in Christ; to be found in Him. Sometimes, as the result of all, they are simply said to be righteous; to stand in the judgment; to stand before the Son of Man; to be trees bringing forth good fruit; to be wheat, and not tares. Now though God will eventually judge you, remember, for your soul's sake, that you must judge yourself, and ascertain for yourself in which of these two conditions you are abiding.

Take two expressions of the foregoing-to be in Christ; to be righteous. Christ is the Righteous One. Now you cannot be in Christ, and be unrighteous. You know what the life of Christ was; how every form of goodness and righteousness met in Him. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners -separate from sinners, that is, in character and aim, whilst living amongst sinners, receiving them, eating with them, conversing with them.

Now if you are in Christ for the very purpose for which Christ came amongst us and allows us to be grafted into Him, you must be "in" Him so as to be becoming like Him in every department of righteousness. The Church teaches you to sing in the words of the Holy Ghost, "that we, being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our lives." And if you think a little you will see that it must be so; for to be in Christ means to be in Him spiritually and for spiritual

purposes, as a vine branch is in a vine naturally and for natural purposes; that is, for bearing that fruit which is naturally produced in the branch by such sap as the vine stem supplies it with.

As the vine branch produces fruit according to the nature of the vine, so the Christian produces fruit according to the nature of Christ. What the fruits of that nature were in Christ, so they are intended to be in him that is so joined to Him, as to be "in" Him. About these fruits there can be no dispute; they are too well known.

Do not then, for your soul's sake, imagine that you are in Christ because you have once had some strong and lively feelings, and have different views to what you once had of the work of Christ and of the Spirit. You trust only in the merits of Christ; but do you strive against and pray against sin-sins of the tongue, for instance? How many professing Christians are careless of what they say, provided they can gain their ends! Are you true and just in all your dealings? How many of those whom we call the children. of this world put professedly religious people to shame for unselfishness, for care about others, for devoted attention to the welfare of those who have claims upon them! All such things are to be taken into account if you would know whether you are righteous, in the favour of God, justified in Christ, accepted in the Beloved.

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Try yourself, then, as to whether in any true sense you "follow Christ." This it is which the eye of your Heavenly Father looks for. He looks for Christians as like as possible to His Own Son. If you are in Christ, you trust in Christ; you look to Him; you pray earnestly and continually in His name. If you are in Christ you mortify the flesh, with its affections and lusts; you strive earnestly and pray heartily to live a godly, righteous, and sober life. A godly life-a life, that is, as in the presence of God, as if His eye were ever upon you, and His love within you; a righteous life—that is, an upright, straightforward, honest, just, and truthful life; a sober life—that is, a temperate, well-ordered, and, if God calls you to it, a mortified, selfdenying life.

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XIX.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HEARERS.

LUKE Viii. 18.

"Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."

CHRISTIANS may be divided into two classes: those who teach and those who are taught, those who preach, and those who listen.

At first sight the warning of the Saviour, "Take heed how ye hear," seems to be addressed to those who are taught, and seems to be a very solemn caution to the hearers of the preached word to make them careful above all things as to how they profit by what they are taught; but the words are in reality spoken to teachers, and with especial reference to their teaching, and a very little attention to what goes before will make this plain. Jesus Christ had been setting forth the parable of the sower, and instead of, as we should have expected, explaining the parable to the multitudes, He withheld the hidden meaning of it from the crowd, or left them to guess at its meaning, and privately expounded it to His disciples. After He had explained it, He gave

them to understand that this secret, or, as it is sometimes called, esoteric instruction in the hidden meaning of His teaching by parables was not for themselves but for all. All could not, it is true, receive it then, but all—all, that is, who embraced the Gospel-were to be taught it in due time. So that there was to be no secret instruction to be withheld from the great body of believers; even the Apostles themselves were but depositories of high truths, stewards of God's mysteries, and, as stewards, they must faithfully dispense what had been intrusted to their keeping. "No man," Christ says, " when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed, but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light." By this One who lights the candle, our Saviour means Himself; by the candle He especially means the Apostles; by the lighting of the candle, He mea is the instruction which He was then and always giving to the Apostles, and by his setting the candle on the candlestick He means the conspicuous position in which He was about to set the Apostles, so that they should not propagate the saving truths of His word for the benefit of a few, but in the ears of the world itself.

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Well, then," it is as if He said, "seeing that ye are My candles, lighted by Myself to give saving light to My church, and I am now 'lighting' you by my special teaching of things