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the Saviour puts in comparison. It has the same meaning in this case that it had in the former. It signifies that our Lord was judicially put under the curse. This was the only way in which it could light on him as a thing inflicted by law. For he was guilty of no sin on which the moral curse of the law could rightly descend. That was the channel through which the curse of law had before always fastened on men. And, lest we should hesitate to acknowledge that the Son of God was cursed, the Holy Spirit has told us so in as many words, Gal. iii. 13:-" Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." And John has informed us that this lifting was a prophecy of the manner of his death. (John xii. 33.)

In our Lord's words, Moses is designated as the lifter of the serpent. He forgave the people's sin against himself. He provides the brass, and makes the serpent of deliverance. But the Mediator of the better covenant gives himself. But no one is named as lifting up the Son. We may see the reason of this, I think. We may look at the lifting from different points of view, and in each it will take a different aspect. In one view, it was the act of man and of Satan, and in that it was the height of sin. In another, it was the Mediator's own act; without His acquiescence it could not have taken place. But Jesus, with divine modesty, does not name Himself, but states the glory of the act and its blessed results as due to the Father. He calls it the Jews' doing, in John viii. 28 :-"When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."

Here was an awful advance in wickedness on the part both of man and of Satan. In the wilderness their fathers accused Moses; but now in the land they reject the Father and the Son, and crucify Him, putting Him under the curse. These sons of the old serpent display their hatred of the woman's seed, in its most furious and envenomed form. And Satan's wickedness never reached before so great a height as when he tempts the Son of God to abandon his Father and worship himself; and since he cannot prevail, he gathers all his force, and urges on the Pharisees and Israel, Judas and Pilate, with his soldiers, to put the Prince of Life to death. Jesus, therefore, on the last occasion of his appearing in public as the teacher, speaks of these things. Some Gentiles desire to see Him, and the news is brought to Him. He perceives in it a proof that His truth was to spread far beyond the small circle of Israel. But that could only be by His rising from the dead; for while He was a man in Jewish flesh He was sent to the house of Israel alone. He therefore is led to contemplate His death as close at hand, and nature shrinks from the prospect. Should he ask the Father to save him from that hour? No! For He had come that He might pass through it. He asks, therefore, "Father glorify thy name!" And so close was the conjunction of the Son with the Father that the voice of the Almighty responds at once. He had glorified it already (by Jesus' incarnation and life), he would glorify it again at Jesus' death, and resurrection, and their results. What these were to be the Saviour briefly sketches to the multitudes. The word of the Father

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was designed to afford evidence to them of the reality of Jesus' mission, as in the word to Moses, Ex. xix. 9. Only there was no "cloud" as then. But if God is to be glorified, Satan must be ejected from the kingdom of this world. His head is first bruised then, during the thousand years. Moreover, after his deep humiliation, the Father must needs exalt Jesus. So it was written. (Is. lii. 13; liii. 10-12.) To Him should be the gathering of the peoples; in Him headed up all things both in heaven and earth. All things were created by Him, and designed for his glory.

But the great point of contrast (and in that contrast lies the glory) consists in the difference of the things lifted under the curse. The law lifted a dead piece of metal, bearing only in its outward form the figure of the serpent. But the gospel raised and set under the curse the Son of Man, keen to feel its sharp edge, its crushing weight, both in body and soul. The law exhibited as cursed the Serpent, and deservedly so. The foe of man in the garden, he was still Israel's foe in the wilderness. The enemy of God in Eden, he still laboured to set God and his chosen people at variance, and all his plans were framed to hinder and destroy the design of Jehovah. The law is the witness of the justice of God. And accordingly, with the utmost propriety it presented justice done on the arch-enemy of God and man.

What is the serpent? Fiery, deadly, crooked, the messenger of death. Is the Son of God so? Nay; but gentle, meek, harmless, lifegiving. What is the character of the old serpent? A liar and a murderer from the beginning; he abode not in the truth. Is that the character of the Son of God? Nay; but He is truth and love, the Saviour, the Redeemer of the lost. Then, do we expect opposite treatment to parties so contrasted. That be far from thee to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right? (Gen. xviii. 25.) Yet here we find both the deadly serpent and the lovely Son lifted on the tree of the curse. Why? (Heb. ii. 14, 15.) "That through death He might strike powerless him who had the power of death-that is, the devil-and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

The Gospel exhibits as cursed one who did not deserve wrath from God or man. He was the fellow of God, His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased ever; the obedient in all things. He was the friend of

man, the great counterworker of the plots of Satan. Had He obtained His deserts, he had won for Himself the rule of all the earth; every blessing of the law was His. Here lies the glory of the difference. The law justly curses Satan, the serpent, foe of God and man. Gospel's wondrous news is of the cursing, of the Son, the beloved of God, that He might be the Redeemer of man! Here is Grace! Here is the ove of God!

But the

Thus it "must" be, if man were to be redeemed. To this the Father consented, this was the Father's gift. To this the Son agreed, that God might be glorified, His justice and mercy meet together. On man and Israel had fallen the curse of the broken laws of Eden and of Moses, and only by the blessed One's becoming a curse could the cursed one become blessed. Only by his endurance of death, the

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penalty threatened, could life, the blessing, be restored, and man taken out from under law, to be made a son of God.

But note another joyful difference! The serpent under the curse was made of copper, a lasting metal, to tell us that the curse shall never be removed from off him. But while the curse fell on the Son, and pierced Him through with sore agony, it could not hold Him. It struck Him to death, but it could not keep Him. On the third day, He rose above its power. The Lord of Life could not be detained by death. The Son of Righteousness could not be plunged in eternal eclipse. He has come forth from the curse into blessing. He has been taken from this low world of sin and death to the heaven of heavens, to dwell in the presence of the Holy One above. And from this, His bruising, has sprung His glory. The Father has given Him a name above every name; and when the day of justice comes, when to each shall be rendered according to his works, to Jesus the supreme place of glory must be given of right. In the day of grace Satan reigns, and his power was exerted to bruise the heel of the Son of Man. It was fulfilled in his hour when the power of darkness was permitted its full sway, and in crucifixion the Saviour's heel was literally bruised. But the day is at hand which will bruise Satan's head. Jesus will be exalted on the world and in the scene in which he was humbled, and Satan will be ejected both from earth and heaven. For the grace of the Son in His humbling to death, all shall bow before him, and every tongue confess to God.

But now a word on the results of the two liftings.

The raising of the serpent of brass was with a benevolent view on God's part, and on the mediator's; it was the fruit of his prayer and power with Jehovah. Every bitten one that looked, even with the glazing eye of death, on that snake of God's appointing, lived. His ebbing life of nature returned to its full tide again through that gaze. What no herb or metal could effect, that at once produced.

But now the Saviour is not exhibited to the eye of nature: He is far away in the heavenly places. But the story of His death is to be presented to the sinners around, to heal a worse disorder than that which afflicted Israel. To man, dying under the wrath of God, as a criminal offending against his laws, to man as full of enmity against God, this hope is lifted up. We present the cross of Christ as the reality of that which the law could but shadow forth at a great distance, and in an imperfect emblem. Behold grouped around this centre, man and Satan, God and His Son. Behold here man's highest trespass and Satan's most impious plot! If upon the multitude gathered around Golgotha the fires and brimstone of Sodom had descended, if the earth had opened and the guilty city had been plunged into the gulf, it would have been only its desert. But behold also the Father and Son, full of grace, and full of justice, combining to save the guilty rebels of men! Here is justice: without death there can be no pardon-without the curse endured, no blessing. Even the agonised prayer of the beloved Son, that the cup might pass away, cannot be heard. Die He must, if man be saved. But oh, the love of God! He so loved the world as to set his beloved Son under the terrors of the curse, that we might not perish, but have eternal life.

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The brass serpent in the desert was exhibited to the eyes of Israe alone; but this cross of the Christ was displayed before both Jew and Gentile. It speaks the sin of both; it tells of their deep disorder, and the full deceptive power of the wicked one over them both. But it tells too of the love of God towards both alike. Law, in its justice, curses the cursed one, and natural life is prolonged. Grace in love to sentenced dying man curses the Blessed One, and eternal life flows into his soul

who believes !

The cross of Christ discriminates between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The sons of the wicked one regard it not, or cavil at it. Some will not believe their disease, some deny the justice of God and the day of judgment to come. Some cavil at this display of love as unjust. We proclaim the God of justice as seen under the law; but we have to tell, too, in joyous tones, of the God of grace and justice both exhibited in the cross of His Son.

Who will believe it? Who find life and peace now, and glory hereafter from this scene? Who will meet God here ? Who will move past the altar and the laver into the holiest of the heaven? Look sinner, and live!

But the Saviour lifted off the earth in judgment under the curse, is to be lifted over the earth in glory, to be exalted and extolled and to be very high. This he foretold as the result of his enduring the curse. All should be drawn to Him. And this day is fast rolling on. In the counsels of God it is nigh at hand. How grandly closes the Psalm of the crucifixion! After its low wail and minor key, how does it swell into the fullest chords of triumph at the conclusion!

My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my Vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this." (Ps. xxii. 25-31.) The coming kingdom takes the cross of Christ as its basis.

ADVERSITY.

As the body of man, and consequently health, is best understood and best advanced by dissections and anatomies, when the hand and knife of the surgeon has passed upon every part of the body, and laid it open; so when the hand and sword of God has pierced our soul, we are brought to a better knowledge of ourselves than any degree of prosperity would have raised us to. No study is so necessary as to know ourselves; no schoolmaster is so diligent, so vigilant, so assiduous, as adversity.-Dr. Donne.

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THE JUDGMENT OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

CHAPTER I.

BY ROBERT BURROW.

To convince a sinner of his ruined condition is the work of the Spirit of God. The instrument employed is usually the law, or word of God. Man's instrumentality may, or may not be, employed. A sinner may try to stifle the conviction, and may go on doing so from time to time until (the Spirit no longer striving with him), he is given up to the hardness of his heart. Lamentable, indeed, is the condition of such a man!

But when this conviction is yielded to, it leads to the inquiry," What must I do to be saved ?" And the answer is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And should he be in doubt as to what is meant by this sublime answer, it may be stated thus: "Believe that he loved thee, and gave himself for thee-that he died for thy sins, and rose again for thy justification, and thou shalt be saved." He believes, and thus, according to the promise, is saved from the guilt and power of sin. And in the joy of his heart he asks, "How shall I equal triumphs raise, Or sing my great deliverer's praise."

And well he may do so ! And he goes on his way rejoicing. But by-and-bye he hears some alarming discourse on the judgment, in which the preacher represents the just and the unjust, the righteous and the wicked, all rising from the dead together, and all alike made to stand to be tried, for life or death, before the Judge of the whole earth. He, as a matter of course, according to general custom, takes all the speaker says for granted. What is the consequence? His joy in the Lord, arising from a sense of pardoning mercy, is abated. With a heavy heart he looks forward to what is called "the judgment." His soul is sad, and he anxiously asks, "How shall I stand in this judg ment?" But has he been rightly instructed on this subject? Is he really, as a justified believer, to stand in judgment as a sinner? Is the preacher uttering the truth of God in saying that the just and the unjust, the righteous and the wicked, shall be raised together, and that all alike are to stand before the judgment seat to be tried for life or death?

Is this really the teaching of Scripture? Before answering this question, let us ask another, "What is meant by the day of judgment?" It is used in opposition to "the day of salvation," a day which has lasted for eighteen hundred years, and is not yet come to a close. So the day of judgment extends over a period of at least a thousand years. The day of judgment, thus understood, the Scriptures clearly teach us, that during this long period several acts of judgment will take placethat the Antichrist, and all in confederacy with him, will be judged, condemned, and destroyed-that the nations will be judged and