"Behold ye despisers, and wonder and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you," Acts xiii. 41.

"Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah :-this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people," Heb. viii. 8—10.

"For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John v. 46, 47.

THERE are no two passages of Scripture oftener quoted and misapplied by the Gentile churches of Christendom than the following: "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, which was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross."-And:-" Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."-Both these quotations are from the epistles of the great apostle of the Gentiles, and were addressed to, and intended only for the Gentile churches who seek and look only for the salvation of the soul, in certain hope of obtaining a resurrection from among the dead at the second coming of Christ to an inheritance incorruptible in the heavenly mansions. The handwriting of ordinances,-the law, was against and contrary to the Gentiles. Viewed in this light, and indeed, the only light in which they should be taken :—they are grand and glorious truths, but when the Gentiles apply these passages to the house of Israel and Judah at the same time mingling themselves with both houses: they do not rightly divide the word of truth.-One is a covenant specially made with the Gentiles through faith by grace, whilst the

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covenant of our text does not come into force until " after those days" or, at the fulness of the Gentiles; when the Lord promises by His covenant to place His laws into the mind and write them in the hearts of Israel and Judah only.-All who are grafted into the death of Christ, bear of their own kind: —death, and a spiritual body in the first resurrection, and to them: "Christ is the end of the law" for righteousness through faith without works ;-these are the Gentiles;-but Israel and Judah will be grafted into the life of Christ-and Christ will be grafted into them, and they will not bear of "their own" kind, but will bear of the graft grafted into them, namely Christ, who will cause them to walk in His laws by grafting them into their hearts-bringing life and immortality. Mark they do nothing of their own power-but God who according to this covenant will cause them to keep His laws and who will lead them through the two-leaved gates of law and Gospel. Now, it is written: "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God but that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled and from blood." Therefore, the handwriting of ordinances, or the laws of God were taken out of the way of the Gentiles and have been to this present time, nailed to the cross of Christ. It would be foreign to our purpose here to inquire into the walk of the Gentiles the great majority of whom will insist upon having the Mosaic law engraved or painted upon stone, plaster, wood or stained windows, immediately over their altars, surrounded also by images, likenesses and carvings of the spiritual and the terrestrial and this too in default of one of the very first of God's own laws, namely: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." We shall not waste time by inquiring at any length how far the Gentile churches abstain from fornication, and from things strangled and from blood. Let the newspapers, the law courts, the asylums and prisons answer such questions; and it is evident that in all this great profession of

Christianity, no greater insult can be given a man than to tell him that he is not "a Christian," it is a fashionable term, and to be "no Christian" is to be outside of the pale of court, fashion, and civilization. However, we are not astonished at these things, for the immortal Spirit has repeatedly warned us of the great form of godliness without power which would exist in these latter days. He has warned us that the great mystery of iniquity would abound and wax worse and worse to the end. We do not marvel so much at the great gigantic strides which the apostasy of Christendom is now taking over land and sea, for the Scriptures must be fulfilled, but we must acknowledge that we are indeed astonished that so many millions of so-called "Christians' are to-day themselves looking for an anti-Christ as a sign to them, and who are so utterly deluded as not to be able to see the man of sin revealed in their very midst on his throne, the very centre of Christendom.—

The laws, with which men said they were burdened, and could not observe (by not having the Spirit) were nailed to the cross, causing them to repent and submit to sacrifices for the salvation of the soul, though the body perished. It is written: "Now therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear "-again: "Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days" for "every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things."—" Behold I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." Again: "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ "-Now, what have the Gentiles to do with circumcision ?-Were they not commanded to abstain from blood ?-How could Christ be the end of the law for righteousness to them, if they trusted in circumcision? But we must quote again: "Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting 'YOUR souls,' saying: yè must be circumcised, and

keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment "—in other words: they want to draw you into a net, making the death of Christ of none effect to you into whom ye are now grafted. They want you to keep the law without the Gospel.—Paul, seeing all this as through a glass darkly, and knowing that the fulness of the Gentiles was yet afar off, recommends them that, if any man be called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. He knew that it would avail them nothing till" after those days," or until the fulness of the Gentiles, when Israel would return and have the fulness of the Spirit to enable them to keep law and Gospel in them.-Israel was to be brought in through jealousy "after those days," as it is written: "I will move them (Israel) to jealousy with those (the Gentiles) which are not a people." Instead of giving them the kingdom, the life of the body by making them immortal, which is more than meat and raiment; that they should be left to be grafted in by baptism with the Gentiles, to continue in the eating of bread and drinking of wine, as a token of their faith in the atonement made by the death of Jesus for the salvation of their souls, that they might be justified by His resurrection, being believers of the Gospel without the law, until the six thousand years, of which the six days in the creation were figurative.— Thus Paul very rightly advised the people not to abuse the grace that God had bestowed upon them, that they should have the salvation of their souls without those things which were nailed to the cross, i.e.—the law. In another place Paul asks: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God."-What is the Oracle of God? the evangelist John, declares that the Oracle of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we are witnesses of it. So it is evident that the Oracle of God is the Light of Life, which is Christ, who will dwell with the son of man in the temple, the body, and is as the magnet, for whom it toucheth it quickeneth, to do the will of God.— Though the Hebrews had the promise of the life of their bodies through the keeping of the law, yet by breaking any part of it, they obtained not the fulfilment of that promise: