gotten. It was, indeed, the salvation "ready to be revealed" in all its fulness; but, as yet, they only possessed it in respect of the soul. But, being detached from the manifestation of the earthly glory, this salvation had a yet more spiritual character; therefore, they were to gird up their loins, while waiting for the revelation of Jesus, and to acknowledge, with thanksgiving, that they were in possession of the end of their faith. They were in relationship with God.

When announcing these things by the ministry of the prophets, God had Christians in view, and not the prophets themselves. This grace was in due time to be communicated to believers; but, meantime, for faith, and for the soul, the Holy Ghost, sent down from Heaven, bore testimony to it. It was to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was the guarantee of the accomplishment of all the promises, and the power of life for their enjoyment, had begotten them again unto a living hope; but the right to enjoy the effect of the promise was founded on another truth. To this the exhortations conduct us. They were to walk as obedient children, no longer following the lusts that had led them in the days of their ignorance. Called by Him who is holy, they were to be holy in all their conversation, as it is written. Moreover, if they called on the Father, who, regardless of appearances, judged according to every one's works, they were to pass the time of their sojourn here in fear. Observe here, that he is not speaking of the final judgment of the soul. In that sense, "the Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son." The thing spoken of here is the daily judgment of God's government in this world, exercised with regard to His children. Accordingly, it says, "the time of your sojourn here." It is a judgment applied to Christian life. The fear spoken of is not an uncertainty as to salvation and redemption. It is a fear founded on the certainty that one is redeemed; and the immense price, the infinite value of the means employed for our redemption-namely, the blood of the Lamb, without blemish and without spotis the motive for fearing God during our pilgrimage.

We have been redeemed, at the cost of the blood of Jesus, from our vain conversation; can we, then, still walk according to the principles from which we have been thus delivered? Such a price for our deliverance demands that we should walk with circumspection and gravity before the Father, with whom we desire to have intercourse, both as privilege and spiritual relationship.

The apostle then applies this truth to the Christians, whom he was addressing. This Lamb had been ordained in the counsels of God before the world was made; but He was manifested in the last days for believers: and these are presented in their true character; they believe in God by Jesus-by this Lamb. It is not by means of the creation that they believe: although creation is a testimony to His glory, it gives no rest to the conscience, and does not tell of a place in Heaven. It is not by means of Providence, which, even while directing all things, yet leaves the government of God in such profound darkness. Nor is it by means of the revelation of God on Mount Sinai under the name of Jehovah, and the terror connected with a broken law.

It is by means of Jesus, the Lamb of God, that we believe; observe that it is not said, "in Him," but by Him in God. We know God as the One who, when we were sinners and dead in our trespasses and sins, loved us, and gave this precious Saviour to come down even into the death in which we were; to take part in our position, as lying under this judgment, and die as the Lamb of God. We believe in God who, by His power, when Jesus was there for us-in our stead-raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory. It is in a Saviour-God, therefore, a God who exercises His power in our behalf, that we believe by Jesus, so that our faith and our hope are in God. It does not say in something before God, but in God Himself. Where, then, shall any cause for fear or distrust arise as regards God, if our faith and hope are in Himself? This changes everything. The aspect in which we view God Himself is entirely changed, and this change is founded on that which establishes the righteousness of God in accepting us as cleansed from all sin, the love of God in blessing

us perfectly in Jesus, whom His power has raised from the dead and glorified. Our faith and our hope are in God Himself.

This places us in the most intimate of relationships with the rest of the redeemed: objects of the same love, washed by the same precious blood, redeemed by the same Lamb, they become -to those whose hearts are purified by the reception of the truth through the Spirit -the objects of a tender brotherly love, a love unfeigned. They are our brethren. Let us, then, love one another fervently, with a pure heart. But this is based on another essential, vital principle. It is a new nature which acts in this affection. If we are redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb without spot, we are born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which lives and abides for ever. For the flesh is but grass; the glory of man, as the flower of grass. The grass withers, its flower falls, but the Word of the Lord abides for ever. This is the Word of the Gospel which has been preached unto us. It is an eternal principle of blessing. The believer is not born after the flesh, to enjoy temporary rights and blessings, as was the case with a Jew, but of an incorruptible seed, a principle of life as unchangeable as the Word of God Himself. The prophet. had told them so, when comforting the people of God, ali flesh, the nation itself, was but withered grass. God was unchangeable, and the Word which, by its immutabe certainty, secured divine blessings to the objects of God's favour, wrought in the heart to beget a life as immortal and incorruptible as the Word which is its

source.

Thus cleansed, therefore, and born of the Word, they were to put off all fraud, hypocrisy, envy, slander; and, as new-born babes, to seek for this milk of the understanding, in order to grow thereby; for the Word is the milk of the child, as it was the seed of its life; and we are to receive it as babes, in all simplicity; if, in truth, we have felt that the Lord is good and full of grace. It is not Sinai (where the Lord God declared His law from the midst of the fire, so that they entreated not to hear His voice any more), to which I am come, or from which

the Lord is speaking. If I have tasted and understood that the Lord acts in grace, that He is love towards me, and that His Word is the expression of that graceeven as it communicates life—I shall desire to feed on this milk of the understanding, which the believer enjoys in proportion to his simplicity; that good Word which announces to me nothing but grace, and the God whom I need as all grace, full of grace, acting in grace, as revealing Himself to me in this character-a character which He can never cease to maintain towards me.

I now know the Lord Himself: I have tasted that which He is. Moreover, this is still in contrast with the legal condition of the Jew, although it is the fulfilment of that which the Psalms and the Prophets had declared: the resurrection, having plainly revealed in addition a heavenly hope. It was they themselves who were now the spiritual house, the holy priesthood. They came to the Living Stone, rejected, indeed, of men, but chosen of God and precious, and they were built up on Him as living stones. The Apostle delights in this word "living." It was to him the Father had revealed that Jesus was the Son of the Living God. No one else had then confessed Him as such, and the Lord told him that on this rock, i. e., on the person of the Son of God in power of life (manifested in the resurrection, which declared Him to be such), He would build His Church. Peter, by his faith, participated in the nature of this living rock. Here, then (ii. 5), he extends this character to all believers, and exhibits the holy house built on the Living Stone which God Himself had laid as the chief corner-stone, elect and precious. Whosoever believed in Him should not be confounded.

Now, it was not only in the eyes of God that this Stone was precious, but in the eyes of faith, which— feeble as the possessors of it may be- see as God sees. To unbelievers, this Stone was a Stone of stumbling and of offence. They stumbled at the Word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed. It does not say that they were appointed to sin, nor to condemnation but these unbelieving and disobedient sinners, the Jewish race, long rebellious, and continually exalting themselves

against God, were destined to find in the Lord of grace Himself a rock of offence; and to stumble and fall upon that which was to faith the precious Stone of salvation. It was to this particular fall that their unbelief was destined.

Believers, on the contrary, entered into the enjoyment of the promises made to Israel, and that, in the most excellent way. Grace-and the very faithfulness of God-had brought the fulfilment of the promise in the person of Jesus, the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to fulfil the promises made to the fathers. And, although the nation had rejected Him, God would not deprive of the blessing those who-in spite of this difficulty to faith and to the heart-had submitted to the obedience of faith, and attached themselves to Him who was the despised of the nation. They could not hare the blessing of Israel with the nation on earth, because the nation had rejected Him; but they were brought fully into the relationship with God of a people. accepted of Him. The heavenly character which the blessing now assumed, did not destroy their acceptance according to the promise; only they entered into it according to grace. For the nation, as a nation, had lost it; not only long ago by disobedience, but now by rejecting Him who came in grace to impart to them the effect of the promise.

The Apostle, therefore, applies the character of "holy nation" to the elect remnant, investing them, in the main, with the titles bestowed in Exodus xix. on condition of obedience, but here in connection with the Messiah-their enjoyment of these titles being founded. on His obedience, and on rights acquired by their faith

in Him.

But the privileges of the believing remnant being founded on the Messiah, the Apostle goes farther, and applies to them the declarations of Hosea, which relate to Israel and Judah when re-established in the fulness of blessing in the last days, enjoying those relationships with God into which grace will bring them at that

time.

"Ye are," he says, "a chosen generation, a royal