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led to the conversion of Saul. Had the Christians but deemed Christ a prophet, his ire had not been kindled; but "they called on His name," offering Him the Divine honours of prayer and praise. This rivalry of Jehovah was intolerable to the monotheistic disciple of Gamaliel; and it was only when, from the shekinah radiance, the voice of Jesus sounded forth that he recognized His unity with the Father, addressing Him in the language of supplication. If one were to seek to illustrate the way in which "the only-begotten Son declared" the invisible Father, one might describe a king anxious to reveal his true character to distant subjects who knew little more of him than his name. Adopting a peasant's garb, he takes up his abode in their midst, living as one of themselves. A certain noble air is noticed but unexplained; and what he has to say on political themes, on the character and desires of the king, indicate a knowledge out of keeping with his lowly station. A band of staunch friends gathers about him, to whom his discourse is yet fuller on court themes, concerning which they felt so great curiosity and knew so little; but most of all are they drawn to him by the kindliness and integrity of his nature. Speaking of the purposes of the monarch, one of his hearers exclaims : Would that you were king!" and he makes answer, “I am; I and the king are one; he that hath seen me hath seen the king." Great is their astonishment and joy. At last he returns by toilsome route to his palace and throne, leaving the most loyal of subjects, to whom he promises tokens of his regard and a kindly welcome when their local claims shall set them free to repair to the royal city. Was it not thus with regard to Christ? Did He not come, having "taken on Him the form of a servant," to reveal the Divine love and sanctity by His life and death. Puzzled His followers were, as they saw one whose power was that of God, and whom they may have feared to love better than God; what relief when they find that He is God, that they can approach Him without dread and worship Him without idolatry. So the relationship of God to Christ is seen at last to be that of essential unity.

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And yet does not Paul, looking far into the future with prophetic glance, speak of Christ's subordination to the Father in a way that would appear to deny equality and essential unity. His words are: "And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 28). Is not the teaching of this passage to the effect that the period will come when the incarnation, the Divine self-expression in the Logos, will have fully accomplished its purpose; and that, as we have seen God in Christ, so then we shall see Christ in God? May it not mean, that our knowledge of the great King will be so complete that He will lay His peasant garb aside? But having thought of God's relation to Christ, and found it unity, we consider His relation to redemption, and find it that of Redeemer. "God so loved the world." Some have regarded Him as in wrath, seeking the destruction of the world; our text represents Him as in compassion, seeking its redemption. Nor let any presume to limit the objects of His pity. If elect world had been meant, it would have been expressed. Then would not Christ have said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” or in some cases the torture would have been worse than that of Tantalus-the water of Life rising to the very lips, only to subside untasted. "That He gave His only begotten Son." Did He love Himself better than His Son, that He gave Him to suffer? or did He love the world better than His Son, that He gave Him for the world? are questions which cannot fail to arise in the minds of those who practically, if not avowedly, regard God and Christ as two distinct deities, but which meet their solution in the declared unity of the Father and Son. In the light of this fact we do not hesitate to allow that He loved the world better than His Son, for He loved it better than Himself, and we behold in the sufferings of Jesus the self-sacrifice of God.

This was plainly the conception of Paul when (Acts xx. 28) he speaks, in his address to the Ephesian elders, of “the

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Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood" (a reading which carries the authority of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS.). "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life "—in Him, not in His message merely, as must have been stated had He been but a messenger; but in Him as "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person;" in Him as a holy yet tender God, revealing in the vicarious sufferings of Calvary His hatred to sin and love to the sinner.

To understand the fulness of this sublime text is indeed impossible. The snow-peaked mountain is the most conspicuous feature in the landscape, smitten by the earliest beam of morning, left by the latest glow of sunset; but it is the most inaccessible, the most difficult to delineate, to paint. Its pale delicate tints, the soft shadows thrown by the rounded snow, the matchless sheen of the summit, are inimitable. But though the cottager may be unable to scale, or compass, or paint the mountain, he may admire it in its changeless form but ever varied beauty; he may build his home on its lower slopes, and may drink of the stream that rises amidst its dissolving snows. Like such a mountain, our text towers upward from the plains of Revelation, conspicuous, beautiful, with sheen of sanctity and tints of tenderness; but its summit, how impossible to scale; its base, how impossible to compass; its glories, how impossible to delineate, to describe; yet may we, as so many have done in past generations, admire its exquisite loveliness and grandeur, build on its vast slopes, finding a foundation of rock, and drink of the water of life, clear as crystal, that flows down from the meltings of Divine love. SEPTIMUS MARCH, B.A. Southampton.

The Condescension of Christ.

THEY MARVELLED THAT HE TALKED WITH THE WOMAN."-John iv. 27.

HE Bible is a book of real pathos; it is full of strong, godlike, human feeling, not mere transient sentimentalism. In all the Bible there is no more pathetic story

than this. While dramatic in its force, it is tenderly pathetic in its spiritual poetry. Every incident leading up to our text is sketched by a master hand and reveals subtle traits of human character and feeling. Look at our text as illustrating the Condescension of Jesus.

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I. The NATURE of Christ's Condescension. "He talked with the woman." The disciples marvelled, not so much that He talked with this woman, as that he talked to a woman at all: it was an objection, not upon the ground of her character, but upon the ground of her natural and social relationships to man. (a) Christ talks to the WEAK. Man is ready to be "always stronger on the strongest side." with the powerful and mighty. One Who links Himself to the weak. will not break," etc. "When we were without strength Christ died for us. Talk to those whom the world [regards as weak in social influence, weak in temporal advantages, weak in intellectual force, weak in spiritual aspiration. He loves us, not for what we are, but because of what He would have us be. (B) Christ talks to the SLIGHTED. In the East, woman is made to hold a very degraded and inferior position to that of man: the Oriental idea being, that she is not worth the study, the cultivation, the development, bestowed on man. Hence they coldly neglect and slight her. She relapses into a social drudge. Christ, by His conduct, aimed a decisive blow at this studied neglect. Many there are that look upon unregenerate man as a ruin hopelessly fallen, a vessel hopelessly wrecked, a bankrupt hopelessly impoverished. But Jesus condescends to our low estate and raises us up, makes us a temple for the dwelling of the Spirit, sends us forth as a vessel bound for an eternity of bliss, makes us rich with His spiritual gifts. We are too often the Priest and Levite who pass by on the other side; but Jesus is the "Good Samaritan" who comes down to heal, to bless, to save. (y) Christ talks to the DESPISED. The slighting of woman led finally to her being despised. So soon does neglect lead to contempt. She became one who lived not for herself: her only purpose

in life was to minister to the gratification of her self-willed idol, man. The sense of cold indifference grew into a feeling of positive contempt. How different was the conduct of Jesus. He did not stand aloof, He did not despise her lowly, degraded condition. She had a soul to be won to God, to truth, to purity, to spiritual glory; and though all should contemn, He would win and bless. Christ saves the world's, the devil's castaways. "This man receiveth sinners." Examples: The penitent thief, Paul, Bunyan, Newton. He will receive you, poor, weak, slighted, despised, if you will but respond to the Divine love.

II. The DEPTH of Christ's condescension. "He TALKED with the woman." The word is expressive. It speaks of a free, familiar, unrestrained heart-to-heart intercourse. Though He were the Teacher sent from God, yet He lays aside His official dignity and talks to this despised Samaritan. When He spake to the doctors of the law in the Temple, it was with a set discourse; but now that He wishes to win a sin-convicted heart, He speaks closely, tenderly, familiarly. He talks (a) Not PATRONIZINGLY. Not as the teacher to his pupil, not as the lecturer to his class. There is no starchy officialism in Jesus Christ. Some men always try to make their hearers feel the contrast there is between themselves and their auditors, and but how very condescending it is of them to speak at all; Jesus speaks to us so as to set our souls at ease and make us feel that He is our Friend. (8) Not REBUKingly. Some are nothing unless severe. They love to level their puny thunderbolts. They think it is theirs to usurp the vengeance of the Lord; they are for ever denouncing and scolding. But not so Jesus. He makes this woman her own accuser. She confesses her guilt ere He charges her with it. With an exquisite delicacy and tenderness, with a holy art and grace, He reveals her to herself, and by His goodness and lovingkindness wins her soul. (y) But FAMILIARLY. He talks to her as He did to the troubled disciples on the sea, and reassured their trembling hearts (Mark vi. 50); as Paul did to the godly women who worshipped at Philippi by the river side,

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