many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.”

This was the first time the awful truth of their Master's cruel death had been put before them, and the disciples started back from it in affright.

Peter, always the most eager of the band, could not help speaking out his thoughts:

Verse 22. "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee."

His eager love, and the greatness of his surprise, made him forget his place. He could not bear that the words of Jesus should be true. He strongly saw what he believed would be best. He was not willing to submit to a plan so contrary to his own ideas. Both his affection for his Lord, and his judgment were against it. How often it is so with ourselves! We have plans by which we think that the cause of religion may be best helped forward. We think we know exactly what will be for the good and happiness of those we dearly love. We are made to stop short in fear and surprise. The ways of God are not as our ways. His wisdom brings about his purposes by those very means, which to our foolishness would have seemed their destruction. Not only does He fulfil his purposes, but by his way of fulfilling them, He reproves our rash vanity and self-will. He shews us that, except in his hands, we should only do harm. Let us take good heed to the Saviour's answer to Peter, when, starting from the idea of his Master's sufferings and death, he said, "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” The Saviour's answer was this

Verse 23. "He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou

savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."

St. Mark writes, that it was "when He had turned about, and looked on his disciples," that " He rebuked Peter; "which seems to shew us, that Peter was, as before, the spokesman of all the twelve. The words of our Lord's rebuke to Peter were the same as the words He spoke to Satan himself in the temptation in the desert and we need not be surprised at this, for Peter was unknowingly carrying on the very same temptation, which Satan had then tried. Had his hopes and wishes succeeded, and could Jesus have been persuaded to put far from him the cross and the grave, the plan of God's mercy could not have been carried out. Men never would have been redeemed, and Satan would have triumphed. "Thou art an offence to me,” said the Lord. Your advice and wishes are in my way. If I followed them, the very thing for which I came would be prevented. The words "Thou art an offence to me," mean even more than this; they also mean that they caused pain to the holy mind of Jesus, "who suffered, being tempted."* He saw at a glance, that Peter, thinking and feeling as men think and feel, would save him from pain and suffering, because he loved him. Jesus had also the feelings of a man: and we shall see that had He yielded to them, He would have shrunk from suffering, even as we should, but the mind of God was his mind. He had come to do his Father's will, and all who would hinder that holy will were 66 an offence to him."

We may learn much from this ;-much comfort. We see in Peter, and the other disciples, such a holy and pure belief in Christ, as He himself declared could only have been given by God. We read that Peter, for the declaration of this belief, was said by Christ to be blessed. A moment after, we see the sinful human nature of his heart bringing down upon him a

* Olshausen, Vol. II. 224, 225.

severe rebuke: yet not the less for this did he remain the favored apostle of Christ. Not the less did the faith he had declared become stronger and stronger, even the rock on which the Church of Christ was built. Is not this a comfort to us? We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, on him all our hopes are set, yet how often do we fall into error! How very often do we mistake even in the way by which we think to serve Him. Earthly plans, and hopes, and fears, are constantly rising up within us to hinder the work of God. Let us be humble, patient, hopeful, and believing. He will assuredly rebuke us, but He will instruct us further, and guide us on, as He guided Peter, that we may be faithful even unto death.

IX.

MATT. XVI. MARK VIII. LUKE IX.

We have read that the Lord Jesus showed "unto his disciples," that, instead of being made a king as they had hoped, "he must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark viii. 31. We have also read how He reproved Peter for that false affection which wished to spare his master from those things God had appointed him to suffer. We now shall see that Jesus plainly shewed to all who would be his disciples, that they must be willing to cast in their lot with him.

MARK Viii. 31. "And when he had called the people unto him, with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and"

LUKE ix. 23. "Take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever

MARK Viii. 35-38. "Shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Peter had said, "Be it far from thee, Lord," to suffer and to die. The natural dislike of pain and death, a dislike human nature must always feel, had made him shrink back from the view that Jesus had put before him. His astonishment that the Son of God should be doomed to die, had prevented him from seeing that there was something beyond his death. The words, that "the Son of man must suffer many things," " and be killed,” had alarmed him so much, that he had given no heed to the far more wonderful words, "and after three days rise again." Yet upon these words all depended. "For if Christ

be not risen, then are we, (that is, they who follow him) of all men most miserable." Both Peter, and all who, like him, did love, or, as the world went on, whoever should love the Lord, must be content to suffer God's will, whatever it be. They must make up their minds to deny themselves, that is, to deny their natural love of an easy life, and their natural dislike of all that crosses their own wills. They must be content to take up their cross daily, and follow their Lord wherever it was his pleasure to lead them.

Nor should they find their lot a hard one. "What is a man advantaged, (or what shall it profit) him, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and be cast away?" What good shall all that he has gained here, or enjoyed here, be unto him, when he himself cannot remain to keep or to enjoy it? But if he be the follower of Christ the Lord, then the gain is great. Suffer indeed he must: and who in this life does not suffer, whether he be Christ's or not? But there is this great difference. The man who is without religion, frets and struggles against disappointment and distress: and when he submits, it

is because he cannot help it. There is no comfort in his submission. All he can do for comfort is to try to forget, and to grow hard, so that he may not care. The thought of death, when he really thinks of it, is terrible to him. His only chance is to put it from him. He tries to be brave about it. He says he does not fear to die. If he do not, he is a madman or a fool. The follower of Christ suffers willingly and patiently those things that are laid upon him. He believes that, like the sufferings of his Lord, they shall assuredly be made to work out God's will; and, like his Lord, he looks forward to the end. He believes that this time of trial shall not last. He knows that he must die, but he remembers that Jesus died, and rose again. He is willing to trust him with his soul and body, for he knows that "Christ has conquered death, and brought immortality (that is, a happy life that never ends) to light."

Our Saviour said, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." There is a meaning in the words "his cross." They seem to mean, that every man shall have his trials appointed for him—his own particular cross, which God will send, and which he must willingly bear. We cannot live long without finding that this is true. There is no need to make a cross for ourselves, to invent suffering for ourselves, of mind or body; only let us wait awhile, we shall see that we are not forgotten. The cross will be shown us, which we must bear daily and in the mean time let us deny ourselves in every thing that would make us unwilling to bear it when it comes. Let us watch over ourselves, that we become not proud, or high-minded, thinking ourselves better than others. Our time of trial will surely come : let us watch and be humble.

There is one more thing we should learn before we leave those words of our blessed Lord; it is this:-how great is the loving-kindness that teaches us to look even upon our crosses, that is, upon sorrow and suffering, as so many proofs of God's