MATT. xi. 28-30.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden. is light.

EXPOSITION.

"Come unto me." These words derive their significance from the preceding assertion of our Lord's unity with the Father. It is only as God that He is able to give rest to the souls of those who are weary with the burden of sin and of the law. MANSEL.

This "come unto Me" is uttered with Divine majesty, precisely as the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel cries (Isa. xlv. 22): "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."-STIER. "All ye that labour and are heavy laden." The words are wide enough to cover every form of human sin and sorrow, but the thought that was most prominent in them at the time was that of the burdens grievous to be borne, the yoke of traditions and ordinances which the Pharisees and scribes had imposed on the consciences of men.— PLUMPTRE.

Compare with this invitation John i. 29: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;" and Isa. liii. 4: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;" and observe that Christ carries not only our sins, but also our griefs and our sorrows.—Abbott.

In this all thou oughtest to include thyself as well, and not suppose that thou dost not belong to the number; thou shouldst not seek for another register of God.-MELANCTHON.

"I will give you rest." The I is emphasised in the Greek. He gives what no one else can give. -PLUMPTRE.

Rest-not necessarily from your burden. If not, then rest in your burden.—ABBOTT.

"Take my yoke upon you." The yoke is used symbolically in the Old Testament to denote a condition of servitude (Lev. xxvi. 13, etc.); and

hence, in the New Testament, of bondage under the Law as opposed to the freedom of the Gospel (Acts xv. 15; Gal. v. 1; 1 Tim. vi. 1). Only here is it used of allegiance to Christ.—ABBOTT.

"I am meek and lowly in heart." The stress lies on the last words.-PLUMPTRE.

"Ye shall find rest unto your souls." Here, as often in our Lord's teaching, we have a direct quotation from Jeremiah (see Jer. vi. 16).— PLUMPTRE.

Many other Old Testament passages, as Isa. xiv. 3, xxviii. 12, lv. 1-3; Jer. xxxi. 2, 25; Prov. ii. I, iv. 20, v. 1, 12, find here their New Testament revival and highest interpretation. And the whole passage is a most eloquent commentary on Jesus' own idea of the Messiah in opposition to the popular expectations.-HOLTZMANN.

"My yoke is easy." The Greek word has a wider range of meaning-good, helpful, kind, profitable.—PLUMPtre.

The yoke of Christ, says Augustine, is like the plumage of a bird, which adds to its weight, but enables it to soar to the sky.-WORDSWORTH.

METHODS OF TREATMENT.

I.

THE SAVIOUR'S INVITATION.
By the Rev. Principal H. Wace, D.D.

It may be assumed that every one is sensible of the attractiveness and grace of these familiar words. They address themselves to the greatest and most universal need of mankind, and they speak in a tone of tenderness and assurance which touches, even when it does not always win, every thoughtful heart.

1. Those that labour and are heavy laden are the great majority of mankind-nay, if we take into account the various vicissitudes of human life, they may be said to include all mankind.

2. No one practically doubts that the words were uttered. This invitation, at least, is no invention of later days.

3. But in what capacity does our Lord utter this invitation, and what is its practical meaning? In some of the most interesting literature of our day there is an interpretation put upon these and similar

words which is very different from the old Christian interpretation of them. We are told that this is the voice of a teacher, inviting men simply to find rest for their souls in following the path of life which he has laid down for their feet. "Do I believe," exclaims the chief character in a recent popular novel-“ do I believe in Christ? Yes, in the teacher, the martyr, the symbol to us Westerns of all things heavenly and abiding, the image and pledge of the invisible life of the Spirit-with all my soul and with all my mind. But in the ManGod, the Word from eternity, in a wonder-working Christ, in a risen and ascended Jesus, in the living. intercessor and mediator for the lives of His tempted brethren"-to that there is negative answer. Then, "Come unto Me" means only "Come unto My teaching." But the place where this invitation occurs is most significant. Jesus has accused the Pharisees of want of belief in Him, of resisting the evidence of His mighty works. He has said that the things of salvation can only be learned by those who submit themselves to Him in the spirit of children. He has just asserted His absolutely unique relation to the Father: "No man knoweth the Father but the Son." And it is in the light of these mighty works and of these mighty assurances that He exclaims: "Come unto Me!"

4. Here is one of the so-called speculative dogmas of the Church, and, behold, what a practical comfort there is in it! Unless Christ were more than man, these words lose the power and the grace which have won so many souls, and sustained them in their struggles.

II.

REST IN CHRIST.

By the Rev. Professor R. Flint, LL.D.

1. This has first to be noticed that Christ makes His invitation, and promises His reward only to the labouring and heavy laden. Two feelings are characteristic of the labouring and heavy laden. (a) There is a feeling of pressure in their soul. They realise that life involves responsibilities. And this is at once a testing question for professing Christians. Have they been brought thus far that they recognise the seriousness of life? The source of this pressure on the soul is various. It may arise immediately from affliction, from disappointment, from guilt, from sin. (b) Another feeling characteristic of the heavy laden is

a sense of feebleness within. The heaviest load is no burden if there is strength to support it. But the heavy laden is conscious both of outward pressure and of inward feebleness. He knows the evils of life as they are, and He also knows Himself as He is.

2. What then did Christ mean when He said "Come unto Me" to such as these? The words are figurative, and, being taken in a literal sense, have been often abused, mystical and delusive ideas being attached to them. It is not difficult to perceive what His immediate hearers would understand by them. His disciples would say they had already come, and His enemies would deny His right to demand that they should come. None of them knew yet that He was the Son of God, so that their understanding of the invitation was incomplete; but it was correct so far as it went. To come to Christ includes three things:-(a) It supposes some knowledge of the facts and truths of the gospel. I venture not to define how much knowledge there must be. (b) It involves the recognition of the supreme importance of Christ and His gospel. For, first, all is darkness apart from Him-that must be recognised. Secondly, there is no forgivenesss for guilt elsewhere. And thirdly, sin cannot be got rid of, there is no holiness or spiritual life except in Him. (c) It is not enough to recognise all this; we must accept and act upon it. We cannot come to Him by mere knowledge or mere belief, but we must sincerely accept Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Salvation has two aspects, but it is not two things. Christ is the whole of salvation. We in Him, this is our justification; He in us, this is our sanctification; we in Him and He in us, this is our perfect redemption.

3. What does Christ promise to those who come to Him? He says He will give them "rest." And text and context both make clear what it is. It is not rest from work, which would be inactivity, but from that which makes work painful, rest from labour and heaviness. The rest is to be found in the doing of His work-"Take My yoke upon you." The sense of weariness and heaviness of soul was referred to four causes — affliction, disappointed desires, guilt, and sin. What does Christ do in regard of each of them? (a) Afflictions He does not exempt us from in this life, but He teaches us to glory in affliction and to count it "all joy.". (b) He gives rest from all those desires

which, being doomed to inevitable disappointment, ruin our happiness. He does not remove

all desire, but He centres it in Himself. (c) He removes from the conscience the awful load of guilt. It is when the pilgrim comes up to the cross that the burden loosens from off his shoulder. (d) Finally, He gradually overcomes and destroys sin within us, replacing it with true holiness. He makes His grace sufficient for us.

Will you come?

"Soon shalt thou fight and bleed no more; Soon, soon thy weary course be o'er, And deep the rest thou then shalt taste."

THOUGHTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

A TRUE examination of the passage must start from a recognition of its structural character. It may be translated

thus:

Come to me all ye labouring and loaded ones,
And I will rest you;

Take my yoke on you, and be my disciples,
Because gentle am I, and humble in heart;
And you will find rest to your souls,
For my yoke is kindly and my load light.

The first thing to note is the correspondence of lines I and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4; the second of each pair being a fuller statement of the fact or spirit of the former. Secondly, in four of the lines the thought is twofold,-labouring and burdened, a yoke and a load, gentle and humble, kindly and light, yet the reference is in each case probably single. A heavy cart is to the bullocks at once an effort in the yoke and a burden that weighs down.-ROBERT Scott.

THERE is a "but " in the happiest destiny. A man who was a devout Christian and a powerful defender of the faith, yet wrote to a friend. "What the life of a rogue may be, I cannot tell, for I have not been one; but I know that the life of a true man may be full of disgust and misery.”—F. W. FARRAR.

THE Dominican artist, a true saint of God, said: "The life of souls here below is a sad and curious spectacle. Take a bird, tie its wings so that it cannot fly, gag its throat so that it cannot sing, bandage its eyes so that it cannot see, then shut it up in a narrow cage, with an immense number of other poor birds treated in the same fashion, and watch the misery of that crowd of prisoners, without voice or sight or power to fly, and you have a fair representation of the life of souls in human society."-F. W. FARRAR.

THE desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual, no unworthy one; but a longing for renovation, and for escape from a state, whose every phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory, to one in which permanence

HERE is a twofold rest.

First, a rest that is given-“I will give you rest" (ver. 28). Secondly, a rest that is found -"Ye shall find rest" (ver. 29). Both are in Jesus, in Jesus only; but the two are very different. The first is rest by a yoke taken off, the other is rest by a yoke put on. The first is rest by what Christ takes off our shoulders and carries for us. It is ours simply by coming to Him. It is a gift, complete and secured to all who come, at once and as fully as ever it can be. The other is not given but found. It is for those who enter Christ's school and learn of Him, who go into Christ's service and work for Him. - MARK GUY PEARSE.

And

why His yoke is light, sir? If not, I think I can tell you." "Well, because the good Lord helps us to carry it, I suppose." "No, sir,” he explained, shaking his head; “I think I know better than that. You see, when I was a boy at home, I used to drive the oxen in my father's yoke. the yoke was never made to balance, sir, as you said." (I had referred to the Greek word. But how much better it was to know the real thing.) He went on triumphantly: "Father's yokes were always made heavier one side than the other. Then, you see, we should put a weak bullock in alongside of a strong bullock, and the light end would come on the weak bullock, because the stronger one had the heavy part of it on his shoulder." Then his face lit up as he said: "That is why the yoke is easy and the burden is light; because the Lord's yoke is made after the same pattern, and the heavy end is upon His shoulder."—MARK GUY PEARSE.

MANY are the different systems of repose offered to us, and foremost is that proposed by the Church of Rome. Let us do her the justice, at all events, to allow that she follows the Redeemer in this-it is not happiness she promises, she promises rest. The great strength of Romanism lies in

this, that she professes to answer and satisfy the deep want of human nature for rest. She speaks of an infallibility on which she would persuade men, weary of the strain of doubt, to rest. It is not to the tales of miracles, and of the personal interference of God Himself; but to the promise of an impossibility of error to those within her pale, that she owes her influence. And we say, Better far to face doubt and perplexity manfully; to bear any yoke of Christ's than be content with the rest of a Church's infallibility.-F. W. ROBERTSON.

THE Hebrew word which our Lord doubtless used, the word for "rest," has an instructive history: it would be charged with sacred associations to those who heard it fall from His lips. For this word menuchah is used in many weighty sentences in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is used to designate the asylum of honour and freedom which a Hebrew found in the home of her husband, her secure refuge from servitude, insolence, neglect. "The Lord grant unto you," said Naomi, "that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband." It is also used to denote the asylum of freedom and repose on which the Hebrew race entered when it gained full possession of the promised land, when, in the days of Solomon, every man might sit under his vine or his fig tree, none daring to make him afraid. It was used by the prophets in a still higher sense. With them God was the true Menuchah or Rest of His peoplenay, of the whole world. To them it was revealed that only when the Immanuel came, the God-with-us, would the

golden days of Paradise return, and the world enter into its final and glorious rest.-SAMUEL COX.

The Burden-Bearer.

TAKE my burdened heart,—
Take it and give me Thine;
For where Thy wounds their pain impart,
There is no room for mine.

Take my burdened soul,

Give me in turn Thine own; For where Thy waves of sorrow roll My sorrow is unknown.

Take my burdened life;

Weight me with Thine instead ; For in Thy care for human strife My human care is dead.

Take my burdened day;

Hang Thine own clouds on high; For where Thy shadows stop the way, All cloudless is my sky.

Take my burdened will;

Give me Thy will resigned; For where Thou bidst my storm be still, I perfect freedom find. GEORGE MATHESON.

I.

Acts iv. 19-31.

THE APOSTLES' CONFIDENCE IN GOD.

1. "For we cannot but speak" (ver. 20). The "we" is emphatic in the Greek. Ye must judge for yourselves, but as for us, we have settled it already. It is Joshua's "Choose you this day whom ye will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." It is a remarkable testimony to the authority of conscience.

2. "Thy holy child Jesus" (ver. 27). A better translation is "thy holy servant Jesus."

THIS was a crisis in the history of the Christian Church. It had come early, and it was serious. For, however lame and almost foolish the conclusion of the Sanhedrin, as expressed in the words, "So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them because of the people," yet it was lame and impotent for the moment only. The one difficulty in the way of punishing the disciples was the enthusiasm of the crowd. But mutabile vulgus, crowds are fickle. Once the Pharisees and Sadducees dared not lay hands on Jesus "for fear

of the people"; but they waited; and in time the people took up their terrible cry of "Crucify Him," and swelled it into an inhuman roar. So they knew now that they had only to wait; and Peter and John knew it also.

They went home to their own. And as soon as they had made their report, by one impulse they all lifted up their voices in prayer. That was their way of getting over the crisis. As we read the prayer, we may fail to enter into the intense fervour which animated it. We may fail to feel how each heart must have poured itself into the one great stream of passionate earnestness that swept round the throne of God. But we still may judge by its effects. For when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. These were visible and unmistakable signs of its prevailing power. signs of its prevailing power. And there is another sign not less remarkable. In the very words of the prayer itself God had answered it. For what was it but a direct and immediate inspiration of God that enabled them with one accord to choose the words of the Psalmist, and apply them to their own

present circumstances? "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear."

That is

It was "boldness" they prayed for. the word in this lesson. And first they got boldness to interpret the word of God, and then they got boldness to speak it.

ILLUSTRATIONS.-"Being let go, they went to their own" (ver. 23). In the Greek there is no word for "company." And so it may be said that every man, like the released apostles, "being let go, will go to his own," to the thing he loves, to that which he most cares to do. Here we may find a very subtle and accurate criterion of character. When "let go" from the labour of the day, how do we spend our leisure hours? If, for example, a man habitually spends his evenings in the tavern, indulging himself with richer food and more generous liquors than his wife and children ever taste, we have no difficulty, no hesitation in setting him down for a selfish sot and sensualist. If another hurries through his scanty meal to devour books or take lessons, secured only at the cost of threadbare clothes and stinted appetite, we may very certainly conclude that an ardent desire for knowledge has been kindled in him which many waters will not quench.-SAMUEL Cox.

A congregation shows itself here which unites fervent prayer with unanimous work. It is just this which makes this first company of suppliants not merely so amiable and worthy of reverence, but such an example to all who come after them.-J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE.

"Thy holy child Jesus." These four words are an epitome of the gospel. There is first the humanity of Christ, "Thy holy child (or servant)." Next there is His divinity, "Thy holy child," for of no other child or servant can that adjective be used. Then there is His representative character, Thy holy child.” And lastly, there is His saving power. "Thy holy child Jesus." "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.-J. HILES HITCHENS.

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Sapphira were treated with undue severity. A careless reading of the story has been known to leave that impression. But more careful study reveals several circumstances which bring out the wilfulness of the imposture and the gravity of the sin. And the Greek is more striking in that respect than the English.

Ananias is the Greek form of the Hebrew Hananiah, which was the Hebrew and home-given name of Shadrach, one of the three who passed so gloriously through Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. The name means "one to whom Jehovah is gracious." Sapphira probably comes from a Hebrew word meaning "beautiful." Thus their names were good, too good to express their character.

For it must be specially observed that their lie was no sudden impulse, but a deliberate plot, long planned and persisted in. Peter's words tell us that not only had they conspired together, but after being tempted by Satan they had felt the pleading of the Holy Spirit, and had persistently rejected it. Now the presence of the Holy Spirit was at this time fresh and real and personal. The devil's enticements and the Spirit's pleadings are always with us; but at this time the Spirit was given in large measure and to most remarkable effect. So it involved a malicious and undue hardness of heart that they could have conspired together, and persisted in their conspiracy at such a time as this.

No doubt their punishment was quick and terrible. But there are times when it is impossible to delay or dally with vengeance. Had this fraud been successful, or had St. Peter hesitated in its exposure and punishment, the Church might have been strangled in its infancy. This was the one thing they must, above all things, show in the face of a hostile and corrupt paganism that they had clean hands and a pure heart.

Dire was the punishment of Balaam who committed jnst such a crime as this in the days when the Hebrew nation was struggling out of infancy into manhood. More terrible must be the calamity that falls upon those who would wreck the first beginnings of that Kingdom which the Son of God was seeking to establish upon earth.

ILLUSTRATIONS.-Ananias and Sapphira endeavoured to keep up a mechanical enthusiasm, and that is an impossibility in the divine life. We must here have reality. Some people try to sing in God's house; but if you look at them, they are not singing at all, for their eyes, like fools' eyes, are wandering all over the congregation. They bow in the attitude of prayer, but all the while their eyes are upon vacant space or upon the earth

"God abhors the sacrifice Where not the heart is found."

JOSEPH PARKER.