hears the voice of the Spirit in his conscience without knowing the love of God, and therefore without surrendering himself up as a criminal, who is indeed to be punished with sorrow and death, but who is to have the punishment inflicted on him by the hand of a Father who desires to purify him by it, and bring him through it all safe to the other side, where an eternity of holy blessedness awaits him; and he is in the state of the gospel, when, in the knowledge of God's love, he does thus surrender himself. Without this surrendering, there is room for a certain faithfulness before God as a servant, and though there cannot be the love or the liberty of a child, yet doubtless there is that which God will acknowledge. In both cases, however, there is a teaching of the Spirit, and thus those that were faithful under the law, knew the voice of the Spirit, although they gave it a limited and somewhat carnal interpretation; and Jesus recognised this, making it the distinction between them and the ungodly world, saying to them, John xiv. 16, 17, "I will pray the Father, and he will send you another Comforter-even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, be

cause it knoweth him not, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." Those who are faithful under the law receive the word as a direction and a rule, but not as a life-the Spirit is with them,they know him as a director-but he is not in them, because the life-blood of the old nature is still allowed to remain in its veins, although its manifestations are restrained, and it is only by the shedding out of that blood, that there is room made for receiving the spirit into them as their living principle.

Whilst we read the Bible as an external history, we regard the time from Adam to Moses, as the period without law-and the time from Moses to Christ, as the period of the law-and the time since then, as the gospel period; and therefore we assume, that those who lived before Christ were under the law, and those who have lived after Christ have been under the gospel. But the truth is, that many who lived before Christ lived under the gospel, and many who have lived after Christ have lived under the law; and thus we may understand that these outward dispensations in the history of the great world, do also represent and correspond to certain condi

tions in the inward history of individuals, at whatever period of the world's history they may have lived.

The Bible is the history of God's inward dealings with man's heart; and we can only rightly understand it when we find our personal history in it. The field of each man's heart is the world; and the succession of dispensations recorded in the Bible is not properly a chronological, but a natural succession, for they may all co-exist, and they do often co-exist in the same house and family. There is a mysterious parallelism between the history of the individual, and of the whole race.

The dispensation of the law belongs to the first vessel. Under it man does not meet God himself; he does not meet the loving purpose of God, he only meets His authority, and thus he is an unwilling victim of the sentence of sorrow and death; he would put them away from him, even whilst he acknowledges them to be a righteous sentence, because he does not know that this is the only way by which he can enter into blessedness. The dispensation of Christ is the dispensation of the second vessel. Those are under it who consent to the sentence, knowing

God's purpose in it-and thus they meet God himself. There is no other way of meeting God; no man can meet God and live; that is, without previously dying to the self-will. And thus Jesus "came not by water only, but by water and blood." Although he brought the living Spirit to all, yet that Spirit cannot be received as a life by any, except through the shedding out of the blood of the old nature. Until we consent to this, his voice can be known to us only as a law; but when we consent to it, then we shall partake in the baptism of Jesus, and we shall know him as the baptizer with the Holy Ghost.

Some of my readers may observe that the distinction which I am now making between the law and the gospel, is in fact the same as that which I noticed in a former part of the book, between knowing the inward voice and knowing Him whose voice it is. We cannot understand rightly what the voice means, unless we understand the Utterer of it. But the voice is given to us, to draw us to the Utterer-as the law is a schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ.

Christ is in the nature, as the leaven in the three measures of meal-and the law and the gospel are different results of the action of

that same leaven, according to the disposition of the individual wills with which it comes in contact. The law is like impulsion which produces movement, but not fruit,-the gospel is like the infusion of sap into the vine, which produces fruit. If we could conceive the branch of a vine, in its wintry and sapless condition, hearing a voice within it saying, bring forth fruit, without knowing that this was the voice of the sap ascending from the root, and seeking entrance into every twig, that it might clothe it with fruit; and if we farther conceived that, in consequence of that voice, it should painfully and vainly set itself to produce grapes without the sap, we should have a fit symbol of man in the state of law. In that state the commandment is grievous, because it is only known as an authoritywhilst under the gospel, the commandment is not grievous, because a Father's love is revealed, and is felt to be life, and power, and liberty. And thus Jesus invited the weary and heavy laden to find rest, by learning of Him who knew the Father, and who came to reveal the Father to them.

Nothing but dying to the flesh, or shedding out the blood of self-will, and creature-confidence, can make room in man's nature for