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The divine attribute of heart-searching omniscience could not be more distinctly declared to belong to Jesus. An example of his power to penetrate the within of man follows in the history of Nicodemus.

Let the reader, as we close, reflect-This Saviour knows me, knows my profession's worth. Happy, if so reflecting, he can think of proofs of Christ's acceptance and approval of it. Have we experience of such gracious entrusting of himself to us in loving fellowship, as makes us feel that He is treating us as friends? And have we the friends' badge? "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

THE WATER OF SEPARATION.-III.

HE Lord next reveals the way of cleansing the unclean in applying that which was laid up for him. "And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running (or living) water shall be put thereto in a vessel." The power of the death of Christ, and the Spirit of life, are thus connected in this cleansing power of God as applied to us. In the ashes of the red heifer, the remembrance of Christ's death and the abiding value of it were shown out as ever laid up for us; in the running (or living) water, the Spirit of life, as acting in the power of Christ's death in cleansing, was also foreshown. The ashes were not used without the running (or living) water; neither was the running water sprinkled without the ashes. The Spirit does not act in us for this cleansing apart from the death

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of Christ, and the remembrance of the judgment of sin in Him. A false energy may be detected, if the power of the cross does not accompany it.

The sprinkling of the water of separation is not a type of the way of reconciling a sinner to God, in the forgiveness of his sins through the blood of Christ; but it is a type of the way of restoring us to communion with God in fellowship in life when it has been hindered by association with the dead. The way of reconciliation in the forgiveness of sins was foreshown in the sprinkling of the blood; but this other was foreshown in the sprinkling of the water-the living water to which the ashes were put, in which the blood was burned when all was burned outside the camp. On the day of atonement, the blood was sprinkled seven times upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat; and thus an atonement was made on that day that they might be clean from all their sins before the Lord: but when any were unclean by the dead, then as often as it was so, the water of separation was sprinkled on the unclean. In this ordinance of the red heifer, the judgment of sin in the offering of Christ is more singly shown out than in any other type of it in the sacrifices; for no part of it was eaten, no part of it was burned on the altar, but all was burned without the camp. Our cleansing from the uncleanness of the dead of this world, is in the sense of the heavy judgment of sin in the offering of Christ, and this by the energy of the Spirit in us.

The cleansing power of all this is further marked in the hyssop, which was before thrown by the priest into the burning, that in the ashes of the heifer the cleansing power of the death of Christ might be witnessed unto in its abiding value; so now again, when the water of separation was sprinkled on the unclean, the hyssop was again used to show this cleansing power in its application. "And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water,

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and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave."

At the time of the burning, cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop, were thrown into the burning; but afterward, at the time of the sprinkling, hyssop only is used; and this, as a little shrub, is in contrast to the cedar as a stately tree. This contrast is marked in 1 Kings iv. 33. "He spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon ever unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." With this little shrub that springeth out of the wall, the cleansing power provided of God was applied.

In the ashes of the heifer there was no display for the carnal eye; he who had communion with God in the intelligence of what was there, could apprehend the cedar and the scarlet there together with the hyssop; but it is not by the display of what is mighty and majestic, but in that which is still and small, that the Lord acts in this cleansing. The bunch of hyssop was what God chose to connect his power with in this cleansing, and a very plain lesson is taught to us by it in this pompous world full of its own display.

There are other occasions in which the power and lordship of Christ are shown out in cleansing, as in the cleansing of the leper and the leprous house (see Lev. xiv.), but with us now, when defiled by the dead and purifying ourselves, the orderings of the Lord for us are in connection with the humiliation of Christ in judgment in suffering for sin.

In all this service it is a clean person that is used of the Lord for the cleansing of the unclean: one unclean person is not used for the cleansing of another. This is important for the servants of Christ; they learn the pattern of their service in Christ himself. He who never was defiled washed his disciples' feet, and it was not until then that

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When we

deal with the other, it may The Lord calls him a hypo

He told them to wash one another's feet.* ourselves are under the power of an uncleanness which another is also under, our blessing is first to get ourselves clean; but if we first go to only be to make bad worse. crite who goes to take the mote out of his brother's eye, when a beam is in his own eye (Matt. vii. 3—5); and again it is written, "Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" (Rom. ii. 21). A word of warning and guidance is here given: "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee" (1 Tim. iv. 16). The contrast to this is in those who, while they promise liberty to others, are themselves the servants of corruption; liberty is promised, but the thing ministered is their own corruption. We may be little aware how much others may be acted on through us, according to the power of the character which we ourselves may have. The holy apostle could say, "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblamably, we behaved ourselves among you that believe" (1 Thess. ii. 10).

In this cleansing, the unclean person was first sprinkled with the water of separation, in which he was brought under the power of the judgment of sin in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this in the way of remembrance; for it was the ashes in which the blood was burned, and that were laid up in a clean place, to which the living water was put. He was sprinkled on the third day,† for the

*On the day of atonement the blood could be sprinkled on the mercyseat by the high-priest alone; but in cleansing from this uncleanness from the dead, the water of separation could be sprinkled by a clean person. Christ in his own perfectness is that clean person; but his servants, as themselves cleansed from their uncleanness, are also used in this service.

The third day is used to mark the period of limit to Israel's humiliation.

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uncleanness of death cannot be allowed to prevail; and on the seventh day,* for he must be fully brought under the power of this cleansing and then "on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even." As walking in the Spirit, he thus subjects himself and his habits to the power of the cleansing Word of God, "hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."

The Lord again declares that this uncleanness cannot be allowed to pass: "The man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean." So also when Christ washed his disciples' feet, his words were, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." We can have no fellowship in walk with Him, when the uncleanness of an unclean world is allowed to act on our spirits, and is passed over in our walk, and therefore He washed his disciples' feet. At that time He also taught them the abiding value of what had been already done, and not to be repeated, when he said, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." In this the true state of many will be tested. All the virgins slumbered and slept; but the wise only revived again to go forth afresh to meet the Bridegroom. The foolish virgins, who at first set out with them, could not answer the awakening call, and in this it was shown that they were foolish virgins, though it did not appear in the beginning; but from first The foolish virgins never had oil in their

to last it was so.

"After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight" (Hos. vi. 2). It was on the third day that Christ rose from the dead, for it was not possible that He could be holden of death.

*The seventh day is used to mark a fulness of time. seventh day from all his works."

"God did rest the