us.

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So ends this wonderful statement. It begins in eternity, when the Word was with God, and was God. It follows Him as He is made flesh, and dwells among It goes down with Him into death, and ascends with Him into glory and leaves Him at last with an adoring universe at His feet, Himself presenting its homage with His own to the one God and Father of all. And now, to what purpose is it made? Simply that we, partaking of the mind which was (and is) in Christ Jesus, may in humility consider others rather than ourselves,may look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. The Apostle goes for his illustration, not only to the doings of the Word made flesh, which would be high enough; but to the very depths of the Divine. Christ Jesus began to be our example before He appeared on earth, before the Gospels tell of Him. Its first step is that He, being very and eternal God, dwelling with His Father before all time in glory and blessedness unspeakable, came down from heaven in perfect love, from perfect Love, and became very man for our salvation.

Let this mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus. Have we anything of our own, any surroundings of splendour, any equality with greatness? Let us not count them as things to be held tenaciously, to be grasped for their own sakes, as materials of enjoyment or occasions of honour. Let us be ready to empty ourselves and become poor, if by so doing we can enrich our brethren. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus (words not recorded by any Evangelist, but learnt and treasured up by St. Paul), how He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Indeed we shall find it so-more blessed to give up our own way than to have it, to sacri

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fice than to enjoy, to obey than to rule, to minister than to be ministered unto. The Cross means this; the manger at Bethlehem meant it; and the end of the mediatorial kingdom will mean it. God, He emptied Himself."

"Being in the form of "Being found in fashion

as a man, He humbled Himself." “When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject." This mind is in God, that it may be in us, who are made in His image and can only be perfected as we attain unto His likeness.

O Son of the Most High, what self-abnegation is this of Thine! What have we wherein we can resemble Thee, wherewith we can follow in Thy footsteps? Dost Thou accept our pale shadow of Thy perfections? dost Thou count us like Thee when we resign, when we submit, when we deny ourselves? Form Thou Thy mind in us! draw us after Thee, that we may follow Thee whithersoever Thou leadest! Glorify Thy Name in us and in all mankind, that so Thy patience may have fruit, and the kingdom of Thy Father and our Father may come, and His will be done in earth as now it is done in heaven. Amen.

MONDAY BEFORE EASTER.

Moses and Phinehas making Atonement.

HOLY Scripture is rich in instruction regarding Atonement, both as it is in itself, and as it was wrought out by our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps the institution of Sacrifice contains such instruction in its fullest measure.

But, after all, an animal can hardly exhibit the actings of the Son of God in our flesh. It is man who is made in His image: and if we can find any instance in which the words and acts of men, irrespective of their office, have had power to make atonement, it must throw special light upon the mind which was in Christ Jesus. We have two such examples in the Old Testament,-in the cases respectively of Moses and Phinehas.

The scene of the first lies at the foot of Mount Sinai. While Moses has communed thereon with God, the people have relapsed in his absence into their old idolatry. On his return he finds them in the midst of wild orgies in honour of the golden calf they have set up. His first act indeed is to destroy the instrument of their transgression, and to execute judgment upon the leaders in the offence. But the narrative proceeds :

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an

atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin;—and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.”

Observe, then, how Moses makes atonement. Towards the transgressors, he is as one convincing of sin; destroying its occasions and cutting off the offending members of the community. And then he comes before God, and, himself free from the sin, confesses it, intercedes for the sinners, and devotes himself to bear, if possible or necessary, the full penalty of their wrong-doing.

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The whole narrative deserves the fullest attention as illustrating the work of the Mediator. The fruit of the atonement made is seen in the renewal of the tables of the covenant, which the transgression had caused to be broken in the restoration of the Lord's presence with His people in the showing of His glory. But the point on which our attention is to be directed is the manner of making the atonement. For it illustrates, as by a picture of God's own limning, the work of His Son. He Who, facing man-ward, convinced of sin, condemned sin in the flesh, and so wrought that the body of sin should be destroyed,-He, facing God-ward, was the Confessor, the Intercessor, the willing Sin-bearer. And because of His atonement thus made the New Covenant is given, men become the habitation of God through the Spirit, and we, with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The second instance is that of Phinehas, of which we read in Numbers xxv. 6-13. It is the action man-ward which is prominent in this atonement. Phinehas is not

confessor, intercessor, or sin-bearer. But he was zealous for the Lord. "He stood up, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed." "Phinehas said the Lord "hath turned away My wrath from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for My sake" (Heb. with My zeal)" among them." And the words which follow are very remarkable. "Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto Him My covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even a covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel." One man was found who could say "Amen " to the righteous judgment of God; who could enter into fellowship with His hatred of sin, and execute His sentence upon it: and that man became the means of atonement. "It was counted unto him for righteousness, unto all generations for evermore."

And if we have seen Jesus in Moses, quite as clearly is He manifest in Phinehas. He too, in the midst of a disobedient and adulterous generation, "stood up and executed judgment." But that through which His spear of righteous vengeance passed was His own body—that portion of the flesh that was sinning around Him which He had assumed. In Him it had been utterly sinless. But because of the evil which had been wrought in it, and was being wrought in it, and should yet be wrought in it to the end of time, He stood up in fellowship with God's mind concerning it, and executed His sentence of death upon it. Himself bare our sins in His own body upon the tree. And because of this " Amen " of His to God's righteous judgment, His Death made atonement, propitiation, satisfaction. God has given indeed to Him His covenant of peace, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, whereby He is able to save to the