We shall now dwell for a little on the remaining verses of our chapter, in which we shall find much to interest, instruct, and profit us.

And first, Moses rehea.r.s.es in the ears of the people his charge to Joshua.--"And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, 'Thine eyes have seen all that the Lord our G.o.d hath done unto these two kings; so shall the Lord do unto all the kingdoms whither thou pa.s.sest. Ye shall not fear them; for the Lord your G.o.d He shall fight for you.'" (Ver.

21, 22.)

The remembrance of the Lord's dealings with us in the past should strengthen our confidence in going on. The One who had given His people such a victory over the Amorites, who had destroyed such a formidable foe as Og, king of Bashan, and given into their hands all the land of the giants, what could He not do for them? They could hardly expect to encounter in all the land of Canaan any enemy more powerful than Og, whose bedstead was of such enormous dimensions as to call for the special notice of Moses; but what was he in the presence of his almighty Creator? Dwarfs and giants are all alike to Him. The grand point is to keep G.o.d Himself ever before our eyes; then difficulties vanish. If He covers the eyes, we can see nothing else; and this is the true secret of peace, and the real power of progress.

"Thine eyes have seen all that the Lord your G.o.d hath done." And as He has done, _so_ He will do. He _hath_ delivered, and He _doth_ deliver, and He _will_ deliver. Past, present, and future are all marked by divine deliverance.

Reader, art thou in any difficulty? Is there any pressure upon thee?

Art thou antic.i.p.ating, with nervous apprehension, some formidable evil? Is thine heart trembling at the very thought of it? It may be thou art like one who has come to the far end, like the apostle Paul in Asia--"Pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." If so, beloved friend, accept a word of encouragement. It is our deep and earnest desire to strengthen your hands in G.o.d, and to encourage your heart to trust Him for all that is before you. "Fear not:" only believe. He never fails a trusting heart--no, never. Make use of the resources which are treasured up for you in Him. Just put yourself, your surroundings, your fears, your anxieties, all into His hands, _and leave them there_.

Yes, leave them there. It is of little use your putting your difficulties, your necessities, into His hands and then, almost immediately, taking them into your own. We often do this. When in pressure, in need, in deep trial of some kind or other, we go to G.o.d in prayer, we cast our burden upon Him and seem to get relief; but, alas! no sooner have we risen from our knees than we begin again to look at the difficulty, ponder the trial, dwell upon all the sorrowful circ.u.mstances, until we are again at our very wits' end.

Now, this will never do. It sadly dishonors G.o.d, and, of course, leaves us unrelieved and unhappy. He would have our minds as free from care as the conscience is free from guilt. His word to us is, "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto G.o.d." And what then? "The peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth all understanding, shall keep [or garrison--f?????se?] your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Thus it was that Moses, that beloved man of G.o.d and honored servant of Christ, sought to encourage his fellow-laborer and successor, Joshua, in reference to all that was before him.--"Ye shall not fear them; for the Lord your G.o.d He shall fight for you." Thus, too, did the blessed apostle Paul encourage his beloved son and fellow-servant Timothy to trust in the living G.o.d; to be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus; to lean, with unshaken confidence, on G.o.d's sure foundation; to commit himself, with unquestioning a.s.surance, to the authority, teaching, and guidance of the holy Scriptures; and thus armed and furnished, to give himself, with holy diligence and true spiritual courage, to that work to which he was called. And thus, too, the writer and the reader can encourage one another, in these days of increasing difficulty, to cling, in simple faith, to that Word which is settled forever in heaven; to have it hidden in the heart as a living power and authority in the soul--something that will sustain us, though heart and flesh should fail, and though we had not the countenance or support of a human being. "All flesh is as gra.s.s, and all the glory of man as the flower of gra.s.s. The gra.s.s withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you." (1 Pet. i. 24, 25.)

How precious is this! What comfort and consolation! What stability and rest! What real strength, victory, and moral elevation! It is not within the compa.s.s of human language to set forth the preciousness of the Word of G.o.d, or to define, in adequate terms, the comfort of knowing that the self-same Word which is settled forever in heaven, and which shall endure throughout the countless ages of eternity, is that which has reached our hearts in the glad tidings of the gospel, imparting to us eternal life, and giving us peace and rest in the finished work of Christ, and a perfectly satisfying object in His adorable Person. Truly, as we think of all this, we cannot but own that every breath should be a halleluiah. Thus it shall be by and by, and that forever, all homage to His peerless name!

The closing verses of our chapter present a peculiarly touching pa.s.sage between Moses and his Lord, the record of which, as given here, is in lovely keeping, as we might expect, with the character of the entire book of Deuteronomy.--"And I besought the Lord at that time, saying, 'O Lord G.o.d, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness, and Thy mighty hand; for what G.o.d is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to Thy works and according to Thy might? I pray Thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.' But the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, 'Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter. Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan. But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see.'" (Ver. 23-28.)

It is very affecting to find this eminent servant of G.o.d urging a request which could not be granted. He longed to see that good land beyond Jordan. The portion chosen by the two tribes and a half could not satisfy his heart; he desired to plant his foot upon the proper inheritance of the Israel of G.o.d. But it was not to be. He had spoken unadvisedly with his lips at the waters of Meribah; and, by the solemn and irreversible enactment of the divine government, he was prohibited from crossing the Jordan.

All this, the beloved servant of Christ most meekly rehea.r.s.es in the ears of the people. He does not hide from them the fact that the Lord had refused to grant his request. True, he had to remind them that it was on their account--that was morally needful for them to hear; still he tells them, in the most unreserved manner, that Jehovah was wroth with him, and that He refused to hear him--refused to allow him to cross the Jordan, and called upon him to resign his office and appoint his successor.

Now, it is most edifying to hear all this from the lips of Moses himself. It teaches us a fine lesson, if only we are willing to learn it. Some of us find it very hard indeed to confess that we have done or said any thing wrong--very hard to own before our brethren that we have entirely missed the Lord's mind in any particular case. We are careful of our reputation; we are touchy and tenacious. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we admit, or seem to admit, in general terms, that we are poor, feeble, erring creatures; and that, if left to ourselves, there is nothing too bad for us to say or to do. But it is one thing to make a most humiliating general confession, and another thing altogether to own that, in some given case, we have made a gross mistake. This latter is a confession which very few have grace to make. Some can hardly ever admit that they have done wrong.

Not so that honored servant whose words we have just quoted. He, notwithstanding his elevated position as the called, trusted, and beloved servant of Jehovah--the leader of the congregation, whose rod had made the land of Egypt to tremble, was not ashamed to stand before the whole a.s.sembly of his brethren and confess his mistake--own that he had said what he ought not, and that he had earnestly urged a request which Jehovah could not grant.

Does this lower Moses in our estimation? The very reverse: it raises him immensely. It is morally lovely to hear his confession, to see how meekly he bows his head to the governmental dealings of G.o.d, to mark the unselfishness of his acting toward the man who was to succeed him in his high office. There was not a trace of jealousy or envy; no exhibition of mortified pride. With beautiful self-emptiness he steps down from his elevated position, throws his mantle over the shoulders of his successor, and encourages him to discharge, with holy fidelity, the duties of that high office which he himself had to resign.

"He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." How true was this in Moses' case! He humbled himself under the mighty hand of G.o.d. He accepted the holy discipline imposed upon him by the divine government. He uttered not a murmuring word at the refusal of his request; he bows to it all, and hence he was exalted in due time. If government kept him out of Canaan, grace conducted him to Pisgah's top, from whence, in company with his Lord, he was permitted to see that good land, in all its fair proportions--see it, not as inherited by Israel, but as given of G.o.d.

The reader will do well to ponder deeply the subject of grace and government. It is indeed a very weighty and practical theme, and one largely ill.u.s.trated in Scripture, though but little understood amongst us. It may seem wonderful to us, hard to be understood, that one so beloved as Moses should be refused an entrance into the promised land; but in this we see the solemn action of the divine government, and we have to bow our heads and worship. It was not merely that Moses, in his official capacity, or as representing the legal system, could not bring Israel into the land. This is true; but it is not all. Moses spake unadvisedly with his lips. He and Aaron his brother failed to glorify G.o.d, in the presence of the congregation, and for this cause "the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, 'Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.'" And again, we read, "The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, 'Aaron shall be gathered unto his people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against My word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto Mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there.'"

All this is most solemn. Here we have the two leading men in the congregation, the very men whom G.o.d had used to bring His people out of the land of Egypt, with mighty signs and wonders--"that Moses and Aaron"--men highly honored of G.o.d, and yet refused entrance into Canaan. And for what? Let us mark the reason.--"_Because ye rebelled against My word._"

Let these words sink down into our hearts. It is a terrible thing to rebel against the Word of G.o.d; and the more elevated the position of those who so rebel, the more serious it is in every way, and the more solemn and speedy must be the divine judgment. "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry."

These are weighty words, and we ought to ponder them deeply. They were uttered in the ears of Saul, when he had failed to obey the word of the Lord; and thus we have before us examples of a prophet, a priest, and a king, all judged, under the government of G.o.d, for an act of disobedience. The prophet and the priest were refused entrance into the land of Canaan, and the king was deprived of his throne, simply because they disobeyed the word of the Lord.

Let us remember this. We, in our fancied wisdom, might deem all this very severe. Are we competent judges? This is a grand question in all such matters. Let us beware how we presume to sit in judgment on the enactments of divine government. Adam was driven out of paradise, Aaron was stripped of his priestly robes, Moses was sternly refused entrance into Canaan, and Saul was deprived of his kingdom--and for what? Was it for what men would call a grave moral offense--some scandalous sin. No; it was, in each case, for neglecting the word of the Lord. This is the serious thing for us to keep before us, in this day of human willfulness, in which men undertake to set up their own opinions, to think for themselves, and judge for themselves, and act for themselves. Men proudly put the question, "Has not every man a right to think for himself?" We reply, Most certainly not. We have a right to obey. To obey what? Not the commandments of men, not the authority of the so-called church, not the decrees of general councils--in a word, not any merely human authority, call it what you please, but simply the Word of the living G.o.d--the testimony of the Holy Ghost--the voice of holy Scripture. This it is that justly claims our implicit, unhesitating, unquestioning obedience. To this we are to bow down our whole moral being. We are not to reason, we are not to speculate, we are not to weigh consequences, we have nothing to do with results, we are not to say "Why?" or "Wherefore?" It is ours to obey, and leave all the rest in the hands of our Master. What has a servant to do with consequences? what business has he to reason as to results? It is of the very essence of a servant to do what he is told, regardless of all other considerations. Had Adam remembered this, he would not have been turned out of Eden; had Moses and Aaron remembered it, they might have crossed the Jordan; had Saul remembered it, he would not have been deprived of his throne. And so, as we pa.s.s down along the stream of human history, we see this weighty principle ill.u.s.trated over and over again; and we may rest a.s.sured, it is a principle of abiding and universal importance.

And be it remembered, we are not to attempt to weaken this great principle by any reasonings grounded upon G.o.d's foreknowledge of all that was to happen, and all that man would do, in the course of time.

Men do reason in this way, but it is a fatal mistake. What has G.o.d's foreknowledge to do with man's responsibility? Is man responsible, or not? This is the question. If, as we most surely believe, he is, then nothing must be allowed to interfere with this responsibility. Man is called to obey the plain word of G.o.d; he is in no wise responsible to know aught about G.o.d's secret purposes and counsels. Man's responsibility rests upon what is revealed, not upon what is secret.

What, for example, did Adam know about G.o.d's eternal plans and purposes when he was set in the garden of Eden and forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Was his transgression in any wise modified by the stupendous fact that G.o.d took occasion from that very transgression to display, in the view of all created intelligences, His glorious scheme of redemption through the blood of the Lamb? Clearly not. He received a plain commandment, and by that commandment his conduct should have been absolutely governed. He disobeyed, and was driven out of paradise into a world which has, for well-nigh six thousand years, exhibited the terrible consequences of one single act of disobedience--the act of taking the forbidden fruit.

True it is, blessed be G.o.d, that grace has come into this poor sin-stricken world and there reaped a harvest which could never have been reaped in the fields of an unfallen creation. But man was judged for his transgression; he was driven out by the hand of G.o.d in government, and by an enactment of that government, he has been compelled to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. "Whatsoever _a man_ [no matter who] soweth, that shall he also reap."

Here we have the condensed statement of the principle which runs all through the Word, and is ill.u.s.trated on every page of the history of G.o.d's government. It demands our very gravest consideration. It is, alas! but little understood. We allow our minds to get under the influence of one-sided and therefore false ideas of grace, the effect of which is most pernicious. Grace is one thing, and government is another: they must never be confounded. We would earnestly impress upon the heart of the reader the weighty fact that the most magnificent display of G.o.d's sovereign grace can never interfere with the solemn enactments of His government.

CHAPTER IV.

"Now therefore _hearken_, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to _do_ them, that ye may _live_, and go in and _possess_ the land which the Lord G.o.d of your fathers giveth you."

Here we have very prominently before us the special characteristic of the entire book of Deuteronomy.--"Hearken" and "do," that ye may "live" and "possess." This is a universal and abiding principle. It was true for Israel, and it is true for us. The pathway of life and the true secret of possession is simple obedience to the holy commandments of G.o.d. We see this all through the inspired volume, from cover to cover. G.o.d has given us His Word, not to speculate upon it or discuss it, but, that we may obey it. And it is as we, through grace, yield a hearty and happy obedience to our Father's statutes and judgments, that we tread the bright pathway of life, and enter into the reality of all that G.o.d has treasured up for us in Christ. "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him."

How precious is this! Indeed, it is unspeakable. It is something quite peculiar. It would be a very serious mistake to suppose that the privilege here spoken of is enjoyed by all believers. It is not. It is only enjoyed by such as yield a loving obedience to the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. It lies within the reach of all, but all do not enjoy it, because all are not obedient. It is one thing to be a child, and quite another to be an obedient child; it is one thing to be saved, and quite another thing to love the Saviour, and delight in all His most precious precepts.

We may see this continually ill.u.s.trated in our family circles. There, for example, are two sons, and one of them only thinks of pleasing himself, doing his will, gratifying his own desires. He takes no pleasure in his father's society, does not take any pains to carry out his father's wishes, knows hardly any thing of his mind, and what he does know he utterly neglects or despises. He is ready enough to avail himself of all the benefits which accrue to him from the relationship in which he stands to his father--ready enough to accept clothes, books, money--all, in short, that the father gives; but he never seeks to gratify the father's heart by a loving attention to his will, even in the smallest matters. The other son is the direct opposite to all this. He delights in being with his father; he loves his society, loves his ways, loves his words; he is constantly taking occasion to carry out his father's wishes, to get him something that he knows will be agreeable to him. He loves his father, not for his gifts, but for himself; and he finds his richest enjoyment in being in his father's company and in doing his will.

Now, can we have any difficulty in seeing how very differently the father will feel towards those two sons? True, they are both his sons, and he loves them both, with a love grounded upon the relationship in which they stand to him; but beside the love of relationship common to both, there is the love of complacency peculiar to the obedient child.

It is impossible that a father can find pleasure in the society of a willful, self-indulgent, careless son. Such a son may occupy much of his thoughts, he may spend many a sleepless night thinking about him and praying for him, he would gladly spend and be spent for him; but he is not agreeable to him, does not possess his confidence, cannot be the depositary of his thoughts.

All this demands the serious consideration of those who really desire to be acceptable or agreeable to the heart of our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. We may rest a.s.sured of this, that obedience is grateful to G.o.d; and "His commandments are not grievous"--nay, they are the sweet and precious expression of His love, and the fruit and evidence of the relationship in which He stands to us. And not only so, but He graciously rewards our obedience by a fuller manifestation of Himself to our souls, and His dwelling with us. This comes out in great fullness and beauty in our Lord's reply to Judas, not Iscariot, for whose question we may be thankful--"'Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?' Jesus answered and said unto him, 'If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.'" (John xiv.)

Here we are taught that it is not a question of the difference between "the world" and "us," inasmuch as the world knows nothing either of relationship or obedience, and is therefore in no wise contemplated in our Lord's words. The world hates Christ, because it does not know Him. Its language is, "Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." "We will not have this Man to reign over us."

Such is the world, even when polished by civilization, and gilded with the profession of Christianity. There is, underneath all the gilding, all the polish, a deep-seated hatred of the Person and authority of Christ. His sacred, peerless name is tacked on to the world's religion, at least throughout baptized christendom; but behind the drapery of religious profession, there lurks a heart at enmity with G.o.d and His Christ.

But our Lord is not speaking of the world in John xiv. He is shut in with "His own," and it is of them He is speaking. Were He to manifest Himself to the world, it could only be for judgment and eternal destruction. But, blessed be His name, He does manifest Himself to His own obedient children, to those who have His commandments and keep them, to those who love Him and keep His words.

And, let the reader thoroughly understand that when our Lord speaks of His commandments, His words, and His sayings, He does not mean the ten commandments, or law of Moses. No doubt, those ten commandments form a part of the whole canon of Scripture--the inspired Word of G.o.d; but to confound the law of Moses with the commandments of Christ would be simply turning things upside down, it would be to confound Judaism with Christianity--law and grace. The two things are as distinct as any two things can be, and must be so maintained by all who would be found in the current of the mind of G.o.d.

We are sometimes led astray by the mere sound of words; and hence, when we meet with the word "commandments," we instantly conclude that it must needs refer to the law of Moses. But this is a very great and mischievous mistake. If the reader is not clear and established as to this, let him close this volume and turn to the first eight chapters of the epistle to the Romans, and the whole of the epistle to the Galatians, and read them calmly and prayerfully, as in the very presence of G.o.d, with a mind freed from all theological bias and the influence of all previous religious training. There he will learn, in the fullest and clearest manner, that the Christian is not under law in any way, or for any object whatsoever, either for life, for righteousness, for holiness, for walk, or for any thing else. In short, the teaching of the entire New Testament goes to establish, beyond all question, that the Christian is not under law, not of the world, not in the flesh, not in his sins. The solid ground of all this is the accomplished redemption which we have in Christ Jesus, in virtue of which we are sealed by the Holy Ghost, and thus indissolubly united to, and inseparably identified with a risen and glorified Christ; so that the apostle John can say of all believers, all G.o.d's dear children, "_As_ He [Christ] _is, so are we_ in this world." This settles the whole question, for all who are content to be governed by holy Scripture. And as to all beside, discussion is worse than useless.

We have digressed from our immediate subject, in order to meet any difficulty arising from a misunderstanding of the word "commandments."

The reader cannot too carefully guard against the tendency to confound the commandments spoken of in John xiv. with the commandments of Moses, given in Exodus xx. And yet we reverently believe that Exodus xx. is as truly inspired as John xiv.

And now, ere we finally turn from the subject which has been engaging us, we would ask the reader to refer, for a few moments, to a piece of inspired history which ill.u.s.trates, in a very striking way, the difference between an obedient and disobedient child of G.o.d. He will find it in Genesis xviii, xix. It is a profoundly interesting study, presenting a contrast instructive, suggestive, and practical beyond expression. We are not going to dwell upon it, having in some measure done so in our "Notes on the Book of Genesis;" but we would merely remind the reader that he has before him, in these two chapters, the history of two saints of G.o.d. Lot was just as much a child of G.o.d as Abraham. We have no more doubt that Lot is amongst "the spirits of just men made perfect" than that Abraham is there. This, we think, cannot be called in question, inasmuch as the inspired apostle Peter tells us that Lot's "righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked."

But mark the grave difference between the two men. The Lord Himself visited Abraham, sat with him, and partook readily of his hospitality.

This was a high honor indeed, a rare privilege--a privilege which Lot never knew, an honor to which he never attained. The Lord never visited him in Sodom; He merely sent His angels, His ministers of power, the agents of His government. And even they, at first, sternly refused to enter Lot's house or to partake of his proffered hospitality. Their withering reply was, "Nay, but we will abide in the street all night." And when they did enter his house, it was only to protect him from the lawless violence with which he was surrounded, and to drag him out of the wretched circ.u.mstances into which, for worldly gain and position, he had plunged himself. Could contrast be more vivid?

But further, the Lord delighted in Abraham, manifested Himself to him, opened His mind to him, told him of His plans and purposes--what He was about to do with Sodom. "Shall I," said He, "hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For _I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment_, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

We could hardly have a more telling ill.u.s.tration of John xiv. 21, 23, although the scene occurred two thousand years before the words were uttered. Have we aught like this in the history of Lot? Alas! no. It could not be. He had no nearness to G.o.d, no knowledge of His mind, no insight into His plans and purposes. How could he? Sunk, as he was, in the low moral depths of Sodom, how could he know the mind of G.o.d?

Blinded by the murky atmosphere which inwrapped the guilty cities of the plain, how could he see into the future? Utterly impossible. If a man is mixed up with the world, he can only see things from the world's stand-point; he can only measure things by the world's standard, and think of them with the world's thoughts. Hence it is that the Church, in its Sardis condition, is _threatened_ with the coming of the Lord as a thief, instead of being _cheered_ with the hope of His coming as the bright and morning star. If the professing church has sunk to the world's level--as, alas! she has--she can only contemplate the future from the world's point of view. This accounts for the feeling of dread with which the great majority of professing Christians look at the subject of the Lord's coming. They are looking for Him as a thief, instead of the blessed Bridegroom of their hearts.

How few there are, comparatively, who _love His appearing_! The great majority of professors (we grieve to have to pen the words) find their type in Lot rather than in Abraham. The Church has departed from her proper ground; she has gone down from her true moral elevation, and mingled herself with that world which hates and despises her absent Lord.

Still, thank G.o.d, there are "a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments"--a few living stones, amid the smouldering ashes of lifeless profession--a few lights twinkling amid the moral gloom of cold, nominal, heartless, worldly Christianity. And not only so, but in the Laodicean phase of the Church's history, which presents a still lower and more hopeless condition of things, when the whole professing body is about to be spued out of the mouth of "the faithful and true witness"--even at this advanced stage of failure and departure, those gracious words fall, with soul-stirring power, on the attentive ear, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if _any man_ hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in _to him_, and will sup with him, and he with Me."[7]

[7] To apply the solemn address of Christ to the church of Laodicea, as we sometimes find it done in modern evangelical preaching, to the case of the sinner, is a great mistake. No doubt, what the preacher means is right enough, but it is not presented here. It is not Christ knocking at the door of a sinner's heart, but knocking at the door of the professing church. What a fact is this! How full of deep and awful solemnity as regards the church! What an end to come to!--Christ outside! But what grace, as regards Christ, for He is knocking! He wants to come in; He is still lingering, in patient grace and changeless love, ready to come in to any faithful individual heart that will only open to Him. "If any man"--even one! In Sardis, He could speak _positively_ of "_a few_;" in Laodicea, He can only speak _doubtfully_ as to finding _one_. But should there be even one, He will come in to him, and sup with him. Precious Saviour! Faithful Lover of our souls! "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."