and that while He intercedes for us they utter their pathetic plea to God who is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Such is the ministry which our . Advocate with the Father is continuing for us on the throne.

The other Advocate is meantime perfecting his work in our hearts; and the two ministries exactly correspond. The Comforter within is upholding and developing the inward divine life; "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”* He is also continuing an inward intercession according with the outward one; "The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."† Such is the double advocacy by which our two-fold life is carried on.

And observe more particularly, how each of these ministries exactly supplements the other.

The love of the Father in giving his Son to be a propitiation for our sins, is the truth which is proclaimed from every wound on our exalted Saviour's person and here we are to turn for the assurance of our acceptance. The moment we get taken up

with our own love, as evidenced in our inward consciousness we shall fall into darkness. God's love, as set forth in the slain Lamb upon the throne, is the only resting place for our faith. But this is not all; for our comfort and sanctification He also gives us his love within us, as it is written; "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Again, if any challenge our justification, we turn at once and confidently to the cross where that justification was accomplished, and to the throne where it is now maintained; and we say—"It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." But while our justification was purchased solely by Christ's death for us, our sanctification is to be effected by Christ's death in us. And this is carried on by that other Advocate; "But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live." §

And yet once more if we would be assured of our bodily resurrection, we look at once to Him whom God has raised from the dead and set at His own

Rom. v: S

↑ Rom. 8: 34.

§ Rom. 8: 13.

right hand. If He, the First fruits be there, we shall be there also, in a body fashioned like the body of his glory. But this consummation also is made dependent on the inworking of the Comforter; "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Now Christ's presence at the Father's right hand, and His ministry in the Holy of Holies above, constitute the ground of our access there; and this blessed fact of our privilege to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus is the truth with which the Epistle to the Hebrews is especially occupied. Indeed Christ's exaltation to the Father's throne is counted as our presence and residence there, and we find it so set forth in the epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians. But is it not plain that access carries with it the opposite idea of separation; that drawing near to God involves a withdrawing from fellowship with an evil world? The fact that Christ is at the right hand of the Father, and that we are one with Him in his exaltation, gives us our reckoning-point by which to fix

*Rom. 8: 11.

our relation to this world. The paradox of Lady Powerscourt that "the Christian is not one who is looking up from earth to heaven, but one who is looking down from heaven to earth," can be comprehended in this light. If "our citizenship is in heaven' we are spiritually disfranchised of the world, and are bound to confess that “we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth." This last saying, however, is only true of believers, the "partakers of the heavenly calling." When our Lord is speaking to the unbelieving Jews he says, " Ye are from beneath, I am from above; ye are of this world, I am not of this world."† But when He speaks to His own disciples, to those who have been "born from above," he says, "Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” ‡ And in like manner when we read that God "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," the inference is clear concerning our earthward state. To be seated together with Christ, unseats us from the throne of earthly ambition, and makes us content to forego its crowns and prizes and rewards; just as Jesus said after speaking of the kings of the ↑ John 8: 23. t John 5: 10.

Phil. 3: 20.

& Eph. : &

Gentiles exercising lordship, "but ye shall not be so." This is what we mean in saying that access implies separation.

No doubt this truth is especially distasteful to this generation-a generation bent, as few have been, on reconciling the claims of religion with those of pleasure, and thus solving the problem of "making the best of both worlds." Would that our eyes were really open to what is passing! To dissuade Christians from going to the theatre would be very tame advice in these days, when the theatre with rapid strides is pushing itself into the church. To tell the disciples of Jesus to "love not the world neither the things that are in the world," would seem a very mild dissuasion and almost unkind when the world has come to such friendly terms with the church, that it willingly lends all its machinery of entertainment and art and amusement to make the gospel more attractive. It is with no spirit of surly ascetism that we speak; it is rather with a tearful, grieved and foreboding dread as to where this practice of a naturalized christianity and a worldly consecration may bring us. At all events the truest remedy is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity