the flesh, and with no uncertain issue; for thus only does he realise Christ, and enter the strait gate. Christ is the gate. Then, as he strives, his burden departs. Even so, Paul exhorts Timothy, saying, "Agonize the good agony of faith, and lay hold of eternal life.”

The Kingdom is at hand, the gate is open, and any may enter who will. The open way gives every man the power. Christ is the way by whom we escape temptation; for our depraved nature, wherein we find a law ever warring against the law of our minds, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin and death, is the channel through which temptation comes; but in Christ Jesus, by the law of the Spirit of Life, we are set free, and enjoy the liberty of the children of God. Then, when tempted or tried, we, lawfully striving, prove our Christianity; for we war not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places. To him that overcomes, will I, says the Lord, grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne.

Peter asked, from his own point of view, whether there be few saved. He was told the solemn truth, that many with distinguished privileges and first among men will seek to enter and shall not be able; and, remembering the Lord's words, he asks: "If judgment begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and

sinner be?"

Our Evangelist shows clearly enough that the truth is without respect of persons. The Kingdom is at hand. Every man is in it or not. He is alive or dead to it. And the time will come to every one terminating this life, that the gate will be shut, and woe to him that is then outside.

He has not

striven, has not agonized, has not learned Christ. He may seek to enter, but cannot, for he has not borne the cross of Christ. What will then avail such being first, standing, perhaps, on the pinnacle of the temple? Can any words be more impressive than those addressed to the most distinguished of the disciples? Peter, and those with him, may call Him Lord, Lord! mean all that appellation implies; yet, if they strive not to enter in at the strait gate, He will say to them, "I know ye not, whence ye are."

But if
It is

If Christ be not in us, striving against all the power of the enemy, he is no Christ to us; He knows us not. otherwise, then there can be no compromise with evil. a contradiction to call Him Lord, and not know Him as the Christ. We may say, We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, as those who come and partake of the emblems of His death and life. Who, not discerning the Lord's body, whereby we are dead to sin-that is, it a reality in us—eat to themselves condemnation. If, then, we will not escape temptation in the one only way the Lord teaches, however we may hereafter say, "Have we not eaten and drunk in Thy presence?" He will reply, "I tell you I know ye not, whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." The veil of self-deception will then be removed, and we, with all our fashionable conventional Christianity and party sectarian zeal, are only workers of iniquity (adıkıa), being without that which is of God the Father, while that worked in us which should have been renounced.

At the last supper the Lord said to Peter, "Simon, Simon (then his true name), behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." He was converted, not by eating

and drinking in His presence, but only when he had the faith.

As yet Peter and the others, though the Lord had taught them, though they had eaten and drunk in His presence, were not converted-had not striven. He here teaches them that, when they are converted, they possess Him; that He then, in them, prays that their faith fail not. On His part, it will not. His prayer is a testimony to the Father's will. And he that has believed into Christ, strives and occupies, realises this petition; else, by his own deliberate act, he resists a working Christ, a gracious Saviour, his true strength, who of Himself loses not one of those whom the Father has given Him.

The Lord repeats the warning; and, however contradictory it may appear, every one is in the Kingdom. Whatever may be his conduct, the truth stands. The covenant, in all its fulness, is a reality. The Kingdom is come upon every man, is within every man; but if any one apprehend it not, realise

it not in Christ the

Son of God, he cannot see, much less enter it, but is the worker of iniquity.

Then, when the door is shut, what will avail the past? What profit will there be in all that feverish excitement that now engrosses men? It is often said, in the midst of some dire calamity, "We stand on the brink of eternity." Why not regard the future as ever present, and even as already entered upon? Else, when the soul shall be thrust out from the presence of God into outer darkness, to find then the stern reality of that negative condition in which it has lived, what shall be its experience? What, when it sees Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-names that have distinct reference to the God of each, to the Triune God in all the full blessings of the covenant blessing His creatures—and the faithful witnesses, the prophets, and itself cast out?

The time will come when we shall see and know as we are known. But it will be to enjoy everlastingly the Kingdom in the perfect blessing of a Triune God, or for ever to be thrust out into outer darkness, where there will be, indeed, weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. They shall come from all parts, and partake of the full blessing of the covenant. To no particular nation, to no particular people, to no particular individuals, does this belong. From the four corners of the earth shall they come to sit down with the Three. It is the covenant in all its fulness, made with all flesh, and so they will enter into all the blessing of the Kingdom.

Let every one strive; for throughout all time, as the Lord's prayer is put forth, these words of His are as powerful as when uttered, and are a witness to the universal tendency of the truth.

We must be continually winning Christ; and we do so as we strive to enter in at the strait gate. Some may have worked three, six, nine, or eleven hours of the day in the vineyard; but if the possession of the Divine Nature in a pure heart be not the one object of their striving, what shall be the awful revelation? The first shall be last, while the last shall be first, whose life shall be a testimony to the faithfulness of God, how that He leads us not into temptation, but, when we are tempted, makes a way of escape, which we find only as we strive to enter the strait gate, and so glorify God in the fires.

XXIV.

LUKE xi. 4, and xiii. 31-35.

THIS seventh and last petition is the removal of all that would impede or prevent the full manifestation of the sons of God in the glory of the Father. We now have deliverance from evil as we demonstrate the invisible realities of the Kingdom; and, earnestly looking forward, we await the glorious consummation at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

The evil is the evil one, who, as the root-word signifies, is ever working in all his concentrated malignity against the covenant, the gracious purposes of God. Here, then, we must not, and we shall not, as we know the truth, make evil signify a variety of things, or different in ourselves and others. Sin is the same everywhere, in and out of us. It would kill the Son, ascend the throne of the Father, seize on the inheritance; so, not only destroy the paternal relation, the foundation of the covenant, but make the Deity as itself.

The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? One might set forth the fruits of evil; but what are they, but so many witnesses to the presence of evil itself. It would be far better that men should, unrestrained, commit gross transgressions and be conscious of indwelling evil, than, self-deceived, hug the fearful monster to their everlasting destruction. All social vices are so many tongues loudly proclaiming the presence of evil. However, since the door is not shut, and man is permitted to live in a sort of twilight, there is a continual