eecketh his life shall lose it, and he that loseth it shall find it." Self-oblivious benevo- lence is the fountain of human joy. This eternal principle of self-sacrificing love we must have in 118 before we can be saved; it is, in fact, salvation. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of God.and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." The flesh and the blood here stand for the vitality of Christ. .And what was this moral life, the moral essence of Christ, the soul of his soul, the moral blood? &if-sacrificing low. And this we must get into us or die. IlL TH..lT REDEMPTION IS NO AFTER-THOUGHT IN THE ARRANGEMENTS OF THB UNIVERSE. It is true that the slain Lamb of Calvary came to meet and master an evil-the world's depravity. He came to "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." But it was Roll according to the eternal order of things. Miserably mrrow and God- degrading ideas of Christ's work are popular in the pulpits of some of the sects. Some- times it is spoken of as au expedient which the .Almighty took a long time to contrive in order to overcome a state of things that had sprung up in his kingdom, Like some human king, he had a great deal to do in order to hit upon the best plan to harmonize hie attributes, to reconcile mercy to justice, to maintain the order of his government, and, at the same time, save and forgive repentant rebels. And sometimes it is so spoken of as if the original system which God established with humanity was defective, did not work well, broke down, and thus not only disappointed the Creator, but taxed his wisdom greatly in order to invent an expedient that should meet the difficulty. Away with such notions I They are repugnant to reason, they are an insult to Omniscience, they are a libel on the gospel, they are obstructive to Christianity. 1. God foresaw the/all from eternity. This is an undeniable fact. Why did he not prevent it? Ah I why? 2. God O'l'dained the remedy from ettrnity. Redemption was no after-thought; it is an essential part, and, perhaps, a primary part of the original scheme of the universe. All that are redeemed to moral order, rectitude, and peace by Christ, are so redeemed "according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.'' IV. THAT OUR PLANET WAS PROBABLY FOBMED FOB THE SPECIAL PURPOSE OP BECOMING THE THEATRE OF Gon's REDEMPTIVE LOVE TO HAN. This is saying more than that Christ came into the world. There are men who argue from the littleness of this planet the absurdity of this. But materi~l magnitude is nothing to God; spiritual existences and moral facts are vitally interesting to him. But the text leads us beyond -leads ns to believe that this world was made for the express purpose. .As God had the idea of redemption before the "foundation of the world," and as the idea is being worked out here, is it not probable that this idea guided him in its formation? Small in bulk as our planet is when compared with that of other orbs that roll in splendour under the eye of God, it has a grand moral distinction. Its dust formed the fruits that fed the body of the Son of God. Here he lived, laboured, suffered, and was buried, and here his grand work is being carried on. If it be moral facts that give importance to places, is there a more important spot than this earth P-D. T.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XIV. (eh. viii-::d. H), leading on11e more to a picture of the saved (eh. xi. 15-19), so Ver. 1.-And I looked; and I sat.11, in- here we have the assured bles&edness of the dicating a fresh phase of the ,ision (cf. faithful porlrayLd (eh. xiv. 1-13), followed eh. iv. 1, etc.). Having describerl (eh. xii. by the judgments upon the ungodly (eh. and xiii) the trinity of enemies with which xiv. H.:....xviii. 24), and leading on once Christ and his people contend, the vision more to a pictme of the saints in glory now passes on to depict the blessedness in (eh. xix.). And, lo, a Lamb stood on the ■tore for the faithful Christian, and, on the Mount Zion; and behold, tke Lamb standing other hand, the final fate of the dragon and tm the Mount Z.ion, as in the Revised Version. his adherents. We are thus once more led "The Lamb," with the article, referring to to the final jndgment. And just as in the "the Lamb" described in eh. v., whom the former vision, after the assurance of the second beast ha,l attempted to persooate, Balvation of the faithful (eh. vii.), came He stands on Mount Zion (cf. Heh. xii. 22, the denU11cia.tion of woe for the ungodly "Mount Zion, the city of th11 liyillg Gud, err. nv. 1-20.] THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. 347