"Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.... Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches."-Rev. iii. 9, 10, 12, 13.

THERE are two classes that are here specified, the one, to all appearances, the fac-simile of the other; so that the outward eye cannot distinguish them-those who are Jews, i. e. Christians in deed, and those who are Christians in semblance only and in form. Both have the outward aspect- one only has the inward power of the Gospel. One seems to be a Christian, the other is a Christian. The one is a hypocrite, having the outward form, but destitute of the inward life; the other has the inward life developed in the outward form, and showing itself in "whatsoever things are pure, and just, and lovely, and of good report." The one is the fruit that grows and ripens to maturity; the other is the picture of it which remains as it is for ever: the one is the painted bird, which ceases to look like the goldfinch when the shower falls upon it; the other is the living bird, which grows in beauty and in plumage as it grows in years, and is the same in the sunshine and in the storm. The one is the Jew outwardly-" And he is not a Jew," the apostle tells us, "who is one outwardly;

but he is a Jew who is one inwardly," whose is the life as well as the power of real religion. This teaches us that there is a distinction between outward and true Christianity. It is possible to be baptized in the most canonical form, and like the Prince of Wales, to be sprinkled with water from the most consecrated of rivers, and yet like many not to be a Christian. It is possible to belong to the most venerated communion in Christendom-to be able to trace, or fancy that we are able to trace the succession of its ministers through apostolic times and ages and countries, and yet not to be a Christian. It is possible to be the severest dissenter or the highest Churchman, and in neither case to be "a Jew inwardly, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Such seems to me to be the idea stated in this verse. "They that say they are Jews," or assume to be Christians, “and are not." At the same time, I may notice that some commentators think that the allusion is to the Jews nationally. If so, it holds equally true. I do not believe that there is such a thing in Christendom as a thorough Jew. They "say they are Jews;" and according to the flesh it is their lineage. According to prophecy it is their doom and destiny to be so: but no man can remain one day solemnly and seriously a Jew, without the next day taking the step that necessarily follows, and becoming a Christian. You never meet with an honest Jew, who does not in the end become an earnest Christian. Moses so directly leads to Jesus-the type so plainly points to the antitype-prophecy in the Old Testament points so plainly to performance in the New, that the Old and New Testaments, like the twin lips of an ancient oracle, utter but one voice, and that voice the olden, the beautiful, the glorious one, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." "Now," says our Lord to this Church, "those who are mere pretenders-those who say they are Jews and are not, shall be made to come and worship," not thy foot, but "before thy foot ;" i. e., those who have the form and appearance of Christianity only, will yet be made to see the excellency and the beauty of the reality; and bitterly, perhaps hopelessly, regret that they had it not. For what is implied in having the form of Christianity? certainly the under-lying impression that Christianity is a right thing-a beautiful thing-a valuable thing:

hypocrisy has been defined, "the homage that vice pays to virtue." Hypocrisy means 66 wearing a mask;" to assume the mask of a king in order to commend yourself to others, implies that you value the dignity and the honour of a king, and would have it if you could: so, to have the form of religion, implies your acquiescence in the value of that religion; and so far it is the homage that the natural man pays to the child of God. "Now," says our Lord, "the day comes when those who have only the form shall not only feel its emptiness, but shall, in the presence of those who have the reality, worship that God whose word they have despised, and the form only of whose worship they have put on for their own convenient purposes."

We have an illustration of this in the case of Joseph's brethren, who, when they saw that their father was dead, said, "Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil that we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil : and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and said, Behold, we be thy servants." They were thus made to come and worship before him, and to acknowledge that God whose commandments they had broken, and whose law they had disobeyed. And so it is predicted very beautifully in Isaiah concerning the Jews:-"Thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

"The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and they also that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of Holy One of Israel.

"Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, thou shalt be called an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations."-Such are passages illustrative of this prediction, that those who hated the people of God, or who assumed the form of their religion for their own expedient pur

poses, shall be made to acknowledge the sin of which they had been guilty, and to admit the excellency and the wisdom of those who have the life as well as the form of real religion.

Then adds our blessed Lord, "Behold, I come quickly." If this was true eighteen centuries ago, it is surely more so now that eighteen centuries have rolled away. All the judgments that come are the harbingers of his approach. Those voices and cries that are sounding through the nations of Europe are indications. of his advent. All things are preparing the way for him. The voice that sounds in every ear, and comes home to every heart with greater emphasis at the present day than ever is, "Behold, I come quickly;" and it is the Church that cries in dutiful and grateful response, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It is very remarkable, that throughout the whole New Testament it is Christ's coming, not our death, to which we are taught to look. I think a Christian, when he rises to the highest point of dignity and enjoyment, should never think of death at all. We have nothing to do with it. It is the most humbling, the most degrading, the most horrible thing. It is that to which we are not to look forward. We are merely to believe this, that we shall have grace to walk along that valley and to cross that stream in order to meet him who will either take us to himself, or will come to us. Let us therefore anticipate, not death, but life: let us look upon it as the necessary suffering preparatory to the glorious enjoyment. It is the advent of the bridegroom which the bride is taught to anticipate: it is the coming of his Lord that a Christian should hope for; and as he longs for it, and looks and waits for it, he longs for that which shall be the joy of his heart, and not of his only, but also of many generations.

Then he adds, not only, "Behold, I come quickly;" but also, "Behold, I will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, and try them that dwell on the earth;" implying that an hour of temptation was to come, and from that hour Christ would keep them that are his. We all have trials; some personal, some domestic, and all of us recently national trials. Here is the promise, "I will keep thee from it;" either in it that we shall not be scathed by it, or from it that we shall not be injured spiritually by it; and if smitten down by it,

that it shall only waft us to the presence of Him with whom there is "no more sickness, nor sorrow, nor crying." I believe intense trials will come greater judgments are yet to reach us: every one should be preparing to meet them. The sailor when he sees in the sky the cloud that indicates the coming storm, makes all ready to ride it out; and they who have turned their attention to God's prophetic word must see that judgments are soon to overtake the earth, so many and so sore, that if it were possible the very elect should be overwhelmed by them. Let us judge of what we can stand, by what we have stood. We know the strength of the oak by the tempest it has been able to withstand we estimate the value of the ship by the storms she has gallantly passed through. The pure gold parts with the oxide only in the crucible, the dross only is utterly consumed; the fire destroys only the tinsel the wind carries from the floor only the chaff: the gold remains more beautiful in the first- the wheat is left behind more pure in the latter.

Christ then says, that he will keep us from this hour of temptation, whatever it may be. How will he keep us? "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear." There is something interesting and comforting to a Christian in this thought, that when he suffers, he suffers not alone. Those tears that the world would laugh at, Christ sympathises with. Those pains and losses which the world will disregard, Christ sympathises with and succours us under. When Peter was about to be tried, our Lord told him, "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." What comfort is there

in this fact! Satan never desires to sift the chaff. It is not worth his while it is always the wheat that he sifts and tries to destroy and therefore that man who is most tempted by Satan, persecuted by the world, tried by affliction, has far the greatest presumptive evidence that he belongs to the wheat that may be sifted, and not to the chaff that shall be consumed with unquenchable fire. And let us know, that before Satan has begun to sift, Jesus has begun to pray. "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you; but I have prayed for you," not "I will pray for you." The prayer of the High Priest precedes the ordeal of