good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."

On every occasion when worship was offered to Christ, He accepted it; but in the case of every good man or angel recorded in the New Testament to whom worship was offered, we find that in every instance they repudiated it.

From Galilee to Ferusalem.

HE blessed Saviour appears now to have completed his work in Galilee. He had gathered around Him a number of disciples who recognized in Him more or less clearly the Son of God and the Messiah of the prophets. The Saviour had con

vinced the apostles that He was God manifest in the flesh. They had risen high above the vulgar Jewish expectation, and if they could not yet express in words, they felt the truth and force of Peter's address, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Imperfections clave to them all; their progress was often obscured by inveterate Jewish prejudices, or hampered by strong human passions. Pentecost was not yet come.

But as his disciples grew in true knowledge of their divine Lord, and in attachment to his person, we find that his enemies increased in number and bitterness. The Pharisees became more virulent and abusive, his enemies more inveterate, while the crowds that thronged around Him at first began to recede, as the novelty of the impression wore off. The Redeemer now asserts with greater emphasis and fervour his character as the Son of God-the Saviour of sinnerssetting forth clearer and clearer intimations of his approaching

death, and its sublime significance. He makes preparations to go up to Jerusalem, in order that what takes place may be seen to be a great national act, perpetrated in the face of light, and evidence, and testimony, which would leave no excuse.

He therefore wends his way to die in that capital in which his glory had often shone forth, in which his praises had been sung for many generations, the city of the Great King. "He came to his own, and his own received Him not." The Jews, left to their blind guides and yet blinder hearts, were making ready to crucify their King.

Who

It was in the course of this journey that two incidents occurred which revealed how much of the old Adam still lived in the hearts of his followers. John says to his Lord, "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbad him, because he followed not with us." Here was a thoroughly sectarian trait. would have expected this of the mild, the gentle, the genial Evangelist, John-one so full of love? It teaches us that the best have their faults—that there is no gem on earth without a flaw-no gold without alloy that even John had one burst of rash and unhappy passion. "We forbad him to do it"-and why? "Because he followed not with us." Alas! it is the reasoning of human nature still; it is the voice of fallen man now. Wonderful how little change has passed upon us by the lapse and action of eighteen centuries. Let us learn to forgive forms in which we differ, for the sake of great truths in which we agree; preferring gospel truths, in the worst of forms, to Popish or infidel error in the best and most beautiful ones. We do not any of us know what spirit we are of, when we give way to passions such as these. We must overcome evil with good; pray for our persecutors and enemies, and bless and curse We ought not to like our own form less, but we ought to love truth more. Be ready never to sacrifice truth for the sake of the form; but often-always be ready-to sacrifice the form, if needs

not.

be, for the sake of the precious truth, of which it is or ought to be a vehicle.

The same passion which tried to interdict that which was not to their taste, or because it did not follow with them, burst into its full and natural development; that is, active persecution in the conduct of his disciples, James and John. Jesus was passing through a village of the Samaritans," and they did not receive Him, because his face was as though He would go to Jerusalem." Why should this aspect of the Saviour be a reason for not receiving Him? It was this. The Samaritans regarded as inspired and obligatory the Pentateuch alone, and held that their mount was the place on which the temple ought to stand; the Jews accepted Mount Zion as the true mount, on which the temple stood. So jealous were these two sects, that seeing Jesus looking in the direction of Jerusalem was enough to awaken the hatred of th Samaritans, and therefore they would not receive Him, just because his face looked towards Jerusalem. "And when his disciples, James and John, saw this," instead of trying to undeceive the Samaritans (for the greater a man's error is, the more anxious we should be to put him right), they showed that persecution is a very old passion, not an apostolical religion, though it was in the apostles' hearts before those hearts were truly renewed by the Holy Spirit. "They said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did?" What a terrible wish! and how foolish to think that burning a man's body can at all rectify a man's creed. The thing is monstrous. You may make a man give way from intensity of suffering; but you cannot change convictions. Convictions are stronger than thrones, greater than kings, and, if true, lasting as eternity itself. Never let us indulge the least sympathy on our part with prescriptions for extinguishing another body, because it will not join with us; still less let us have any sympathy with that persecution which would light fire

upon earth, or call down fire from heaven to destroy those that differ from us. If the faggots are to be kindled, let Hildebrand be the gatherer, not Protestants, not Christians, not those who know and love the Bible and have, or ought to have, the spirit of our blessed Master. We see here, however, at how early an era persecution budded in the visible church. What is more, these very disciples quoted what they thought was a Scripture precedent. The fact is, we may quote a Scripture precedent for anything, if we take a broken fragmental passage, and apply it arbitrarily to what we want. Men in recent times have quoted as their reason of persecution what took place in the Old Testament, forgetting that the Old Testament economy was what is called a theocracy-God then visibly ruled, audibly commanded and acted. He was King. Our dispensation is not a theocracy, we are to prefer mercy to sacrifice, and to do to the worst as we would that the best should do to us.

Our Saviour rebuked them; and in words true, just, and too applicable still: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of "no idea could be formed of what it would be if it were left to itself.

Christ Sending the Seventy.

Luke x. I-24.

AFTER these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his

face into every city and place whither He Himself would come." These were thus constituted heralds and forerunners in that route which He intended to take. Their journey was arranged according to his. They were to announce the approach of the Son of God to every city. They were not only to proclaim the kingdom, but the King. The names of the cities they entered are not given, but they must have been very numerous.

The seventy disciples whom Jesus appointed, appear to have held a temporary and not a lasting commission. The language, however, in which He speaks of the apostles, and those who were to follow them preaching the tidings of the kingdom of God, indicates that these last were, in one respect, a permanent institution. But the language in which He speaks of the work of the seventy, combined with the fact that the seventy do not appear as an institution in the Acts of the Apostles, seems to indicate that they were a mere temporary body, sent to prepare his way, and make ready a people for the reception of his preaching. Whilst they lasted, they were gifted with those powers which clearly are not successional, for they have not been inherited by any minister of any church, or of any communion, in any subsequent age of the world. Jesus said, "The harvest truly