now be secure and high-minded: "thou standest by faith; be not high-minded, but fear." Dread not God; but fear lest thou forsake God; fear lest a work be done in thy days which thou wilt not believe; fear lest, a promise being left thee of entering into God's rest, thou be found to have come short thereof through unbelief. Crucify the flesh, lest thou be a cast-away. Take not from the prophecy of the Apocalypse, lest thy name be taken out of the book. A moment's safety or health without present faith, is one of the foulest of the old liar's lies. It is not that thy name can ever be taken out of the book; but thy fear lest it be so is that which shall keep it there, with the knowledge of its Writer's love. Not that the roaring lion shall ever devour thee; but the fear lest he do so, together with the knowledge of Him that slumbereth not, is what will keep thee on the watch. Blessed is that man whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so watching; yea, crying out unto all men, "Watch." That is now the meat in season (Matt. xxiv. 45), which if the pastor give, which if the people receive and communicate, they shall be rulers over all the goods of God in the kingdom now at hand; they shall be joint-heirs with him who is the Father's only Son, past whom the Father bequeaths nothing. Because they have had faith in God as Christ had, and have so overcome as Christ overcame, they shall receive, as he received, the dignity of a king, the office of a judge. They shall sit with him on his throne when he taketh it, because they have here borne his cross; even as he is presently seated on the Father's throne, because here he gladly took on him, as a sacrifice, the reproach cast by the world on his Father. And as the Father confessed Christ to be one with him, and said, "This Man is mine," in presence of heaven's whole company (poσayopɛveis), when he raised him from the dead, and so preached the Gospel in thus rewarding the trustful Man with boldness of access for all flesh; in like manner shall Christ confess us to be one with him, saying before all creatures, "These are mine;" and in raising us from the dead, or changing our vile bodies, shall usher us upon the subject matter of all God's glad tidings, or Gospel, since the world began. Oh what a stoop of grace, that he should even then confess us! How much greater that he should have confessed us as one with him, and made common cause with our curse, and was not ashamed of us, in the days of his flesh! Oh what a height of pride, that we should deny him before men for the veriest bauble of the things,

that perish; and be ashamed of his acquaintance whom the Father delighteth to honour, the Holy Ghost to serve and glorify; before whom, as the off-beaming of the Father's glory, the. archangels veil their faces; at whose coming the whole earth, yea, all creatures, are called to make a joyful noise; at whose work in us, while we its subjects are cold as frost, angels, its. mere witnesses, shout for joy; and for whose coming all creation, doth continually groan and travail !

Thus have I been led to write on this solemn epistle. May the Lord water the reader, as he hath through these epistles watered his poor servant. Oh let us not discuss, dissect, and wrangle in proud familiarity over the word of the living God; but reverently tremble at it in love, hymning thanks unto our Father. God, who is my witness how often I have dishonoured his deep things by essaying them in the flesh, also knoweth how, because of such a spirit prevailing, I do both abhor myself, and grieve over others who are awakened to seek light in this thick darkness. Let it suffice us to have done it in time past; for it is an awful sin, and cometh of our wanting the love that is in little children to him that giveth them milk; cometh of our wanting the Holy Ghost, the subjugator of all hard and high things unto God. The next epistle is a yet weightier topic; wherefore I the more desire the prayers of the saints concerning it.

(To be continued.)

FIDUS.

INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD-TESTAMENT PROPHECIES QUOTED IN THE NEW.

By the Rev. E. IRVING-Continued from vol. iii. p. 315.

INTERPRETATION XI.

Messiah's Birth-place-Micah v. 5-15.

IN the preceding interpretations we have unfolded and illustrated the brief, but pregnant, notice of the birth of the Ruler of Israel; his ignominious and cruel rejection by his brethren; and his separation from them for a season, until his mother, the church, should have brought forth the full complement of her children; at the head of whom, the Excellent One of his bre-. thren, he returneth to the children of Israel, having, like Joseph,. attained by his excellent acts to the dignity of the first-born: and now, as the Shepherd of Israel, he doth gather them from every mountain whither they had wandered; and, as the Ruler, he standeth and feedeth them, leadeth and guideth them, in the face of all their enemies; and now under his rod and staff they abide, because his name and his power wax great unto the ends of the earth. Let us now follow on to know the further desti