before thee" (Ps. cii, 18-28). He knew that somehow he should be hereafter blessed in the blessing of his children. His seed would treasure up and restore what he had lost. This was his hope for Israel and for the world, a hope to which the prophets often gave expression, as for example, in Isaiah li, 4-8 :

:

"Attend unto me, oh! my people; and give ear unto me, oh! my nation for a law shall go forth from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peoples; the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath for the heavens shall wax away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner (or, in margin, like gnats); but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. . . . For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation unto all generations."

This is God's comfort for both the elect and for the nations, that while all flesh withers as the grass, His unchanging purpose of salvation spans the ages and reaches to all generations. And therefore it must be through the succession of generations that this purpose is wrought out, and this word of our God is made good forever.

THE doctrine of an all-pervasive ether dispels the old notion in physics that two substances cannot occupy the same space at the same time. There is, then, nothing unscientific in the view that in with and under the universe of matter there may be an universe of spirit, and that the world of humanity is the outward vesture of a world of spiritual being.

MAN'S COMPLEX NATURE.

The philosophy of human nature we have been teaching is based on the fact that there is an element in man which is individual and immortal, and an element of outward personality which is transient and perishable. We apply the term individual to the former, because the word defines that which is not divisible, and which is therefore permanent and essential. The word "person" is usually so applied, but the etymology of the word fixes it rather as definitive of the human existence through which the essential man finds outward expression. That which is (esse) is eternal; that which exists (existere) is changeable and destructible. We may say of a man, We may say of a man, "He is no longer the same person." We could never say of him, "He is

not the same individual." It is this distinction which lies at the basis of the Scriptural teaching concerning the old man and the new man, the natural man and the spiritual man. We find early recognition of this principle in the twofold names borne by men who were eminent in the history of God's dealings with the race. Abram was the Chaldean name of the patriarch who, at the command of God, removed to Canaan. But, as his spiritual nature developed, his name was changed to Abraham, the father of a multitude. The natural man Jacob, the supplanter, became Israel, a prince of God. The ambitious, impulsive, and fickle Simon became Peter, the rock on which Christ built His church. Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, became Paul the servant of Christ and apostle to the Gentiles. These are instances in which the double character

in these men was marked by a double name. When Peter was about to fall and deny His Master, the Lord in warning him addresses him by his old name, belonging to his natural, carnal self, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee that he might sift thee as wheat."

We find two names applied even to our blessed Lord. His human name was Jesus. The name appropriate to Him in His divine nature is Christ. He is the only one of all the sons of men whose outward personality was a perfect expression of His divine being. Hence His human personality was glorified as a perfect temple for the indwelling of God. And thus it became fixed as the law of humanity that it can become the permanent dwellingplace of God only as it is built up into a personality suited to His abode. The old man must be given over to death in order that the new man may be raised up in power. The old treacherous Simon must give place to the intrepid Peter, counting it all joy that he could suffer for the name of Christ. The blaspheming Saul must cast off his old manhood with its cruel bigotry and pride, and become the holy and fervid Paul consumed with zeal in his master's service.

Now this great change was virtually the surrender to crucifixion and death of the sinful personality into which these men had in their past lives developed, in order that the spiritual nature in them, which had been kept back and thwarted, might, through the quickening power of the Spirit of Christ, assert itself, renewing them in the spirit of their mind and transforming them into the Christ likeThis change is frequently spoken of as a birth or a begetting. But nothing can be begotten or born unless

ness.

there be a germ receptive of the new life or nature imparted. There must therefore be a germinal divine nature in every man made in God's image. And it is in this, as we have maintained, that his true and permanent individuality resides. This is the only element in his being that is essential and immortal. And it is only as this divine germ appropriates and assimilates to itself the properties and traits in man's being, which we call personal and which make up his external form and character, that his personality becomes abiding. Hence, as we have frequently said, the only basis for personal continued existence is good character. The individual being of every man, even the wicked, is preserved. But the objective personality, the exterior fabric of the man's life, must perish, so far as it is the wood, hay, and stubble of a life out of fellowship with God. This is so far a destruction of the man himself that such men are constantly spoken of in Scripture as destroyed. No threat of punishment is half so frequent as this, "All the wicked shall He destroy," "Whose end is destruction." This must be either extinction, or it is the destruction of the character of manhood in which the dormant spiritual life of these men was quenched, which, in the case of thoroughly bad men, would be a destruction of them as known to themselves. Such men "lose themselves;" they "lose their souls," for soul pertains to this fabric of personality which may perish and be cast away. It is only spirit that is immortal. man's "soul" becomes immortal only as it becomes transfused and pervaded by spirit, which is God.

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In a right understanding of this distinction among the elements of man's complex being is to be found the recon

ciliation between the two sides of Scripture teaching concerning man. These represent him as dead in Adam, as made alive in Christ; as made in God's image, and as a child of the devil, as cast into hell, and as ransomed from death and hell. And they are all consistent with the fact that there is a germinal divine nature in man which must. finally reach the goal of complete expression in a human personality that shall be the perfect image of God, while all imperfect expressions of that image must perish from the way.

"THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM."

The New Testament speaks of both a glory and a joy set before our Lord as the reward of His cross-bearing. The term glory seems to refer to that supreme dominion over the realm of creation and of life upon which He entered as "Head over all things." The term joy relates rather to that supreme delight which was to be His when, as invested with all spiritual grace and power, He should come to dwell in all hearts prepared to receive Him, revealing to and in men the love of the Father, and having communion with them in this life of love. This is apparent from the references He makes to "His joy" in His last discourse, and His frequently expressed desire that His joy might be fulfilled in them, and that their joy might be full. The connection in which the words occur shows that what was in His mind was an indwelling in His disciples of the life and love of God (John xv, 7-17; xvi, 19-24). They had already known something of this blessing; but He was now going from them in the flesh