ence of

faith.

The obedi- same uniting nearness to the soul, to be its felt support in that conscious living to the heavenly Father's commandments which has "its meat and its drink to do His will." This condition of a child-servant's obedience is to be "occupied," looking upon Him, learning of Him continually, "who, though a Son, learned obedience by the things which He suffered" (Heb. v. 8). Our Object of faith is set before us carefully in this connection with our living by faith: "In the days of His flesh He offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; and being made perfect, He became the cause of eternal salvation unto all that obey Him" (ver. 9). What is meant by " obeying Him" amidst all this association of thought? -what but "occupying" till He come the tasks assigned by Him, whatever His word generally or His providence specially gives to be done-thinking of His coming we know not when, but having that coming future our life's future-an “eternal salvation" of union to Him, which is begun here in our experience of these uniting things. That obeying Him is a state of "living," whose consciousness is to become fuller evermore of emotional thoughts of Him, and growing likeness to Him; both which shall be perfected in indissoluble personal union to Him in the "inheritance," "the joy of our Lord," into which He shall bid His own enter with Him, when He shall call them "good and faithful servants "-" servants" who are friends," -friends who are children of His Father and their Father.

The domestic life of faith.

13. There has been much exemplified in the recorded and unrecorded experience of faith a sense in which human life itself the talent of human estate and its affections-is a living by faith, a visible thing, which is yet not a life of sight but of faith, lived in the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us. What must the inner life of Hezekiah have been in those fifteen years (Isa. xxxviii.) in which he had not to "go softly in the bitterness of his soul," but Jehovah, "the life of his spirit," "recovered him and made him to live" -"redeemed him from the pit of corruption, and cast his sins behind His back"? It was a life filled with thoughts of faith which united him in peace and happy safety to Him "who is

ready to save❞—a "life singing songs to the stringed instruments all the days of his life in the house of Jehovah "-saying evermore, "The living, the living, he shall praise Thee as I do this day: the fathers to the children shall make known Thy truth." What occupied the soul of Lazarus in his second life? The restored happiness was precious, no doubt, of Martha's and Mary's love; and their happiness in him was as great, though diverse by a strange diversity of circumstances from his but did not another love and union, known before, dwell then in their souls more than those once their nearest affections-a love and union which was felt by them to be life, which their own helpless love and union had not been? The trial of faith which had to speak the unanswered words, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick," had been in reality the help of faith to a union closer than was known before, and never to be broken after a life in which the bitterness of death was indeed past for ever. Abraham's case was nearer that of common trials, in which He who is our invisible life comes most solemnly near to us to help faith by unforgetable experience. When the old man's heart was breaking-but his spirit rose up in that awful obedience to offer up his son a burnt sacrifice to Him from whom he received him the child of promise the seed of many nations-his soul was helped to be knit to Jehovah, his declared "shield and exceeding great reward," by a new intensity of thought, a life felt in a new feeling, looking to Him, holding fast by Him, its only sure portion amidst all other things of thought or sight. Abraham's temptation was the type of an often-repeated trial-help to faith in the same Object of faith-our Jesus, his Jehovah of Mamre. That trial-help is the unforgotten event of many a human home, when parents, standing by the bed of death, called up their hearts to say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord;" and yet He did not take but gave again the resigned life, a new uniting bond of faith between present and immortal life, to be occupied "till He come." Such family experiences are a congruous help to "believing in" (Gen. xv. 6)—i.e., resting, having peace and strength like Abraham's-in that so great love which gave

up an only and well-beloved Son for man. They also help the eyes of the soul to recognise the specialty of uniting faith given to homes full of human affection-"Children are a heritage of the Lord;" and that given to other homes which have been emptied-"Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." The domestic experience of life in another has, as its eminent religious fruit, not the symbolising of heavenly life by earthly, but the maturing of the one by the other. Many a parent can use Hosea's language of fatherly sorrow and yearning over children lost but not abandoned. The trial is to open to their eyes the heavenly home of so great salvation, and bring to their feelings the uniting assurance of the heavenly Father's fellow-feeling with their pain. The contrasted blessing of good children, in like manner, makes the language of salvation "My well-beloved Son," and every believer's position in God's sight, which is assured thereby, more keenly appreciated. To those good children the reciprocal happiness of that domestic union also brings a uniting exercise while they pass their days "obeying their parents in the Lord." They learn filial love to the heavenly Father through the happy training of its earthly counterpart, made thus a foretaste of it also. The relation of master and servant is no mere worldly tie and earthly position. The old religious care confided to His chosen people by Jehovah, in His many charges as to "the stranger within their gates," is, in the Christian life of faith, the master's feeling evermore that he is the servant of the "Master who is in heaven," and the servant's blending feeling that he is serving not his human master merely, but him and "the Lord" together. Conjugal union is the closest earthly type of spiritual oneness with the Lord. Its experience is not only to make that oneness appreciable, but to be a training towards it. The thought of all a husband's cherishing love is to bring to the trustful wife's reasoning heart appreciation as well as confidence of God's so great grace, promised in association with that human gift of it— "Thy Maker is thy husband." To both members of the foretasting union their own faith and faithfulness are to be suggestive ever of the sure blessedness in which believing souls

shall be "the bride, the Lamb's wife."

And conjugal sorrow,

the desolation of its widowhood, is to unite the faithful and solitary heart, not to the dying only, but, with him, to the undying One.

All these helps of domestic experience are His language, saying, "Occupy till I come;" and the answer He desires is the same for them all—“ In Thee we live, and move, and have our being." "To me to live is Christ."

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of faith.

14. Man's living by faith of the Son of God includes the The word occupying" of a special help of that living " until He come.' The means of grace, called collectively the Word of God, is the help given to keep up faith's conscious association of earthly occupations with the personal heavenly Saviour, and it has to be occupied with that help till He come. The "light of the feet," the "lamp of the path," is called to us a light shining in a dark place, to which we" are to take heed until the day dawn and the morning star arise" (2 Pet. i. 19). The personal connection is inherent in all the means of grace. It is not as truth or wisdom or light only that the Word is to be thought of by us, but as help-His Word. David exemplified this practice of faith, using the Word as a provided help to live present occupations for God-" Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee;" and he exemplified at the same time the divine co-operation which is assured to man's living by faith-" Blessed art Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes." The whole practice of the means of grace, both the human and the divine use of them, looks to this end of storing His words or a very sight or presence of Himself in the heart that is living by faith-the believer "hiding His words" there (Ps. cxix. 11); God "writing" them there (Jer. xxxi. 33); the heart "forming" the glad tidings of Him within itself into "Him dwelling in it by its faith, the hope of glory" (Col. i. 27, Eph. iii. 17); "His comforts" causing the "multitude of its thoughts" to give it "delight" (Ps. xciv. 19); out of which, again, the mouth speaketh, or the conduct exhibits, a "living epistle of Him, known and read of all men" (2 Cor. iii. 2, 3). Hence the peculiar manner of instruction in "the truth" practised by believers and arranged by God to" stablish, strengthen,

and settle them in the faith." No philosophical system which could be stored in the memory in logical abbreviation of propositions that reason could take up at convenience and expand into fulness, "the faith" is a life lived in thinking of Christ Jesus, looking upon or rather to Him, as numerous and minute facts about Him, or varying spiritual circumstances in the beholder, produce endless variety and riches of expression. It comes, therefore, to be the practice of believers to read anew and anew, as the constantly fresh food of their thoughts and affections, the same things of His which they have often read before; and His help comes to them in the same form of renewing the thought of Him. A day in every seven comes His day, to break afresh, but in no new way, the hurry of worldly work, and give a repetition of the same needful contemplation. Faith is promised to come by hearing, when the hearing is no new thing, but old things of His Word heard again and again, or only in changed connection; a change of light merely, but the same things of Christ brought afresh to the mind to establish His presence by another hold of thought. The training influence of prayer is of the same manner and design. It is a frequent repetition of the same thought and feeling of His presence with the soul's living, uniting more and more in conscious feeling the believer's spirit with Him, as "daily," or "seven times a-day," or "without ceasing," it sets the Lord before him, putting Him in all his thoughts. This design of storing in the heart thoughts and sights of Jesus, growing riches of precious things for the soul to treasure, might have suggested the very terms in which the Lord's Supper was instituted-" Do this in remembrance of me;" and its remembrance, its showing forth of His death, is expressly "till He come." To the same life of thought the Spirit is to minister; who is promised to take of the things of Jesus and show them unto believers in Him, and to bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever He spake to them, and to "strengthen them with might in the inner man," to "know the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of His love, which passeth knowledge, that they may be filled with the fulness of God" (Eph. iii.) "Occupy till I come" is the practice of the means of