fidence in the day of judgment. 'Let me hear,' said the sainted Bishop Jeune, 'when I am on the bed of death that Christ died in the stead of sinners, of whom I am chief; that He was forsaken of God during those fearful agonies, because He had taken my place; that on His cross I paid the penalty of my guilt. Let me hear, too, that His blood cleanseth from all sin, and that I may now appear before the bar of God, not as pardoned only, but as innocent. Let me realize the great mystery of the reciprocal substitution of Christ and the believer, or rather their perfect unity, He in them, they in Him, which He has expressly taught; and let me believe that as I was in effect crucified on Calvary, He will in effect stand before the throne in my person-mine the sin, His the penalty; His the shame, mine the glory; His the thorn, mine the crown; His the merits, mine the reward. Verily, Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my righteousness; in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.' Reader, have you so learned Christ?

CHAPTER IV.

THE OMNISCIENCE OF CHRIST.

'Lord, Thou hast searched and seen me through;
Thine eye commands, with piercing view,
My rising and my resting hours,

My heart and flesh with all their powers.

'My thoughts, before they are my own,
Are to my God distinctly known;
He knows the words I mean to speak
Ere from my opening lips they break.
'Within Thy circling power I stand;
On every side I find Thy hand;
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,

I am surrounded still with God.

Oh, may these thoughts possess my breast
Where'er I rove, where'er I rest!

Nor let my weaker passions dare
Consent to sin, for God is there.'

'His eyes were as a flame of fire.'

'HAST Thou eyes of flesh? or seest Thou as man seeth?' (Job x. 4), was the question which the patriarch Job said he would put to God. Similarly does the beloved disciple here recognise the eyes of his

heavenly visitor to differ from others. Each emblem detailed conveys important truth, and discloses or suggests to the mind more respecting Him with whom we have to do. Partially only can we know God here. The finite cannot grasp the infinite. To know Him more fully will be the work and enjoyment of eternity. Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known' (1 Cor. xiii. 12). The eyes of Christ seen as a flame of fire,' remind us immediately of His Omniscience. They are searching, like God's Word, 'piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart' (Heb. iv. 12). They are irresistible, for who can withstand His gaze? They are consuming, withering everything that may oppose itself to them.

During His earthly ministry, Christ showed that He possessed such. When men, fearing to give open utterance to their thoughts, said within themselves, 'This man blasphemeth,' He, who could read all that was passing within, at once showed His power to do such, as He put to them the searching question, 'Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?' (Matt. ix. 4). When, again, they supposed that His miracles, the reality of which they could not deny, were done by the

power of Beelzebub the prince of devils, He, regarding their thoughts, was able to charge home on them the sin of which they were guilty (Matt. xii. 25). When a poor trembling woman, who had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, thought she might touch the hem of His garment, and steal a blessing unnoticed, He immediately, to the surprise of His disciples, singled her out from all the pressing crowd; and as He asked the question, 'Who touched My clothes? looked round about to see her that had done this thing (Mark v. 32). When Pharisees and Herodians were sent to catch Him in His words, and pretended to recognise Him as a divinely sent teacher, seeking from Him guidance in putting to Him the question, 'Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar, or not? shall we give, or shall we not give?' He was able to unmask their hypocrisy, and lay bare what was their only object in seeking Him, as He put to them another question, 'Why tempt ye Me?' (Mark xii. 15). He exercising the same power, was able, when Nathanael thought he had concealed himself from every eye, to follow him under the fig-tree, and reading what passed within his breast, to pronounce him to be 'an Israclite indeed, in whom is no guile!' (John i. 47). 'He needeth not that any should testify of man;

for He knew what was in man' (John ii. 25). He is now revealed to us as possessing the same power. Omniscience is necessarily bound up with His Godhead. Often is this truth overlooked. The first sin arose from forgetfulness of it. Adam, when sin had for the first time thrown its darkening shadows over his mind, impairing his intellect, thought, in his folly, that the thickness of the foliage of the trees of the garden, amid which he sought to hide himself, would be able to conceal him from the eyes of his Creator, with whom he had lately enjoyed sweet converse. In every transgression there is something more or less of Atheism denying either the existence of God, or calling into question some one of His attributes. It aggravates sin when we think it can be hid from God. What is the language of this, as one has well asked, but that God is not present with us, or His presence ought to be of less regard with us, and influence upon us, than that of a creature? If we can forbear sin from any awe of the presence of man, to whom we are equal in regard of nature, or from the presence of a very mean man, to whom we are superior in regard of condition, and not forbear it because we are within the ken of God, we treat Him not only as our inferior, but inferior to the meanest man or child of his creation, in whose sight we would not commit the like action. It is