heel" (Gen. iii. 15). "Himself, the head of a family or seed, the overcomer of the serpent and his seed; the Lord God pledging Himself thereto "- was the first announcement. In that declaration the Lord God put Himself forward, pledged Himself that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. This was God's first promulgated word or thought (and addressed to Satan) about the scene in which sin was ruling among men. Pass from that first word onward. Trace out, if you will, what may have instruction in it, but notice well as bearing the authority of God's stamp of type upon it (on New Testament authority too) the seed of Abraham (Gen. xii. 7; xv. 3, 5; xvii. 7, 8; compare Gal. iii. 16-29, etc.), including, as it does, a view of heaven and earth in connection with the seed, etc., etc. Patriarchs (Ps. cv.) grew into families; and families into a nation. The paschal-lamb, redemption out of Egypt, the feast of Pentecost and the great Day of Atonement; the mediator, High priest, prophet-the tabernacle, with its altars, etc., etc., all in the nation to whom Jehovah made Himself God and King, were, according to the New Testament, types of Him that was to come.

If

Samuel the prophet that judged, and David the king that sat on the throne, were types too. And there were declarations of Moses in the law and in the prophets about Him which aided a man like Philip (John i. 45) to recognise the Nazarene. The Lord God pointed onward to what He would do against the evil one. any one hoped in Him he got faith in so doing and rest. In all this time, from Eden until Cæsar,-hope took the lead. Some one was to come,-the Lord God had declared it to the serpent,-some one was to come, the seed of the woman,-the son of a virgin (Isaiah vii. 14, and Matt. i. 23), the destroyer of the serpent and His seed. Hope, I say, took the lead, and where there was no hope, there was no faith and no rest. Promises to Messiah, promises in which Jehovah, God and King of Israel, would prove Himself to be with His anointed in blessings of deliverances on carth to Israel, fed the hopes of God's people upon earth. A person was looked for-the Hope of Israel. That was clear; and this was

tne position in which a Mary, an Anna, a Simeon were found at the time of the birth of Him who was the Hope. We wait, in hope; was faith's word.

B. But when the babe was born, this was, to some extent, changed. The One waited for the One that was to be the Worker of deliverance—there He was ! The second chapter of Luke's gospel tells us (ver. 7) of the birth of the child. "And she (Mary) brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." The angel of the Lord swiftly announced it to certain shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Upon these, the angel came, and then the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and the shepherds were sore afraid. But the angel said, "Fear not for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (ver. 10), etc., etc. And a multitude of the heavenly host then joined the angel, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward [or in, among] men." The shepherds went in haste to see and found the child-and "returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things which they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them " (ver. 20). Simeon is then an eye witness, one that embraces the babe, a rejoicer before God in Him. His word to Mary was of God-Behold this One is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; yea, a 'sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (ver. 34, 35). As though he said, "Himself is the One who is our Hope!-but Him

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• God's delight in Him who was to be this Hope to Israel on earth, in time, the only hope for heaven in eternity, was such that every detail and circumstance of His birth had been the subject of prophecy. The incarnation; His mother a virgin; the family of which she was to be, and he to whom she was betrothed; the birth-place; the persecution; the flight into Egypt, etc., all had been recorded.

self has yet conflict before Him before victory." Anna, too, came and saw and gave thanks.

Note it, there is nothing said about the babe, such as mere human affection in nature would have said; but Himself, in all the attractiveness which He is to faith was there-Himself the stay of their faith, their hope.

C. Hidden in retirement for a season-He in due time goes to be baptised of John; gets there a recognition from God on high, "And, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him; and, lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. iii. 16, 17).

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, stood thus confessed at His entering upon service.

His gathering unto Himself (John i. 29-51); His going about doing good; His zeal for God, His readiness to do any thing needed by any one in Israel, His miracles, His instructions, etc., etc., trying to reconcile the world unto God, seeking to gather the children of Jerusalem as a hen doth gather her chickens. What, in all the variety of the three years' active service of His, did faith see in Him? what stay was there in Him? what hope to any save the few that loved Him? But He Himself was the great book that was open before man: all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily; Himself as a man, the presentation and declaration of the Father. Such was He in life here below.

D. But Israel would not be reconciled to Godwould not take the promises under Him. He was there, willing and able to make good all the Messianic promises, all the Jehovah blessing to them,-in spite of all their ruin, if they would but have Him as the sent One of God. But they would not; and Pontius Pilate, the representative of the Gentile power, concurred with them. He then set His face toward death, the death of the cross; baptism, which He knew all along He would have to pass through if that part of the will of God was to stand that Messiah was to have a kingdom and a people upon earth, although that kingdom and that people might in themselves have no heart to have Himself as

Messiah. Who can frustrate God? who can escape from the blessing which God thinks to give?

Him crucified! His blood shed! Him put to death. -Where were the promises, where the rest, where the object of faith?

E. All was safe in Himself. the resurrection and the life, according to the thoughts of God and the Father, -though none on earth, none could follow out the thought. What mind, what soul on earth could say "It is well," even as to the counsel of God. Affection

to Himself was deeply tried; hope might be flickering; or, to human feeling, even extinct. Faith might be baffled; love, however deeply agonised, still clave to Himself. Yea! His very death revealed the thoughts of the hearts of a Joseph with his tomb, of a Nicodemus with his spices. And dead, as alive, He was to Mary's heart her all. What? Whom had she but Himself?

Her love met its reward. Awake from death when He spake to her and used her as His messenger, these were His words :

"Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John xx. 17.)

The Lord is risen! what a thrilling fact! but what a new position was it which He had now taken, which He now held before them! Himself, however, their all still. What the results to them of His new state, they knew not: nay, all such questions seemed foreign to the hearts that loved Him, in the fresh intercourse they had with Him. His intercourse through forty days with them (Acts i. 3), and all that passed then, showed that their past, present and future was Himself unfruitful as their understanding might be.

F. But they saw Him ascend-were told to wait for the promise of the Father, and shortly after at Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down and the assembly of God was formed. Himself made Lord and Christ in heaven, shed abroad that which was seen and heard-the presence, power, and powers of the Holy Ghost, which

a Here again, as in the first declaration in Eden, Divine pur

nor Satan nor man could deny, though men there were hardy enough to resist it. Stephen was stoned. His martyrdom was the expression of Jerusalem's rejection of Messiah in heaven, God-honoured, the Giver of the Holy Ghost; even as the Lord's own death had been the expression of Jerusalem's rejection of the Messiah when on earth.

Paul was converted, and began his labours-Apostle of the uncircumcision, as Peter was of the circumcision. Ere their living testimony closed,

G. Truth was embodied in books, in the which we find all that God was pleased to reveal in writing of His own thoughts about the life, and death, and resurrection and session in heaven, and coming again, of His Son, whether to fetch His Church home, or to take up a new position of government and of grace in Jerusalem; or after that, to wind all up in the eternal state-a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.

Himself who has triumphed gloriously, and ourselves called by Him to enter into His joy and into all the fruits of His victory as the servant and champion of God,-worster of the serpent, open manifester of all this world's wickedness, and of the poverty of man as a ruined creature, - Himself filling heaven and earth with those that can unselfishly rejoice in His joy and in His triumph, that is what I wait for to see in the end.

There will be the two spheres, heaven and earth, just as there are now heavenly glories which are His in the presence of God and His Father, and there were in Him Messianic and Jehovah glories, which though man rejected then, will surely be made good upon earth yet when He comes again. I do not lay stress here upon the difference of the apostleships and of the truths con

pose and power over evil were the leading characteristics (the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head). So, here, a man dishonoured, earth-rejected,-Jesus, is in heaven, Lord of all, and Christ, sender down of the Holy Ghost.

These letters, A, B, C . . . G, mark the steps in bringing out to light of our subject.