back by persuasion and affection, as well as astonish them by divine power and wisdom-they will surely reverence Him. No; they murder Him. The Cross is the full witness to man's incorrigibleness; but it bears another and a different witness. It tells of God not striving with man, but executing the judgment due to him on Jesus. God delivered Him for our offences, and raised Him again for our justification. The Cross is to us Peniel. God has there broken and judged the flesh; we can see God, and live. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." "We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

After Esau had parted from Jacob in brotherly kindness, Jacob, glad to get rest by the way, buys a parcel of a field from the Shechemites, and tarries there, and builds an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel. He stops short of Bethel; but it was not to his honour. His daughter Dinah is defiled, and Simeon and Levi dishonour themselves by cruelty and perfidy. Jacob had not earned the name of Israel either to choose the place of his own sojourning, or the place of God's altar. But how graciously does God rebuke the lingering pilgrim! "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from Esau thy brother." God is a "faithful God," and at Bethel will prove to Jacob, that what He hath said He does, what He hath promised He fulfils. Jacob may forget his vow, and linger on the way, but the mercy and truth of God must be shewn in their enduring character. Jacob is aroused to holy jealousy. All the

Bethel promises flash upon him, as he is about to draw nigh to "the gate of heaven." If the Lord had not been with me, now may Jacob say, when I served with Laban, and when I fled from him, when I met with Esau, and when I dwelt at Shalem, surely I had perished. Such is the way of our unbelieving hearts, that we have not the happy consciousness of God's being with us according to His promise. But there are seasons when He allows us to look back on the past, and see that He "abideth faithful," even when we have refused to see His hand. "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean." Every false confidence must be given up; the God of Bethel will endure no rival. Strange gods had hitherto been housed, even in the family of Jacob. (Gen. xxxi. 34.) "Arise, and let us go up to Bethel, and I will there make an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." Halting on his thigh, stript of every refuge of lies, how strong is Jacob now, how truly is he Israel, with what conscious safety does he go on his way! "And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob."

* *

"So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Bethel and he built there an altar, and called the place El-Bethel, because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother."

There was no terror in the place now, although the place was the same. Twenty years had passed over Jacob's head since he first visited Bethel, and Jacob

had learnt to know the God of Bethel. He had built no altar there at first, for God was in much measure unknown to him. He had had thoughts indeed of the house of God, but now he has to do with the God of the house of God. This lesson is an important one. Men, for the most part, stop short of God Himself, busied though they may be about places, and other accidents of worship. But when God is our Teacher, He teaches us what He Himself is, and that it is with Him we have to do. His ways are various, grappling with us to break down self-confidence, as with Jacob at Peniel, or letting us prove the folly of our own ways, as Jacob did at Shalem; but He is always merciful, gracious, and faithful. "Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Here is our Bethel. But how little do we know of the blessedness of being there, and how needed God's tuition and discipline to teach us that “in His presence is fulness of joy." It is "eternal life to know the Father, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent."

"And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-Aram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called Jacob any more, but Israel shall be thy name." That name God had given him in the memorable night of Peniel, before he met Esau. Never was Jacob stronger than he was then in conscious weakness. But Jacob knew not the strength he had in the Lord. He met with Esau, and prevailed; he journeyed, and the terror of God was in all the cities round about him. After this experience of what God was to him, and the strength he had in the Lord, God graciously

repeats the new name, which He had given him. The trembling sinner, broken down before God, with every plea silenced, so that he only clings to the cross of Christ for remission of sins, righteousness, and life, has the name and privilege of the Israel of God. But he little knows the dignity he possesses. He is filled with a sense of his own worthlessness, and goes halting on his way. He is surprised to find what a strength there is in the knowledge of the cross, till one enemy and another is overcome by it. God speaks again to the sinner who has, by faith, laid hold on the cross of Christ: "Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus." "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power His might."

of

Jacob also again gave the name of Bethel to Luz, with a meaning he little knew when he had given the same name to the same place twenty years before.

"And God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. And Jacob called the name of the place

where God spake with him, Bethel."

It was the place where God spake with him, the place where God had proved His faithfulness to Jacob, the place where grace had abounded over all Jacob's sin and folly.

Such is Bethel, the house of God, to Jacob then, and to ourselves, who are brought nigh by the blood of the

cross.

"Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help." (Ps. cxlvi. 5.)

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

(NOTES TAKEN OF LECTURES.)

CHAP. I.

THE Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Galatians both treat of the same great subject. The Epistle to the Galatians was written before the Epistle to the Romans, and the Apostle most strongly asserts his authority, and uses stern language which is not found in the Epistle to the Romans; and the reason is this; he had not been instrumental in the conversion of the saints in Rome, they were not the fruit of his ministry, but the Galatians were. He bears them record, that the time was, when they would have plucked out their eyes, and have given them to him, neither did they despise his infirmity in the flesh; but almost immediately after their conversion they became the prey of false Judaising teachers whom he reprehends so severely. They were turned aside from grace, by seeking to add to it the deeds of the law. Almost all the Lord's people, at some time or other of their experience, have been guilty of the same thing; they have been just in the Galatian state. That modification of the Gospel which teaches persons that they are now placed in a salvable state, and if they take care, they shall perhaps be saved by-and-bye, Paul condemns here. Persons naturally prefer this self-dependence, to the feeling that they have had nothing to do with their salvation, but that it is of God, from the beginning to the end. Let us test ourselves by this Epistle, and see whether we are holding fast grace, or whether like these bewitched (fascinated) Galatians, we