not be disturbed by any thoughts of the executor as to the fitness of the person to receive it. Just so, the New Testament may be regarded as the Will of the Lord Jesus. He gives a legacy, and is the Executor of His own Will. "Peace be unto you; and He shewed the disciples His hands and His feet." He will not allow that which He has freely given to be disturbed by conditions afterwards imposed; because it would nullify promise altogether. "For if the inheritance be of law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise." The word "gave" in the original implies the idea of grace. The blessing therefore depends not on the competence of man, but on the faithfulness of God. Will He who has promised revoke His promise? No; that is impossible. Abraham believed God, and so we, through Christ, believing on God, our faith and hope are in God.

Verses 19, 20. The question necessarily suggests itself, "Wherefore then the law?" "It was added because of transgressions;" literally, for the sake of transgressions, that is, to make manifest to man himself what the sin was which God knew to be in him; (see Rom. v. 20;) and to shew man if he had not a faithful Promiser, to undertake for him, and to fulfil all that was needed, he never could attain to blessing. The law itself proved that man could not stand under it, and was necessary in order to vindicate the wisdom of God in promising blessing in Abraham's Seed; and was to continue till that "Seed should come to whom the promise was made." Thus the law, instead of invalidating or superseding, tended to confirm the way of promise made known to Abraham, as the only possible

way in which a sinner was or is capable of being blessed by God. The Apostle adds-"It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." This is a passage of confessed difficulty, yet I think the leading thought may be gathered from it, and a blessed thought it is. God used the ministry of angels in giving the law, putting them between Himself and Israel, as Stephen testified, "who have received the law by the disposition of angels." This was a kind of mediation of distance; and distance from God characterized the giving of the Law from Mount Sinai. All the circumstances were those of terror, and the people were alarmed, and dared not hear the voice of God, but would have Moses receive the words from God and rehearse them to them. There was Moses the mediator, as he tells them: "I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to shew you the word of the Lord: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the Mount." (Deut. v. 5.) The mediation of Moses was to keep the Lord and the people apart-a mediator is not a mediator of one. The people were one party at Mount Sinai, and the Lord the other, and Moses stood between them. Such was the mediator of the law, the very opposite to the Mediator of the New Testament, which is to bring near and bring together instead of keeping apart. Corrupt Christendom has followed the pattern of Moses, and, by a system of false mediation, whether the Virgin Mary, or angels, or an earthly priesthood, bars nearness of access to God; setting God and man in the same relative distance in which the law set them. Mediation connected with

law, and mediation resulting from grace, are as opposite as possible,-distance characterizing the one, and reconciliation the other. There was no terror when the word of the Lord came to Abraham, no terror in the gracious words which proceeded from the lips of Jesus, no terror when the apostles went forth on the ministry of reconciliation, based on the mediation and finished work of Jesus. God is one. It is no longer two parties to be kept at a distance one from the other, lest destruction should ensue; but God preaching peace, God testifying to what He has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God Himself in the New Testament writing His laws in the heart, putting them in the mind, saying, "They shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest; for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." God is one; and there is in the new covenant no people undertaking to answer the requirements of God, so that to turn from the gospel back to the law, is to undertake on our own responsibility that which God promises to perform according to His own grace and faithfulness. Distance from God must be the necessary consequence. If you look for salvation to anything yet to be done on your part, instead of rejoicing in Christ Jesus and His finished work, you will become as these "foolish" and "bewitched" Galatians. In the old covenant the people undertook, in the new covenant God Himself hath undertaken. "God is one;" and therefore there can be no failure.

FELLOWSHIP, No. 6.

1 John i.

WHEN a man is taken out of nature's misery and nakedness, by the power of Divine grace, he is brought

to do with God, he Father and the Son.

is called to fellowship with the Love will always be true to its

object, and the saint will think little of any blessing without the person of Jesus. We have everything in Him. There it is I see the exceeding grace of God in manifestation, not only giving blessing, but giving His beloved Son, and so much in Him, that if I have Jesus I have all. "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." This is not peculiar to the advanced saint, but every saint is privileged with this high calling, and he ought to know it. This, then, is what God has called us to, not merely pardon and peace, but to fellowship with His Son; and in the same chapter we find that He is "made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (1 Cor. i.)

I would say, in passing, that there are two things we need in order to get practically into these things,-the Word and the Spirit. The Word is the lamp, and the Spirit is the power. We get the power in faith and prayer, the light in reading. If you read much, you will get light and little power; if you pray much, without reading, you will get power and little light; but God has put both together, and we should not separate them. If any are so made up in doctrine as to say, I am so one with Christ that I do not feel that I need to pray for more power of the Spirit, they are under a

great mistake. We are not to pray for the Spirit as something we have not, but to wait on Him for power— for the supply of what we have in union with the Son.

To return to the subject of fellowship, what we are called to is partnership with Christ. He has made our sins His, and has given us Himself and all that He has-all belong to the believer, become his property, for he is in partnership with Christ. The believer sometimes is very weak, not strong enough to say that all things are his, and appropriate them; but this will ever be the language of faith. To lay one's hand on everything Christ has purchased, nay, even on Christ Himself, and say "He is mine," what else do we want? This is the way to view our blessings as in Christ; but we are so selfish, so apt to look at the blessing, instead of looking at Him who blesses; but let us look more to Him, touch Him with the hand of faith, for we never touch Jesus without getting blessing. It is God's mind, His will, that His own dear children should be in the consciousness of this fellowship, that they should know the wonderful treasure that is given them in Jesus, and that is the reason He has manifested Himself. Faith says, I know the Father loves me, and I go and serve Him. Dear brethren, can you gather up a little of what this fellowship is; namely, the happy consciousness in the soul that Jesus is ours? God gave the Church to Jesus, and Jesus to the Church; there is the blessedness, and all we want is to know more and more of it.

Nominal profession had come in when this epistle was written. God had brought in fellowship, and the devil had taught some to have fellowship on their lips,